The World In The Church Series

Theodore Reik tells of how an Austrian Jew was trying to find a

refuge from Hitler. He went to a travel office to select a place to

which he could flea, and with the help of the clerk he began to

consider the possibilities. But each country had some difficulty

connected with it. In one you needed a certain amount of money; in

another you needed a labor permit, and others required a passport,

which he could not get, and still others would not allow immigrants

at any price. Finally, after going over the globe, the Jew turned to the

clerk and said in desperation, "Haven't you got another globe?" He

was frustrated by the limitations of only one world.

For the present, at least, man is stuck with only one globe, and this

limitation is tough on those who are looking for a utopia. This world

is all we have. The Christian, however, though he is also temporarily

stuck in it, is not stuck with it. The kingdom of Christ is not of this

world, and those who are citizens of His kingdom are to be in the

world but not of it. Their lives and conduct are not to conform to the

world pattern, but are to be a contrasting challenge to the world.

The Christian does not have another globe, but he has another

sphere, for his life is hid with Christ in God, and he is a citizen of

eternity.

This alternative is not automatic, however, and if a Christian does

not consciously commit himself as a living sacrifice unto to God, he

can become a victim of the secularism of the world. The words of

William Wordsworth are too true to ignore. "The world is too much

with us, late and soon. Getting and spending we lay waste our

powers." The tentacles of secularism do not stop at encircling our

society, but they continue until they worm their way into the church,

and straggle its opposition. If the world can just get the church to

lose its saltiness so that it does not cause their wounds to sting, and if

it can get it to hide its light so it does not reveal their shame, then the

world will join the church, for there will be nothing to fear. The

church will cease to be an instrument of God, and will soon be

worshiping materialism along with the world.

Georgia Harness defines secularism as, "The organization of life

as if God did not exist." It is practical atheism, and many feel

secularism is the greatest enemy of the church today. It is not an new

enemy, however, but has been with the church from the start. The

Christians to whom James writes were only 20 years removed from

the cross of Christ, and yet they were so infiltrated by worldliness

that they were in danger of becoming enemies rather than servants of

God. There is nothing quite like these words anywhere else in the

New Testament, and their uniqueness demands careful

consideration. The content can be broken into two parts: The

external symptoms of secularism and the internal sources of

secularism. First consider-

I. THE EXTERNAL SYMPTOMS OF SECULARISM.

The symptoms are so shocking that some commentators feel that

James cannot be writing to Christians. He must be addressing

non-Christian Jews, they say. They say, "Certainly you cannot

believe that Christians could fight and war even to the point of

murder." Phillips, NEB, Berkely, and the Amplified all use murder

in verse 2. The RSV retains kill, as with the KJV. There is no basis

for thinking that these were unbelievers, however, James speaks of

them as brethren in verse 11.

This does not prove they are Christians for non-Christian Jews

would also be his brethren, but when he speaks of their submission to

God and resisting of Satan in verse 7, and of their drawing nigh to

God in verse 8, it is obvious they are believers, for if not, James is

advising non-believers that they can be right with God without

Christ. Unless you admit that James is writing to Christians you are

faced with a book in the Bible that says a non-believer can come to

God on his own merits without trusting in Christ. This makes it

certain that James is right to believers.

Scholars have tried all kinds of things to escape the implications

of the strong language of James, and especially in verse 2 where he

says they kill or murder. If you cannot deny he was writing to

Christians, then next best thing is to deny that he wrote what he did.

Erasmus, the Greek scholar during the time of the Reformation, did

just that. He said the original must have said that they envy rather

than they kill, and so he inserted envy into the second addition of his