True Christians don’t just talk the talk, they walk the walk
by Julian Mann, TCW:
THE contention that the New Testament epistle of James contradicts the Apostle Paul’s teaching on salvation is wrong. The idea is unfortunately the result of theological laziness.
Today’s Book of Common Prayer epistle reading, a continuation from last Sunday’s passage in James chapter one, reflects the writer’s concern to counter religious hypocrisy in the churches he was addressing. James insists that it is not enough to profess Christian faith; Christianity should be put into practice:
‘But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass: For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was. But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed. If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man’s religion is vain.Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world’ (James 1v22-27 – King James Version).
James makes clear that walking the walk and not just talking the talk is the mark of the true Christian who has internalised the gospel message, ‘the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls’ (James 1v21). Attending church and listening to sermons does not guarantee eternal salvation.
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