Today at church someone looked at me and said, “Do you have writer’s block?” I politely smiled and said, “Nah. Quite the opposite. I have too much I want to say and I’m having trouble discerning what’s important and what’s not.” I apologize for my brief hiatus from your inbox the last 2 weekends and hope you’ll forgive me. Let’s get back to our regular programming with the second installment of Scripture Journals.
But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.
James 1:27
The Text: A Summary
This verse sits in the context of James' first exhortation to not only hear the word but do the word. He says that anyone who hears the word but doesn't do it is only deceiving himself. By contrast, the one whoo looks into the word, the law of liberty, and acts on what he sees will be blessed by what he is doing.
I want to note how intrigued I am with the phrase "the law of liberty." I first noticed it when I read through James a few weeks ago in the New Living Translation. Here's how NLT puts it: "the perfect law that sets you free." I find this interesting because usually, when you think about laws, you think the opposite of freedom and liberty. You think about something that restrains you, not something that sets you free. So, what does James mean by this phrase? He uses it again in chapter two verse twelve, where he says that we should speak and act as if we're being judged under the law of liberty. This presents an interesting relationship between judgement, law, and liberty.
Application
The broadest application here is that we must make distinctions whenever we talk about "the Law." Many people are scared of that today. Start a conversation about taking the Law of God seriously and you may end up hearing someone say something like this: "OK then, but do you eat shellfish? You can't do that if you're gonna follow the Law!" Somehow, they think this makes them a scholar...
But James isn't referring here to ceremonial laws. He's referring to moral law, the law of liberty, which Christians are still called to obey. Just because we are fallen and can't keep it perfectly like Christ does not mean we have an excuse.
Here's what I find even better about this text: James isn't saying we are set free to live however we want. No, the law of liberty sets us free to live as God intends us to live. This means that the law of liberty is good for us. The law of liberty is not a burden! And that's why he says that the one who does it will be blessed in his doing.
As you start a new week, I’d like to take the first opportunity to encourage you to look into the perfect Law this week and persevere in doing what it says. I promise it’s good for you.