Forward Movement is an official, non-profit agency of the Episcopal Church whose mission is to create compelling content for Christian living. Since 1935 we have published the quarterly devotional Forward Day by Day, as well as pamphlets, booklets, and books that encourage and nourish people in their lives of prayer and faith.
MONDAY, November 15
James 2:14-26. So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.
Saint Paul taught that we are made right with God through faith, not through good works. If what we have here is a rejoinder from James to Paul, then we must say that James misunderstood Paul. Paul never thought of faith as mere intellectual adherence to orthodox doctrine, as James seems to suggest. For Paul, faith is total self-giving to God. If Paul is the object of James’s castigation in this passage, we must enter a plea of “not guilty” for Paul.
However, a large army of Christians down through the ages, and including the present, are guilty as charged in James’s indictment: guilty of the great unconscious heresy of substituting creed for deed.
George Bernard Shaw said that a person’s real creed is that body of beliefs on which he habitually acts. Let us examine our actual behavior, as seen in our thoughts, words, and deeds, to see what beliefs our behavior does in fact express. There may have to be some changes made if Christ is to be the basis of our behavior. We truly believe in Christ when his Lordship is manifest not only in our creedal profession but in our habitual actions. (1972)
PRAY for the Dioceses of Karnataka Central, Karnataka North, and Karnataka South (South India)
Ps 89:1-18 * 89:19-52; Habakkuk 2:1-4, 9-20; Luke 16:19-31
View the daily Lectionary Readings at Satucket.com.
Or view the Bible passages at Biblegateway.com.
A Meditation for Pentecost
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A-men to this writer!