Contemplative Bible Reading

James 5:16

This is a little different post. Here are several translations of this one verse. (I like the King James Version best.)

King James Version: Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.

The Message: The prayer of a person living right with God is something powerful to be reckoned with.

English Standard Version: Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.

New Century Version: Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so God can heal you. When a believing person prays, great things happen.

New English Translation: So confess your sins to one another and pray for one another so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great effectiveness.

Two thoughts:

(1) be a righteous person, i.e., a person who believes in God and Jesus Christ.

(2) pray

Then amazing things happen. Thank you God.

Luke 2:6-7 (New Living Translation)

6 And while they (Mary and Joseph) were there, the time came for her (Mary’s) baby to be born. 7 She gave birth to her firstborn son (Jesus). She wrapped him snugly in strips of cloth and laid him in a manger, because there was no lodging available for them.

This post is to be “published” on Christmas Day of 2021.

I don’t think Jesus was born on December 25th or several days after the winter solstice or something. Many centuries ago, someone said, “December 25th is it!” That stuck, so here we are.

Here we have a young (14 or 15?) woman giving birth in a dirty cave. She wrapped her baby in tattered cloth gathered from here and there. She put the baby in a dirty feed trough.

No, she wasn’t just any poor young mother. Angels had visited her and her husband. There were other things that happened before that made this more than just another baby born to another poor woman.

Still, we have these words recorded for us and passed down through 20 centuries so we can read them and find some comfort in them. Thank you God.

Exodus 16:1-3 (New Living Translation)

Then the whole community of Israel set out from Elim and journeyed into the wilderness of Sin, between Elim and Mount Sinai. They arrived there on the fifteenth day of the second month, one month after leaving the land of Egypt. ² There, too, the whole community of Israel complained about Moses and Aaron.

³ “If only the Lord had killed us back in Egypt,” they moaned. “There we sat around pots filled with meat and ate all the bread we wanted. But now you have brought us into this wilderness to starve us all to death.”

Life in the wilderness was difficult. Life in the dessert was difficult. Just look at the community of Israel as they struggle to make due. No wonder they wanted to return to Egypt where they had a solid roof over their heads. Why just look at how long they had to suffer.

oooops. They were on the road one month. One month, and they were already complaining about the hardships and wanting to return to die in Egypt.

What a bunch of ungrateful people. They sound like me and a lot of people I know today. Our lives are too hard. God wants too much from us. How silly we are.

Please God, help me in my unbelief, impatience, and just plain stupidity.

Hebrews 1:1-4 (New English Translation)

1 After God spoke long ago in various portions and in various ways to our ancestors through the prophets, 2 in these last days he has spoke to us in a son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he created the world. 3 The Son is the radiance of his glory and the representation of his essence, and he sustains all things by his powerful word, and who when he had accomplished cleansing for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high. 4 Thus he became so far better than the angels as he has inherited a name superior to theirs.

What strikes me about this description of Jesus, the Son, is how the cleansing of our sins is almost an afterthought. Note the mentions of the Son:

1. God spoke stainsto us in the Son
   The Son was appointed heir of all things
   Through the Son, God the Father created the world
   The Son is the radiance of the father’s glory
   The Son is the representation of the father’s essence
   The Son sustains all things
   The Son accomplished cleansing for sins
   The Son sits at the right hand of the father
   The Son became for better than angels
   The Son inherited a name superior to the angels

Item number seven of ten is about the amazing cleansing of all the sins of all of us for all the ages. We tend to think of that one as the one and only important thing the Son of God did and is, and for good reason. That is pretty darn important. Do we, however, shortchange the Son by forgetting all these others things in just this one little list?

Galatians 5:10 (New Living Translation)

10 I am trusting the Lord to keep you from believing false teachings. God will judge that person, whoever he is, who has been confusing you.

Paul is writing to a group of Christians in Galatia. Someone was entering the group and teaching things that were false and confusing. It appears that misinformation and disinformation are not new. Those things were with us some 2,000 years ago.

What were these false and confusing ideas? We don’t know all the details. The preceding sentences are about following an old law to be right with God. Those ideas are false. We don’t have to follow a law to be right with God. Jesus makes us right with God.

What I think is worse is that these teachings were confusing. The teachings were based on something good and right and true. They were based on the Law of Moses that many of the Jews in this group knew so well. Many of the Gentiles in this group also knew of those laws and lived by some of them.

Aha, misinformation. Teachings that contain some things we know are true. Then the confusing teacher adds a little and stretches a little and before you know it, BAM! We are in the wrong place with the wrong idea and the wrong life. No. No. No.

The Gospel is short and simple. Jesus brings us to God all clean and presentable. Beware of those who stretch that a bit here and there and everywhere and mix in a little of this and that and something else. Please God, help me in my unbelief.

Romans 5:2 (New Living Translation)

2 Because of our faith, Christ has brought us into this place of undeserved privilege where we now stand, and we confidently and joyfully look forward to sharing God’s glory.

This is one of those verses that summarizes the New Testament in one sentence.

Believing that Jesus of Nazareth is the Son of God (even though we see no physical proof of that), brings us to our current place: a place of undeserved privilege. What privilege? I know that what happens day to day doesn’t matter that much in the long run. I know that, but some days I doubt that. I am still human with my human weaknesses. I have bad days. I get tired (more now than 20 years ago), so tired I just want to close my eyes and take a nap (which I do more now than 20 years ago).

Despite my human weakness, I am in a place of undeserved privilege. Now what? Well, this sentence continues and tells me to confidently and joyfully share God’s glory in the future (and now, too, but that is another topic for another day).

Confidence. That is another one of many privileges I have. I am a confident person. That confidence was passed along to me through countless persons who had faith in Jesus. I don’t know a life without such confidence. I see it in others who also have Jesus in their lives. And I see a lack of confidence in those who don’t have the faith.

Again, this sentence is the entire New Testament. We could go on and on with what it means and how my life is different because of it.

For now, one thing: understand some of the privileges. Live them for others to see. Pray when in doubt.

2 Corinthians 4:2 (New Living Translation)

2 We reject all shameful deeds and underhanded methods. We don’t try to trick anyone or distort the word of God. We tell the truth before God, and all who are honest know this.

“Got ya,” we would shout in triumph.

We were kids (little boys as maybe little girls didn’t do this to each other so much). One game was called “flinch.” You would fake a hard punch on someone. If they flinched, you new could punch them as hard as you wanted in the arm. Some would twist their arm out of shape to increase the pain. Some would point a knuckle out of shape to make a painful point.

Those were shameful deeds and underhanded methods. We “tricked” other kids into doing what we wanted.

Adults? We do the same as the game of “flinch.” “If you examine the contract we signed, I didn’t dot an ‘i’ on line 23 of page 13. Therefore, the contract is void per the void-dance statements in the footnote on page 41.” See? Got ya!

Sigh.

Paul taught people about God and Jesus Christ. The teaching was straight. No shameful deed. No underhanded methods. No “bait and switch,” no game of “flinch.” This is the situation. This is what God offers. Do we accept? Honest. Candid. Truth.

I pray that we stay with those things. Nothing else is need. Anything else is shameful.

1 Corinthians 4:4 (New Living Translation)

4 My conscience is clear, but that doesn’t prove I’m right…

Paul is writing to Christians in Corinth about his explaining of God’s mysteries. Paul is trying to be helpful. Paul is trying to be correct. Paul is making all the good faith efforts he can.

Paul, being human like the rest of us, may be incorrect on some things he does.

Paul was a good fella. Most people liked him. Sometimes he “rubbed people the wrong way” in how he did things and what he said. And sometimes Paul was just plain wrong.

It is possible to be a good fella and be just plain wrong at the same time. Being wrong doesn’t make us bad; it just makes us wrong on this thing at this time.

I am wrong on plenty of things at plenty of times. I keep trying. I keep writing. (I keep being wrong.) God forgives me. The grace of God covers all my occasions of being wrong.

Thank you God. Help me to keep trying.

Philippians 3:1 (New Living Testament)

Whatever happens, my dear brothers and sisters, rejoice in the Lord.

Simple four words. Rejoice in the Lord.

Sad? Tired? Just plain beat and need a nap? Sure. Those days happen.

We, however, have something else to do. Let us rejoice. Scream happiness. Jump for joy. Celebrate. Have a cookout. Whatever comes to mind as rejoicing.

And do all these things in the Lord. We can celebrate in alcohol or drugs or…boy is that a long list of things we can make. Cut it back to one: in the Lord.

Whatever happens, rejoice in the Lord.

Romans 3:21-22 (New Living Translation)

21 But now God has shown us a way to be made right with him without keeping the requirements of the law, as was promised in the writings of Moses and the prophets long ago. 22 We are made right with God by placing our faith in Jesus Christ. And this is true for everyone who believes, no matter who we are.

Paul is writing to Christians in Rome. The Christians were a mixed group of Jews who chose to follow Jesus as the Son of God and Gentiles who were introduced to Jesus also followed Jesus as the Son of God.

There is now a way to be right with God without keeping a law. To help myself understand this “law,” I think of work, salary, and buying a ticket. If I work hard enough, long enough, and just right enough, I can earn enough money to buy a ticket to heaven. I just keep working and working and working just right enough. The trouble was and is, no matter how much and hard and right I work, no matter how much money I save, I can’t afford the ticket to heaven.

Rats.

Okay, so now what? We need something different. Here is it: faith in Jesus Christ. Believe. No matter who we are, where we came from, who we know, what we do for a living, and all that other stuff we use to divide people. Faith in Jesus Christ.

Now that is pretty simple. It isn’t easy, but it is pretty simple. Somehow we have made it complicated and … well just plain complicated.

Going to heaven? Oh, that. Faith in Jesus Christ makes us right with God. We can be with God now. That’s heaven, and that is a topic for another day.