If you’ve known me very long you know that I think that the ESV translation of the Scriptures is the best available today. You also know that the new ESV Study Bible is, in my opinion, the best available today. (I’ve got about 6 or 7 copies that are available to any one of you for a “cut rate” of $41.)
In addition if you’ve known me very long, you know that I think the Bethel Bible Series is the best comprehensive examination of the Scriptures ever developed. In fact, I think that every seminary student ought to be required to go through the teacher training phase of the Bethel Series before leaving seminary.
If you’ve had the privilege of taking the Bethel Series you know that the first topic is the Hebrew thought form. The reason Hebrew thought is the first topic of discussion is because it affects everything you can know and learn about the context of the Scripture and its application.
In my past few sermons at Hebron I have touched on the vast difference between the Eastern and Western thought forms. In his landmark book, Irrational Man, New York University Professor of Philosophy, William Barrett, describes the difference between the Eastern (Hebrew) thought form and the Western (Greek) way of thinking. This is a distinction every Christian ought to know and remind himself/herself of regularly.
Brian Knowles writes, “The Bible, in its original language, is, humanly speaking, a product of the Hebrew mind. The first and original manifestation of what we now call ‘The Church’ was also an expression of the Hebrew mind. At some point in ecclesiastical history, someone snatched away the inceptive Hebraic blueprint by which the Jesus movement was being constructed and replaced it with a non-Hebraic one. As a result, what has been built since is at best a caricature of what was intended. In many respects, it is downright contrary and antagonistic to the spirit of the original believing community.” Today you hear a lot of people say, “I want to be just like a first century church!”, but they don’t have any idea how the first century church functioned.
Sunday’s text, James 2:1-17, is a perfect illustration of the contrast between Hebrew and Greek thought. For many Greek thinkers it’s a text that raises lots of questions. “How can James say that faith without works is dead? I thought we were saved by faith alone, through Christ alone, by grace alone. No wonder Luther called the Book of James the straw epistle!” But all of the apparent controversies and contradictions disappear when one begins to discover the context of the text. And that context is all about the East/West divide.
On this Labor Day weekend our sermon title is “Labor Days,” with I Thessalonians 1:1-10 as the companion text. In preparation for Sunday you may wish to examine the following:
1. Google The Hebrew Mind vs. The Western Mind by Brian Knowles.
2. What does it mean to say, “If you don’t do it, you don’t believe it?”
3. Who is James and what’s his connection to Jesus and the early church?
4. What connections can you find between the Jerusalem church and the churches of Asia Minor? (See the Book of Acts.)
5. What’s the immediate context for James’ words in 2:1?
6. What does “partiality” or “favoritism” in verse 1 mean to the Hebrew?
7. How does the biblical rule of the indicative preceding the imperative relate to verses 1 through 5?
8. The Book of James is crafted along the lines of a Greek diatribe where rhetorical questions are used to reveal particular truths. What’s the truth revealed by the question in verse 5?
9. How do you explain verse 14 in light of what Paul says in Ephesians 2:10?
10. What can you find out about George MacDonald?
See you Sunday!
