 |
 |
|
|
 |
| |||
| Religion (James 1:26-27) | |||||
 Printer Friendly Version - opens in separate window It has been the practice amongst Evangelical believers for some time to use the word "religion" in a negative way by distinguishing it from Christianity. This is usually done by saying something like, "I am not religious. I am a Christian". You will often hear this in a witnessing scenario and, when the hapless and confused receiver of this startling news looks suitably puzzled, the explanation is given, "Religion is man reaching up to God while Christianity is God reaching down to man."This is a useful illustration, if somewhat glib, but it does a disservice to the word "religion". In light of what James is writing here, I want to rehabilitate a useful and much abused word. If you look up "religion" in the dictionary you find three applications: 1. Organised service and worship 2. Personal commitment or devotion 3. System of beliefs A thesaurus describes "religious" in three ways: 1. Religious matters, e.g. theology, doctrine, church 2. Religious devotion, e.g. God-fearing, devout, committed 3. Religious duty, e.g. faithful, zealous, conscientious The dictionary tells us that "religion" comes from the Latin "religio" which it defines as reverence. It also connects "religion" with the Latin "religare" meaning to rely upon, have confidence in, to trust, from which we get the word "rely". Religion, traditionally and in the context of our text, is that duty and reverence we owe to God. Those people who attend faithfully and conscientiously to those duties were known as pious, while those who applied themselves to these duties excessively and with unthinking and excessive fear were dubbed superstitious. Attendance to religious duties was a public affair, a social virtue, and adherents believed that their devotions and pieties made a difference for the whole of society. These days piety has changed from being a social virtue to being a personal characteristic and society has been the loser for it. It is this public duty, the expressing of our duty to God in our actions before as well as towards others that James has in mind here. The word he uses and that is translated as "religion" is the rarely used Greek "threskeia" meaning outward acts of worship. In the ancient world people would often view religion as acts of piety and devotions practiced in various temples and designed to appease the gods. Outside of that "religious" context their lives were largely unaffected. They would go from the temple to the gambling tables, the killing games in the arena, their acts of larceny and lust without a backward glance at the acts of religious worship they had just performed. James is not comparing "religion" with Christianity then, rather he is comparing good religion, "Religion that God our Father accepts", with bad religion, which he describes as "worthless". We can draw three lessons from this: 1. Taking part in organised religious worship is not, in and of itself, a bad thing. Indeed, we are required to offer up our devotions to God, take communion and remember his death, and "meet regularly" to do so. 2. However, these outward acts of worship are empty and meaningless if our faith is not also expressed in changed lives, service of others, and concern for the wider community in which we live. Jesus said, "inasmuch as you have done it for the least of these you have done it for me" 3. Contrary to modern thinking, religion is not a private affair but something we do before the world. Often people will ask us to show them God. They should see God in us for we are the body of Christ, entrusted with the task of declaring God to the world in what we do as much as in what we say. Our religion is a mix of formal devotion, personal virtue and public service and when we concentrate on one to the exclusion of others we are not living it right. May we be found to be "religious" this week in the true and full sense of the word, and may the world see and benefit from it. |
|||||
 |
|||||
| © Reachout Trust. Please read Terms and Conditions for use |  |