Scripture: Phil. 1:22-23

I don’t expect to be embarrassed in the least. On the contrary, everything happening to me in this jail only serves to make Christ more accurately known, regardless of whether I live or die. They didn’t shut me up; they gave me a pulpit! Alive, I’m Christ’s messenger; dead, I’m his bounty. Life versus even more life! I can’t lose.

Study: The Letter of Jimmy and Peacemaking #5

The beatitude, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God,” is a positive work of reconciliation. This beatitude is thus an identity-forming announcement. Due to the social dimension of the beatitudes, such reconciliation cannot refer to our relations to God; rather, it concerns relationships among humanity. Striving for peace means one’s desire for harmony and order. This requires dedication to social justice. Peace is an effort to resolve degrading and anguishing conditions arising from national and international injustice, which threatens human society with violence and destruction.

Peace includes striving for justice while making it accessible to everyone and seeking progress without exclusion or discrimination. James was familiar with these collections of Jesus’ sayings; therefore, he adapted and partially recited them for his own persuasive purposes. Justice then, is a function in James as reconciliation, which itself is a role of “loving your neighbor.” The Old Testament, which James and his readers were familiar with, has a vision of God ending all war and bringing peace.

James Fostering Economic Justice

James preserves the ruins of a different kind of battle, communal and nonviolent, where love and purity are the weapons of choice against foreign power and moral deterioration. The practices of peacemaking are confirmed by the fruits that produce righteousness. James clearly wanted social change in his listeners’ attitudes and he desired for them to begin sowing seeds that disarm conflict without any acts of violence. Economic deprivation is a major cause of homicides. Due to the rich oppressing the poor in the Palestine church, the likeliness of the poor to act out in violence increased.

Music: Melody Gardot – Worrisome Heart

This C.D. was unveiled in 2006, yet still has a brilliant artistic expression today. I am amazed by the pure sound of her voice. Jazz, the genre that takes a lot of talent, has been most soothing to my soul as of late. Worrisome Heart is best played when you are studying, relaxing, or just want to think. I cannot pick a favorite, however, “All That I Need Is Love” and “Worrisome Heart” have bubbled to the top of the list. I bought this C.D. for $5.99, therefore, anyone can afford this one. I rate this C.D. a 8/10.

Study: The Letter of Jimmy and Peacemaking #4

James and His Brother Jesus

Christians live between two advents: the parameters of violence and peace. Some would say situating peace within God’s divine relationship to violence protects us from using peace as a justification for war or an excuse for indifference. Others actively engage peacemaking needs in the prejudices of the world. Jesus, in the Sermon on the Mount, connects his listeners to an envisage kingdom. The Synoptic Gospels’ presentation of Jesus, the Messiah, draws on Old Testament texts and traditions to mark Jesus as the holder of peace.

For more than two centuries, scholars have held that James uses a tradition of Jesus’ sayings throughout his epistle. James is not only the key to a re-evaluation and reconstruction of Jewish Christian history; he is also the key to understanding the historical Jesus. Jesus’ ethics did not identify with the Empire or any nationalism.

Jesus was defined by his words and actions. N.T. Wright states, “We must root our church practices, our discipleship, and our Christian faith in the real Jesus or we turn our faith into a feather – a thin, soft feather that blows with the wind and conforms its shape to whatever group interests it comes upon.” Early followers of Jesus tried to wrap their minds and thoughts around his extreme teaching on peace. For the first three hundred years of the Christian movement, the church was almost unanimously pacifist.

The church was committed to making a clear witness to Jesus’ ethics. In this view, trying to make that witness while advocating killing enemies is wrong because not only does it advocate killing people, but also it disobeys Jesus and distorts their lifestyles. Jesus cares deeply about the sacredness of human life and pointed to another way of deliverance from violence. Following Jesus focuses on finding alternative initiatives that prevent violence. Participation in God’s reign means the pursuit of God’s shalom in a world shattered by hostilities. Jesus offered an alternative model to break the cycle of violence and broken relationships. Those who are truly his children will emulate his efforts to make peace, even with those who are the enemies (Matt. 5:43-48).

Scripture: Romans 5:6-8

Christ arrives right on time to make this happen. He didn’t, and doesn’t, wait for us to get ready. He presented himself for this sacrificial death when we were far too weak and rebellious to do anything to get ourselves ready. And even if we hadn’t been so weak, we wouldn’t have known what to do anyway. We can understand someone dying for a person worth dying for, and we can understand how someone good and noble could inspire us to selfless sacrifice. But God put his love on the line for us by offering his Son in sacrificial death while we were of no use whatever to him.

Quotes: Rich Mullins

Jesus said whatever you do to the least of these my brothers you’ve done it to me. And this is what I’ve come to think. That if I want to identify fully with Jesus Christ, who I claim to be my savior and Lord, the best way that I can do that is to identify with the poor. This I know will go against the teachings of all the popular evangelical preachers. But they’re just wrong. They’re not bad, they’re just wrong. Christianity is not about building an absolutely secure little niche in the world where you can live with your perfect little wife and your perfect little children in a beautiful little house where you have no gays or minority groups anywhere near you. Christianity is about learning to love like Jesus loved and Jesus loved the poor and Jesus loved the broken.

Study: The Letter of Jimmy and Peacemaking #3

Further, the use of phoneuete in Jas. 4:2 (“kill” in RSV, “commit murder” in NRSV) indicates warlike action within the community. According to Willard Swartley, the RSV translation of en tois melesin hymon at the end of Jas. 4:1, as “within your members” is a better translation than NIV’s “within you”. The Greco-Roman moralist tradition of envy was contentious within this Jewish Christian community.  Socrates regards envy as the “ulcer of the soul.” 

 

Ultimately, envy leads people to murder.  Due to the evil experienced in the social structure within the church, James wanted the listeners to consider the diseased human freedom to desire an uprising; however, he uses language against such actions.  According to Enrique Nardoni, “Anger and violence do not produce justice; they cannot establish the right social, political, and economic order on earth in accordance with the creator’s design (1:20).”  The alternative vision for community life is peace.  This kind of lifestyle in Jas. 3:17 will lead to a harvest of righteousness-justice.  The two opposing paradigms of wisdom are against each other: the fruits of peace or the fruits of the evil one.

  

Shalom in the Old Testament Scripture

The mainstream ethical consensus among Jews was the affirmation of shalom.  The reconstruction of this social ethic derived its guidance from a peaceful God.  Jesus’ own message proclaimed peace on earth.  He had positive respect for the institutions of society, even the Roman government, yet he constructed a shalom message to his followers. 

 

Shalom is an iridescent word, with different levels of meaning in Hebrew Scripture.  The basic meaning is wholeness or completeness.  Understanding its meaning in the Hebrew Bible is a prerequisite for the study of peace in James.  Shalom occurs well over 200 times in the Hebrew Bible and has many dimensions of meaning in context: wholeness, completeness, well-being, peace, justice, salvation, and even prosperity. 

 

Perry Yoder proposes that the word shalom contains a moral quality, therefore shalom is the opposite of violence considered in James.  James writes that bitter envy and selfish ambition in the heart are actions that violate shalom.  Early Rabbis reflected on the relationship of peace to justice, truth, and mercy.  The rabbinic tradition provides a rich resource that complements Christian understanding of peace. Swartley says:

In the early medieval period, Jewish reflection spiritualized biblical war imagery, while Christian theologians, notably Augustine, spiritualized or internalized the pacifist teachings of the New Testament.  Christian thought began to take OT war imagery literally to develop “just war” doctrine and justify imperial extension, leading in subsequent stages to theological justification of the Crusades. 

Reflections on the relationship between shalom to justice and truth to mercy are harmonized in the right kind of wisdom. 

 

 

Music: P.O.D. – When Angels & Serpents Dance

The most anticipating album for Christian rockers this year, When Angels & Serpents Dance brings a different side of P.O.D. However, the lyrics seem bland and redundant, yet the band seems to capture the surreal battle that wages in man.  When Angels & Serpents Dance, produced by Jay Baumgartner (Evanescence, Godsmack), redefines what a hard rock album can produce.  I was excited for this album to come out, nevertheless, I am saddened by the outcome P.O.D. created.  The song, “Tell Me Why,” is unlike another P.O.D. song, but it is simply amazing.  It explains hot topics such as war and peace.  I would definitely recommend this song, but do not go out and buy the entire album.   I rate this C.D. a 6/10.

Study: The Letter of Jimmy and Peacemaking #2

Two Kinds of Wisdom 

 

James did not remain abstract in his reference to works in the preceding chapter.  He warned his readers against the injustice of the rich.  With hundreds hungry and a minority overfed, there is little change for peace in the world of James.  The motif of wisdom introduced in 1:5 pervades the Epistle and reaches its climax in this section.  The Greek word for wisdom used by James is “sophia,” which is broad and full of intelligence, used to describe the knowledge of very diverse matters.

 

The heavenly wisdom has seven adjectives ideal to the character of Christ, which calls not for an accumulation of virtues, but for the submission of the entire personality of God (Jas. 4:7).  First mentioned are inner characteristics of a person and then follows the outward evidence of Christian wisdom.  Purely, the wise man will associate himself with Christ and will keep himself unspotted from the world (1:27).

 

The heavenly wisdom found in James resembles another New Testament text, Paul’s delineation of the “fruit of the Spirit” (Gal. 5:22-23).  James is writing before Paul, therefore, James is not familiar with Paul’s theology.  The author rejects war and class struggle.  According to James, such struggle reflects a lack of wisdom.

 

The preeminent attribute that wisdom produces is cleanliness or pure decisions.  The word pure (hagnos) connotes innocence and moral blamelessness.  James has harmonious convictions that a person must combat devilish wisdom, nevertheless, provides virtues that are practical and direct.  These qualities are communal driven.  They are not necessarily individualistic, rather the reason for this parenetic wisdom is an expression best expressed through community.

 

 

Scripture: Acts 20:22-24

But there is another urgency before me now. I feel compelled to go to Jerusalem. I’m completely in the dark about what will happen when I get there. I do know that it won’t be any picnic, for the Holy Spirit has let me know repeatedly and clearly that there are hard times and imprisonment ahead. But that matters little. What matters most to me is to finish what God started: the job the Master Jesus gave me of letting everyone I meet know all about this incredibly extravagant generosity of God.