Today's reading is devoted to two themes: the theme of divorce and the theme of children taking part in Jesus' conversations. In the first case it is interesting to note how Jesus interprets the norms of Old Testament law. He evidently separates in them what...
Today's reading is devoted to two themes: the theme of divorce and the theme of children taking part in Jesus' conversations. In the first case it is interesting to note how Jesus interprets the norms of Old Testament law. He evidently separates in them what has been revealed by God as a commandment to be followed from what God permits a person, condescending to human weakness. Divorce is indeed permissible from the point of view of Old Testament law: it would have been impossible and meaningless to demand from sinful humanity the fullness of family and married life that was given to people before the fall and was later lost.
Then it becomes clear that marriage and family life are God's gift, and that fidelity in married life is a commandment given for all times. The possibility of divorce, however, is not God's gift at all, and certainly not a commandment; it is only a concession to human weakness, a forced concession that cannot exist in the Kingdom of God, where the fullness of life no longer requires any concessions. Jesus sets the bar as high as possible, but His demands cannot be any lower, because He offers them with the understanding that they are made of those who live not according to the laws of this world, but according to the laws of the Kingdom of God, where these demands turn out not to be excessive at all, but entirely ordinary.
The same applies to the presence of children: in a world that lives by the laws familiar to us, any appearance of children can only interrupt a serious conversation and get in the way. But in the Kingdom of God, where the depth of a person's participation in communion apparently depends less on age, the presence of even a small child at an "adult" conversation may not only fail to interfere, but may even enliven the conversation. That is how different the laws of the world we know and are used to are from those by which the Kingdom of God lives.
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1:1 A servant of Jesus Christ - Whose name the apostle mentions but once more in the whole epistle, Iacobi 2:1. And not at all in his whole discourse, Actus 15:14, etc ; or Actus 21:20-25. It might have seemed, if he mentioned him often, that he did it out of vanity, as being the brother of the Lord. To the twelve tribes - Of Israel; that is, those of them that believe.Which are scattered abroad - In various countries. Ten of the tribes were scattered ever since the reign of Hosea; and great part of the rest were now dispersed through the Roman empire: as was foretold, Deuteronomii 28:25, etc Deuteronomii 30:4. Greeting - That is, all blessings, temporal and eternal.
1:2 My brethren, count it all joy - Which is the highest degree of patience, and contains all the rest. When ye fall into divers temptations - That is, trials.
1:4 Let patience have its perfect work - Give it full scope, under whatever trials befal you. That ye may be perfect and entire - Adorned with every Christian grace. And wanting nothing - Which God requires in you.
1:5 If any want - The connexion between the first and following verses, both here and in the fourth chapter, will be easily discerned by him who reads them, while he is suffering wrongfully. He will then readily perceive, why the apostle mentions all those various affections of the mind. Wisdom - To understand, whence and why temptations come, and how they are to be improved. Patience is in every pious man already. Let him exercise this, and ask for wisdom. The sum of wisdom, both in the temptation of poverty and of riches, is described in the ninth and tenth verses. Who giveth to all - That ask aright.And upbraideth not - Either with their past wickedness, or present unworthiness.
1:6 But let him ask in faith - A firm confidence in God.St. James also both begins and ends with faith, Iacobi 5:15; the hinderances of which he removes in the middle part of his epistle. He that doubteth is like a wave of the sea - Yea, such are all who have not asked and obtained wisdom. Driven with the wind - From without. And tossed - From within, by his own unstableness.
1:8 A doubleminded man - Who has, as it were, two souls; whose heart is not simply given up to God. Is unstable - Being without the true wisdom; perpetually disagrees both with himself and others, Iacobi 3:16.
1:9 Let the brother - St James does not give this appellation to the rich. Of low degree - Poor and tempted.Rejoice - The most effectual remedy against doublemindedness. In that he is exalted - To be a child of God, and an heir of glory.
1:10 But the rich, in that he is made low - Is humbled by a deep sense of his true condition. Because as the flower - Beautiful, but transient. He shall pass away - Into eternity.
1:11 For the sun arose and withered the grass - There is an unspeakable beauty and elegance, both in the comparison itself, and in the very manner of expressing it, intimating both the certainty and the suddenness of the event. So shall the rich fade away in his ways - In the midst of his various pleasures and employments.
1:12 Happy is the man that endureth temptation - Trials of various kinds. He shall receive the crown - That fadeth not away.Which the Lord hath promised to them that love him - And his enduring proves his love. For it is love only that "endureth all things."
1:13 But let no man who is tempted - To sin. Say, I am tempted of God - God thus tempteth no man.
1:14 Every man is tempted, when - In the beginning of the temptation. He is drawn away - Drawn out of God, his strong refuge. By his own desire - We are therefore to look for the cause of every sin, in, not out of ourselves. Even the injections of the devil cannot hurt before we make them our own.And every one has desires arising from his own constitution, tempers, habits, and way of life. And enticed - In the progress of the temptation, catching at the bait: so the original word signifies.
1:15 Then desire having conceived - By our own will joining therewith. Bringeth forth actual sin - It doth not follow that the desire itself is not sin. He that begets a man is himself a man. And sin being perfected - Grown up to maturity, which it quickly does. Bringeth forth death - Sin is born big with death.
1:16 Do not err - It is a grievous error to ascribe the evil and not the good which we receive to God.
1:17 No evil, but every good gift - Whatever tends toholiness. And every perfect gift - Whatever tends to glory.Descendeth from the Father of lights - The appellation of Father is here used with peculiar propriety. It follows, "he begat us." He is the Father of all light, material or spiritual, in the kingdom of grace and of glory. With whom is no variableness - No change in his understanding. Or shadow of turning - in his will. He infallibly discerns all good and evil; and invariably loves one, and hates the other. There is, in both the Greek words, a metaphor taken from the stars, particularly proper where the Father of lights is mentioned.Both are applicable to any celestial body, which has a daily vicissitude of day and night, and sometimes longer days, sometimes longer nights. In God is nothing of this kind.He is mere light. If there Is any such vicissitude, it is in ourselves, not in him.
1:18 Of his own will - Most loving, most free, most pure, just opposite to our evil desire, Iacobi 1:15.Begat he us - Who believe. By the word of truth - The true word, emphatically so termed; the gospel. That we might be a kind of first - fruits of his creatures - Christians are the chief and most excellent of his visible creatures; and sanctify the rest. Yet he says, A kind of - For Christ alone is absolutely the first - fruits.