Partiality: The Subtle Sin

In the book of James are many warnings of pitfalls to avoid and appeals to make right choices in living the Christian life.  One of the most poignant of these has to do with favoritism, especially among believers.  Very bluntly, he writes, “…if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors” (James 2:9 ESV).

Patience and the Concealed Weapon

The book of James in the New Testament is short, only five chapters long, but it is chock full of condensed wisdom.  Take for example the opening verses that encourage the reader to count it as joy when we encounter various trials.  This is because the endurance (patience in the King James Version) that results from such testing of our faith will ultimately produce godly character in us.

Persons of Peace: Pre-Disciples

Jesus taught His disciples that the harvest (of souls) was plentiful (Luke 10:2) and trained them to proclaim the Kingdom of God before He went into various towns and villages.  He would send them on ahead by twos – as many as 70 at a time.  His instructions to them were to find a man of peace as they went into each populated area.  By that, He meant a person who would receive them and accept their message of peace.  They were to stay at that person’s house until they left the area and not move from house to house.

Shaking Up More Traditions

In the last post we shared the idea that a different model from today’s time-honored concept of disciple making is evidenced in the Scriptures of the New Testament.  Rather than putting new believers into an intense training mode for months or even years to bring them into spiritual maturity to be able to reach out to win and train more new believers, the process was reversed.  That is, emphasis was placed on getting them quickly into action, sharing their new knowledge of Christ while growing spiritually under the training of a more mature disciple.