A Tale of Two Submissions

Last week, in looking at James, we were presented with a contrast between two types of wisdom. A heavenly wisdom which comes from the purity, holiness and love of God, in fact at its core, this is a wisdom that in humility requires us to recognise the ultimate authority of the God of scripture. The other type is a worldly wisdom which looks to anything other than God for direction. In a lot of cases, we are guided by our own selfish desires, we might be led by our desires for money, or comfort, for acceptance, for accolades and fame…etc. And so we explored what might be a Tale of Two Wisdoms.

This week, James continues on with this dichotomy between ‘God’ and ‘World,’ but in this case, the object of contrast is ‘submission.’ What are we in submission to? Are we in submission to God or are we in submission to the ‘world’ and I think we can quite rightly define ‘world’ here as anything other than God. This is a similar object of contrast, a similar ‘tale,’ a tale of two submissions.

In our everyday lives, we seem to sit with this tension throughout our Christian journey, a tension of what God requires of us, as opposed to our own desires of what to do, or not to do. But this extends in scope for us as the church, what does God require of us collectively, and what are the obstacles that keep us from obeying, or being in submission to the will of God. Is it that we are ashamed of the gospel? Is it that we don’t really grasp what the gospel is? A gospel without the resurrected Jesus, is no gospel at all. It’s a nice story that has no ultimate meaning or purpose for any of us if Christ is not raised from the dead. If Christ was not resurrected, then as Paul tells us, we are most to be pitied, because our faith is useless, we remain in our guilt, those people throughout history who have succumbed to abuse and oppression, will never be vindicated. And those who have perpetrated all manner of evil, will never be brought to true justice. The big question here is this, “is it true?”

But my apologies, I digress. This week, we will look at a tale of two submissions, a revisit to the contrast between God and the ‘world.’ But James, we might remember, is speaking to a people whom he assumes are followers of the risen Christ. Our reading is James 4:1-10, take time to read it and see what the Spirit might be saying to us. Continue to prayerfully approach scripture with an open heart and an open mind, asking God to reveal Himself to you through His word. You might find from your experience of reality, as I have, that it is far more reasonable to submit to the God scripture, than to submit to the ‘world.’ God bless you all.

Josh