提要
雅各書信中有一重要的聲明是:「虔誠是上帝接受聖潔無過失的人,照顧在貧困中的孤兒寡婦,且保守自己不被世界所污染。」(1:27新國際版)。雅各對虔誠加上了其他的意思,他說虔誠是自省、專一,自我定義,虔誠是施勝於受,虔誠是將聖經成為世人能接受生活化的行為,虔誠是人在感覺需要時,將所說的話化做行動,虔誠是對孤兒寡婦伸出援手而非虛偽的應付。
顯然,耶穌的這位兄弟輕看空中樓閣式的虔誠,那只是虛華的外衣,對他來說虔誠若不能改善你和四周人的生活,那就是無意義的。我們不僅是脫離困難環境而已,更要保持行為上的純正,我們不是隨從邪惡的世界,而是改變它,真正的虔誠是負起社會和道德雙方面的責任。
這就是為什麼外表的信心和操練的信心是不可分的,就如雅各所說,從結果看原因;例如我們看見樹枝上有蘋果,便可斷定是蘋果樹。若我們只看到一顆像蘋果樹的外表,卻沒有果實,甚至有其他的果實長出來,我們就知道那不是一棵蘋果樹。又如我們嚐到了布丁的滋味,就足以證明我們吃的是布丁。
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Overview
One of the great statements from the letter of James is, "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world" (1:27, NIV). Contrast James' "religion" with that of many others — the "religion" that is self-focussed, self-absorbed, and self-defined; the religion that is embraced because of what it brings rather than for what it gives; the religion that reduces the great themes and music of scripture to a means of a worldly end — that end being personal pleasure; the religion that majors on "felt needs" and pays lip service to real needs; the religion that signs a cheque instead of taking the hand of the widow and the orphan.
It's plain to see that James, this half-brother of Jesus and respected Jew, was disdainful of "airy-fairy" religion that majored in "warm fuzzies". As he saw it, your religion was worthless if it wasn't changing for the better the way you and others lived. We are not only to reach out to the disadvantaged, James says, but we're also to keep our morality pure. We're not to conform to the world but transform it. True religion entails both social and moral responsibility.
That's why professed faith and practised faith are inseparable. That's why James says, in effect, that you know it's an apple tree if apples are growing from its branches. If it merely professes to be an apple tree, and nothing, or something other than apples, is growing, then it's not an apple tree at all. The proof of the pudding is in the eating.
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