How are we with people that don't get it?
She was referring to the people that don't get that the Gospel has an equal element of social action and justice as it does with the personal redemptive aspect. People that don't get that Christ's death and resurrection reconciled us to God and reconciled us to each other. People that don't fully embrace the ministry of reconciliation (2 Corinthians 5) that we have been entrusted with.
I know for me, I have a hard time articulating with both truth and love, that Christians (some of them close friends) have huge gaps in their faith practice. That their theology has gaping holes. I'm beginning to think that the religion of Christianity that is being practiced by most is not what Jesus intended.
What did Jesus intend then?
"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." -James 1:27
In very simple words, care for the poor and care for yourself.
Again there is an equal emphasis on the personal as well as the social aspect of Christianity. They are inexorably linked. How often is it however, that we focus so much on keeping ourselves from being polluted by the world that we enter into a state of isolation from the world? It's obvious we're not to be OF of the world, but it's just as obvious that we are in fact IN the world.
That's why it's so interesting that when you continue to read in James 2, he speaks/warns of this very thing. Immediately after making this connection (again) he commands us to not show favoritism towards the rich while neglecting the poor, and follows that by making a convincing case about the importance of our faith and how it plays out in our deeds. (Read James 2)
He closes by making this simple yet resounding conclusion:
"..faith without deeds is dead." -James 2:26So this begs another question, If our faith in Jesus doesn't compel us to action (with a special emphasis on the poor) what good is it?
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