“Listening to those who listen”

Download discussion questions:  James 3:10-4:4
Wisdom & Self Obsession
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I encourage you to look at the passage in James before you read this Blog entry.  What do you see in the text yourself?  What questions come to your mind?  How would you interpret what the writer says?  After even a few minutes examining and thinking about the text you will be much better prepared to evaluate the comments in the Blog.

This passage mentions wisdom several times.  As a starting point, before even looking at the text, we compared our understandings of wisdom as a starting point.  Then we would be able to judge how exploring the passage might clarify or refine (or correct) our previous perceptions of wisdom.

What is Wisdom?

Several in our group offered their thoughts.

• • Wisdom is the result of experience, the accumulation of things learned over the years.
  • In addition to direct experience, wisdom can be “handed down” as one generation shares those experiences with another generation.
  • Wisdom is knowledge perfectly applied.
  • Wisdom is from the Lord. True wisdom is understanding life from His perspective.  There can also be a kind of worldly wisdom.
  • Ungodly or worldly wisdom is often only knowledge, factual information, without true wisdom.
  • Worldly wisdom tends to be shrewd and self-serving.
  • Worldly wisdom is linear, how to manage events and manipulate people to obtain a desired outcome, often for a selfish goal.
  • True wisdom is about loving God and loving people.
  • God gives wisdom through life experiences, often difficult experiences. This would connect back to the beginning of the letter of James:  “Count it all joy when you meet trials of various kinds…” (James 1:2).

With that significant start we looked at the passage for the perspective James provides.

Varieties of Wisdom

Right away, someone pointed out that James confirms our observation that there is a distinction between wisdom “that comes down from above” (3:15) and what some might consider wisdom from an earthly evaluation.  Much of this passage is devoted to defining that distinction.

We also noted how James alternates his explanation.  From the positive characteristics of true wisdom (e.g., 3:13, 17, 18) to the destructive consequences when that wisdom is lacking (3:14, 15, 4:1,ff).  Someone asked why James might have done this.  One suggestion was that his thinking alternated between the problems he knew were present and the solutions he knew the people needed.  Another thought was that James wanted to emphasize the dramatic contrast between godly wisdom and the actual conditions people were experiencing by their own efforts.

Qualities of Wisdom

James doesn’t define how to obtain wisdom in this passage, but he explains how to recognize it.  The section begins with his question, “Who is wise and understanding among you?” (James 4:13a).  He immediately gives his answer, “By his good conduct let him show his works in the meekness of wisdom.” (v. 13b).

Interestingly, other than the contrast between heavenly and earthly sources, our group’s understanding of wisdom had little in common with the wisdom James describes. Our list above is about applied knowledge or things learned by experience or attitudes of love instead of selfishness.  We didn’t say much about actual behavior.

James, on the other hand, is all about behavior.  More specifically, using his word, wisdom is about works (James 3:13, ἔργον, ergon; the same word used twelve times regarding faith in James 2:14-26).  Like faith, wisdom according to James is not limited to mental belief or profound thinking.  If faith without works is dead (2:2), wisdom without works is equally empty.

Since James begins the qualities of wisdom with “meekness” it was natural that one of our members asked, “What is meekness?” (Defining supposedly familiar terms is always a good idea.)  We have earlier discussed James’s use of the word in 1:21 (πραΰτης, prautēs), sometimes translated “humility.” The unique quality of the word is the gentleness of strength under control, such as a wild horse that has been tamed.[1]  Since James has quite a bit more to say about wisdom we decided to wait and see what particular aspects of meekness relate to wisdom.

Recognizable Wisdom

After the initial emphasis on meekness, James is clear about the starting point.  How do we recognize wisdom? “The wisdom from above is first pure” (James 3:17a).  The intention to emphasize the priority of purity continues with “then peaceable, gentle, ….”

With “pure” in first place, we explored what that might look like.  Several people offered helpful suggestions:  uncontaminated, having nothing that doesn’t belong, living with integrity.  One member observed that James begins with pure “against a backdrop of selfish ambition.” James carefully constructs that contrasting backdrop in the preceding sentences:

But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false to the truth. This is not the wisdom that comes down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every vile practice.  (James 3:14-16).

The image of a backdrop is helpful.  Earlier we discussed James’s emphasis alternating between heavenly wisdom and its earthly counterfeit.  He answers the shocking list with the single word “pure” for the wisdom that comes down from above.

The purity that James sets as the fundamental feature of wisdom is relational purity.  “Pure” is in direct contrast with the backdrop of “jealousy and selfish ambition” mentioned twice.  “Selfish ambition” (ἐριθεία, eritheia) is also translated “self-interest.”[2]  Self obsession would also be a reasonable translation.  The characteristic quality of wisdom is selflessness in contrast with the outlook that is “earthly, unspiritual, demonic” (v. 15b).  Selfless wisdom is pure, uncontaminated by hidden motives or self-protective aims and free from the “double mindedness” that James criticized earlier (James 1:8, also in the context of wisdom).  In that pure integrity, the wisdom that comes from above has freedom to be genuinely other centered.

On the other hand, one person suggested that the self-obsessed frame of mind is only interested in practical results: “How can I manage circumstances and manipulate people to make my life work the way I want?”  Someone noted the decline from merely “earthly” (which sounds weak but fairly neutral), through “unspiritual” (literally “of the soul,” ψυχικός, psychikos; i.e., merely human), and finally “demonic,” utterly and intentionally opposed to God.  Perhaps James is describing a “slippery slope” once wisdom from above is abandoned.  The earthly desire to make life work the way we want it to moves to more and more desperate attempts.

Another person observed the connection with “linear thinking” of the Old Covenant:  “If my life is not working the way I want, I need to change things to make it better.”  Clearly a congregation operating with those motives will result in “disorder” and, ultimately, in “every vile practice” (v. 16b).

Someone asked if James uses “pure” primarily relating to moral (or sexual) purity.  The word (ἁγνός, hagnos) can be used in that specific sense (metaphorically in 2 Corinthians 11:2), it is more often a general term included in a list of several character qualities (e.g., 2 Corinthians 7:11, Philippians 4:8, Titus 2:5).  In fact, James immediately follows his first-place emphasis on “pure” with an expansive list of his own, “the specific dimensions of this overall purity.”[3]

Dimensions of Wisdom

Peace

The disastrous description at the end of verse 16 (“disorder and every vile practice”) makes the next entry in James’s list especially relevant.  Instead of disorder and jealous competition, the wisdom founded on purity is marked by peace (v. 17), or as one person described it, relational holiness.  To add weight to the importance of peace in his clarification of true wisdom, James uses the word two more times in the next sentence.

This emphasis on peace seems completely appropriate in the context James has already established: anger (1:19b,20), unbridled tongues (1:26), partiality (2:1), debates about the relative importance of faith and works (2:18), untamed tongues (again! 3:8).  Even the warning about who should become teachers may have resulted from controversy and competition and contradictions among alleged teachers.  The entire discussion that begins in 3:13 (“Who is wise and understanding among you?”) may connect back to the issue of the qualification for teachers. More generally, James seems to be exposing the shallow veneer of “the so-called wisdom claimed by the disturbers of the churches.”[4]

Someone in our group brought up the context of the recipients of James’s letter, “the twelve tribes in the Dispersion” (James 1:1b), “Jewish Christians who have been ‘dispersed’ as a result of persecution (Acts 11:19).”[5].  The condition of his audience is indicated by the opening theme of the letter, joy in trials (James 1:2-4).  As we have discussed in the past, practical conditions of that persecution and dispersion was undoubtedly a strain on relationships.  Leaving hurriedly under persecution would mean losing livelihood and any supporting social structures.  Currying favor with the rich (James 2:2:4) and self-centered ambition (James 3:14-16) to recover a previous standard of living would be natural responses.  Envy of those who suffered less from the dispersion would be tempting.  Peaceful relationships might be rare, or superficial at best.

We discussed the interesting phrase James uses in that context, being “false to the truth” (v. 14b) instead of saying more directly “lying.”  False to the truth is a much wider idea, including rationalizing our actions to justify ourselves, or ignoring facts or “inconvenient truths” that don’t suit our desires.  James mentions boasting, perhaps exaggerating elements in our favor.  Self obsession is more subtle than we like to admit.  While actual lying would offend our conscience, being “false to the truth” can seem harmless or even (almost) innocent.

Open to Reason

Our discussion did not explore all six qualities following “peaceable”, we did spend considerable time considering “open to reason” (εὐπειθής, eupeithēs).  The word occurs only here in the New Testament and is variously translated:[6]

• • willing to listen (AMP)
  • compliant (CSB)
  • easy to please (ERV, EXB)
  • willing to yield (ISV)
  • easy to be intreated (KJV)
  • reasonable (NASB, NASB1995)

Other resources define it as “ready obedience,” “disposed to obey,” “under control”^[7] or as a term used in legal documents to indicate give consent or agree to.^[8]  The word describes “not a weak, credulous gullibility but a willing deference to others.”^[9]

As we thought through those meanings in the context of the apparent strife James was confronting, the essential quality of eupeithēs, being open to reason, became clear.  As one member suggested, it involves listening to others who think differently, really listening whether we agree or not.  A few weeks ago, another person in our group read words of Dietrich Bonhoeffer about listening.

Christians, especially ministers, so often think they must always contribute something when they are in the company of others, that this is the one service they have to render. They forget that listening can be a greater service than speaking.

Many people are looking for an ear that will listen. They do not find it among Christians, because these Christians are talking where they should be listening. … One who cannot listen long and patiently will presently be talking beside the point and be never really speaking to others, albeit he be not conscious of it. Anyone who thinks that his time is too valuable to spend keeping quiet will eventually have no time for God and his brother, but only for himself and for his own follies.

Brotherly pastoral care is essentially distinguished from preaching by the fact that, added to the task of speaking the Word, there is the obligation of listening. There is a kind of listening with half an ear that presumes already to know what the other person has to say. It is an impatient, inattentive listening, that despises the brother and is only waiting for a chance to speak and so get rid of the other person. … But Christians have forgotten that the ministry of listening has been committed to them by him who is himself the great listener and whose work they should share. We should listen with the ears of God that we may speak the Word of God.[10]

Wisdom is often perceived as dispensing advice or profound insights.  “Willing to listen” offers a new perspective from two vantage points.  The wise person listens to the struggles of others with a genuine curiosity.  As we have considered in the past, listening and asking good questions is central to the practice of soul care in a community.  Depending on the prompting of the Holy Spirit, the wise person may, or may not, have any input. In any event, he has practiced Bonhoeffer’s “greater service” of listening.  Dispensing quick Bible verses is not soul care.  “Listening with the ears of God” precedes “speaking the Word of God.”

The second vantage point is from the person who is struggling.  Someone suggested that this “willing to listen” aspect of wisdom will affect how we handle our own trials.  We discussed how external pressures (like persecution and dispersion) affect our application of what we know to be true.  We know we can trust the loving, wise, sovereign God who controls our circumstances, but circumstances can create an internal panic that tends to overwhelm the truth we know and the certainties we believe.  That internal panic resists even those around us who lovingly and sensitively remind us of what we know.  In fact, several of us agreed that too often our response to those efforts is anger.

But the wisdom that comes from above is willing to listen, even to things we are not ready to hear, even from friends we trust.  Too often we have experienced those who “listen” momentarily to our difficulties, “impatient, inattentive listening, that despises the brother and is only waiting for a chance to speak” as Bonhoeffer saw.  But, as one member of our group observed, we listen to those who have listened to us, who have demonstrated “in their works the meekness of wisdom” (James 3:13).  Our own wisdom is measured by our willingness to listen to the “wise and understanding among us.”

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[1] William Barclay, New Testament Words (Philadelphia:  The Westminster Press, 1974), 241-242.

[2] https://biblehub.com/interlinear/james/3-14.htm

[3] Douglas Moo, The Letter of James (Grand Rapids, Michigan:  William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company. 2000), 175.

[4] Peter H. Davids, The Epistle of James, The New International Greek Testament Commentary (NIGTC) (Grand Rapids, Michigan:  William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1982), 154.

[5] Douglas Moo, The Letter of James (Grand Rapids, Michigan:  William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company. 2000), 50.

[6] https://www.biblegateway.com/verse/en/James%203:17

[7] Henry George Liddell and Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon (London: Oxford University Press, 1961), 726 (780 in PDF).

[8] James Hope Moulton and George Milligan, The Vocabulary of the Greek Testament (Grand Rapids, Michigan:  Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1976), 263-264.

[9] Douglas Moo, The Letter of James (Grand Rapids, Michigan:  William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company. 2000), 176.

[10] Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Life Together (London:  SCM Press Ltd., 2010), Kindle Edition. Location 1134, page 76.