- 2 months ago
There's nothing wrong with having money, power, or other resources. The problem is what you do with what you have been given, and that's really a matter of the heart.
James drew from Leviticus 19, Proverbs 3, Amos, Habakkuk, and other parts of the Bible for his teaching in this short passage.
From Jay Carper at Common Sense Bible Study (https://CommonSenseBibleStudy.com) and American Torah (https://www.AmericanTorah.com).
This content is free, but I accept contributions via Paypal at https://jaycarper.com/paypal.
Send me a friend request on The Torah Network: https://jaycarper.com/ttn
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James drew from Leviticus 19, Proverbs 3, Amos, Habakkuk, and other parts of the Bible for his teaching in this short passage.
From Jay Carper at Common Sense Bible Study (https://CommonSenseBibleStudy.com) and American Torah (https://www.AmericanTorah.com).
This content is free, but I accept contributions via Paypal at https://jaycarper.com/paypal.
Send me a friend request on The Torah Network: https://jaycarper.com/ttn
Follow me on X: https://jaycarper.com/twitter
Follow me on Facebook: https://jaycarper.com/fbat
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LearningTranscript
00:00All right, so we are reading James chapter 5, verses 1 through 6.
00:10One of the things that I've noticed all through the book of James is that he is pulling from lots of different passages in Scripture.
00:18He's relying heavily on Leviticus 19 and Proverbs 3, but also, especially in this passage from Amos and Habakkuk, all over the Proverbs, really, through the entire book.
00:32It seems like James is, his main themes are maintaining peace in the community and justice, ensuring that people are getting along with each other in a way that glorifies God and aids the health of the community.
00:48And it's like he's pulling all of the various passages all through the Bible that have to do with justice and interpersonal relationships and putting it all into a single package.
01:05So you can go to almost any book in the Bible and find connections with the book of James, but there are a handful of them that seems like he must have been thinking about these passages.
01:16And we've talked about this before with Leviticus 19 and Proverbs 3, a few other places in Proverbs, but the connections with Amos and Habakkuk in this passage are really pretty strong.
01:28So we're going to bring some of those up, too.
01:31So we are still in the section of abuses of the powerful, the rich people, politically connected, and how this can get them into trouble.
01:41It's not the possession of the resources, but the misuse of them.
01:47And in this particular chapter 5, verses 1 to 6, James is talking about oppressing your neighbor at home.
01:53These are people who are living back in the environs of Jerusalem, probably in Judea, and they're not living according to God's instructions for his people.
02:06And they are mistreating their workers and using all of the resources that God has provided them with for all the wrong reasons.
02:15And he's, yeah, let me just read it, and then we will talk about this.
02:23And I'm reading from the English Standard Version, which is what I have on the screen, and it's what I usually work with.
02:29Come now, you rich, weep and howl for the miseries that are coming upon you.
02:34Your riches have rotted, and your garments are moth-eaten.
02:37Your gold and silver have corroded, and their corrosion will be evidence against you, and will eat your flesh like fire.
02:43You have laid up treasure in the last days.
02:46Behold, the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, are crying out against you.
02:52And the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts.
02:56You have lived on the earth in luxury and in self-indulgence.
03:00You have fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter.
03:02You have condemned and murdered the righteous person.
03:05He does not resist you.
03:07All right, those are some pretty strong words.
03:10You know, we usually start out by talking about the big words and themes, ideas that are in a pericope,
03:16but I've already talked about that for the most part.
03:19It seems pretty clear what James' main topic is here.
03:24He's talking to wealthy people who are abusing the resources that God has entrusted to them.
03:30Whether they are getting wealth for the wrong reasons, using it for the wrong reasons, getting it by the wrong way,
03:38they're doing it wrong, and they are trampling all over the people around them.
03:43And so, this is the focus of what James is trying to say here.
03:48So, looking at verse 1,
03:49Any thoughts on what kind of miseries James might be talking about?
04:01I have a maxim of life.
04:04I believe it to be a truth.
04:06I don't necessarily fire or advocate for it, but I believe there's a truth in how it works, and that is might makes right.
04:17And I think in this situation, he's addressing that personality or that type that is basically leveraging whatever they can,
04:29i.e. money, power, riches, to achieve that which they want and desire, lest the might makes right maxim.
04:39So, I think that's what he's addressing.
04:40Yeah, that's definitely a big part of it.
04:42And, yeah, might makes right is, it's functionally how the world works, but it's not God's intent.
04:52Right.
04:52You know, obviously, God's might makes right because he defines it all.
04:55He created might.
04:56He created right.
04:58So, they all belong to him.
05:00But he's got a lot of instructions on how the strong are supposed to use their resources,
05:05whether it's military, manpower, wealth, land, any kind of resources.
05:11He's got regulations for it, and there are no laws against getting rich, no laws against having lots of resources.
05:20It's how do you get those resources and why.
05:24And how you leverage it.
05:25Yeah.
05:26It seems to me that there are three considerations that make wealth evil or any resource evil.
05:32I mean, I don't think there's any resource that is evil in itself.
05:38It's just like what Paul says in his conversation about food and marriage.
05:42And he says that, you know, nothing that God created is unclean or evil in itself,
05:48so long as you're using it for the purposes that God created it for.
05:52So, God created land.
05:54He created gold and silver.
05:55And he has even commanded the use of armies.
06:00So, those things aren't evil in themselves.
06:04So, the three things are, why do you want it?
06:08How did you get it?
06:10And what do you do with it now that you've got it?
06:14So, why do you want wealth or resources?
06:18There are places all over Scripture that we could go to talk about these,
06:21but there are a couple that I want to highlight.
06:24And first, I want to go to Proverbs 11.
06:27Proverbs 11, verse 28.
06:30He who trusts in his riches will fall, but the righteous will flourish like a green leaf.
06:36Pretty obvious what the meaning here is.
06:38God is saying, if you are trusting in your resources instead of in him,
06:44then you're going to fail because resources are things that come and go.
06:48And James talks about that here, too.
06:50Luke 12, verses 15 to 21.
06:56And this is a parable about the rich man who wanted to build more barns.
07:02He said to them,
07:03Beware and be on your guard against every form of greed,
07:05for not even when one has an abundance does life consist of his possessions.
07:10And he told them a parable, saying,
07:11The land of a rich man was very productive.
07:13And he began reasoning to himself, saying,
07:15What shall I do, since I have no place to store my crops?
07:18Then he said,
07:19This is what I will do.
07:19I will tear down my barns and build larger ones,
07:22and there I will store all my grain and my goods.
07:24And I will say to my soul,
07:26Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years.
07:28Take your ease, eat, drink, and be merry.
07:32But God said to him,
07:33You fool, this very night your soul is required of you.
07:36And now will you own what you have prepared?
07:38So is the man who stores up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.
07:43And so the why here is storing it up for yourself.
07:47It doesn't, you know, how much grain can a man eat?
07:51But this rich man keeps storing up more and more grain and building bigger barns to store it,
07:56rather than to sell it or distribute it.
07:59He could be feeding his workers with this.
08:01He could be using this as payment so that they can go and sell it in the market and make money off of it or use the seed to plant their own crops.
08:09But he's not doing that.
08:10He's just storing it up because he thinks this is going to give him security for the future instead of trusting in God.
08:15You know, what Paul is talking about here is the stuff that we rely on to make ourselves holy.
08:34You know, we think that the stuff that we have or what we do with the stuff that we have is what really sets us apart.
08:40And that we can, by having the right possessions or using our possessions in the right way, we can become more holy in ourselves.
08:52But that's putting the cart before the horse.
08:55It's not what you do with your possessions or what possessions you have that can make you holy.
09:00It's the state of your heart that dictates how you get those possessions, what you possess and what you do with them.
09:06It's that state of the heart that makes you holy.
09:08Now, God obviously has instructions on what you're supposed to do.
09:12And he says, you'll be holy as I am holy.
09:14And then he gives you like, you're going to do this and you're going to do that.
09:17You're going to do this other thing.
09:18You're not going to do that.
09:19But he's really telling us what kind of people we're supposed to be, not just giving us a checklist of things to do.
09:27The link there with Colossians 2.23 is probably a little bit harder to see.
09:32But the last one I want to look at is 1 Timothy 6.9.10.
09:39But those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a snare and many foolish and harmful desires which plunge men into ruin and destruction.
09:48For the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil.
09:51And some by longing for it have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.
09:55Because some people just want to be rich just for the sake of being rich.
10:00They just want more.
10:02And whether they're keeping score with other people or whether it makes them feel better about themselves.
10:08Just the desire to have more stuff.
10:12This is a trap.
10:13It's such a terrible motivator for things.
10:16It motivates a lot of people.
10:17I don't really understand the desire for wealth just for its own sake.
10:22Not necessarily even because you can do stuff with it.
10:25Just so that you can have it.
10:27It kind of reminds me of Uncle Scrooge in the Donald Duck cartoons.
10:32How he's got his vault full of gold and he likes to go diving and swimming in it.
10:37He just likes to have the gold and count it.
10:39But this is really the love of money.
10:42The love of stuff.
10:43Getting more stuff.
10:44And it's more complicated than that.
10:46But these are all things that can make wealth evil.
10:51Any kind of resource.
10:53And why do you want it?
10:54Do you want it for yourself?
10:56Do you want it to give yourself security?
11:00Do you want it to buy you friendships?
11:03These are all evil reasons for getting wealth.
11:06Some of these things can be great side effects.
11:10None of those things are necessarily evil in themselves.
11:12It's, you know, wanting, it's using these things as your reason for acquiring resources.
11:20That is a problem.
11:21The second consideration was how did you get your wealth?
11:26I won't look up all the passages on this one because there's a bunch of them.
11:30But just a couple of real quick ones.
11:32Exodus 21, 16.
11:34This one's pretty obvious.
11:36If you are gaining wealth by immoral means.
11:40There are other examples I could have used.
11:41Just, you know, stealing, prostitution.
11:43And, you know, all of these things that the scripture commands us not to do.
11:47If you are getting money through an evil practice like the slave trade.
11:52If that's how you're getting wealth.
11:54Well, it's going to be your downfall.
11:56It's going to create a huge problem for you in time.
11:59Another one that Torah condemns is gaining wealth through bribes.
12:03If you love a bribe, you're going to be distorting justice.
12:08You're going to be distorting all of your relationships.
12:10And this is going to come back and bite you.
12:12It's going to do you more harm than good.
12:15And Amos has a lot to say on this topic.
12:19Just a couple of verses.
12:20Amos 5, 11.
12:23Because you impose heavy rent on the poor.
12:25An exact attribute of grain from them.
12:27Though you have built houses of well-hewn stone.
12:29Yet you will not live in them.
12:30You have planted pleasant vineyards.
12:32Yet you will not drink their wine.
12:34There are some translation differences in this verse.
12:36I think the ESV says, yet you do not live in them.
12:39And you do not drink their wine.
12:41I think that the New American Standard is probably correct here.
12:45Saying that you will not.
12:46This is the side effect.
12:48Because you got your resources, your wealth, through injustice.
12:55Through treating people poorly.
12:57It's going to come back and bite you.
13:00You're going to build all this stuff.
13:02And somebody else is going to enjoy it.
13:05Now, obviously, it doesn't always work out that way in the real world.
13:08Lots of evil people get to enjoy their wealth for a long time.
13:10At least it looks that way on the surface.
13:13But do they really?
13:15I don't know.
13:16There's lots of morality tales out there about how miserable people are when they've treated other people miserably.
13:22Because it's hard to have real friends when that's how you treat the people around you.
13:27But never having been in that circumstance, I can't tell you from personal experience.
13:35Habakkuk has quite a bit of text on this topic also.
13:38And Amos does in other places as well.
13:40But we don't need to read them all.
13:41I think you get the picture.
13:42And the third consideration is, what do you do with your wealth?
13:48I'm going to pull up one of those Habakkuk passages for this one.
13:51Habakkuk 2 and 9 to 12.
13:54What's that?
13:55Quick question.
13:56Yeah.
13:56It's on point, but it might be a little rabbit trail.
13:58So I hope it doesn't go that far.
14:01Is this a karma type of approach?
14:07Yeah.
14:07I mean, I wouldn't necessarily use that word.
14:09But in the way that we usually understand that in the West and not in the spiritual Hindu sense, yeah.
14:16It's what you put out into the world is what comes back to you.
14:19You live by the sword, die by the sword.
14:22And the same thing works with money and injustice.
14:25If you are going to live and thrive through injustice, eventually injustice is going to come back to you.
14:31It's just the way the world works.
14:33People will treat you the way that you treated them.
14:36I'd like to think that.
14:38I certainly observe it not applying in a lot of situations, typically with those that have.
14:46It sounds like justice, which I like and would like to embrace, but I'm not sure I've seen it.
14:53It does happen, but I'm not sure I've seen it a lot.
14:56Yeah.
14:56This is one of the reasons that the letter of James is sometimes called the Proverbs of the New Testament.
15:01Because Proverbs are really talking about principles rather than laws.
15:05There's no solid law that if you treat people badly, eventually you're going to be treated badly.
15:12You probably will be, but maybe not in ways that you care about.
15:16But it's going to tend to be that way.
15:19If you live by a code of cheating and taking advantage of people, people are going to be free to cheat and take advantage of you.
15:27And eventually you're going to get caught.
15:29Probably.
15:31Obviously, it doesn't always happen that way.
15:33It's one of the big lessons of Ecclesiastes is you see all kinds of injustice in the world and people doing evil things.
15:40And it never seems to catch up with them.
15:42But, you know, God knows what's really going on in those people's lives.
15:46I can only trust that since this is a universal thing that is taught throughout Scripture and not even in the Bible, but in pretty much every religious text, they talk about the same kind of ideas.
15:58Because every book of wisdom says that however you deal with the world, eventually the world is going to deal with you that way.
16:06And so I think it must be generally true, if not universally true.
16:14Does that make sense?
16:16It's theoretical or it's spiritual.
16:20You just have to have faith.
16:22That is the way it is.
16:23Yes.
16:23Yeah, and there's one other passage I want to go to on this concept of what you do with your wealth is what makes it evil.
16:31And this is another parable.
16:34Luke 16, 19 to 31.
16:36I'm not going to read the whole thing, but this is the parable of Lazarus and the rich man.
16:41I'm sure you remember that Lazarus and the rich man both died.
16:45Lazarus went to Abraham's bosom, which was the more pleasant side of Sheol.
16:50The rich man went to the unpleasant side.
16:52And really, this is just the consequences of his behavior in real life.
16:59And this is a good example of what you're talking about, Scott, is that this man appeared to get away with all of his injustices, all his life.
17:07But then he dies and he discovers that there's more to life than what he thought there was.
17:13There's this whole other side to existence.
17:15Yeah, maybe I should say existence instead of life.
17:17And it's not so pleasant.
17:20And it lasts a lot longer.
17:22And there's nothing he can do to change it.
17:24He can't work his way out of it.
17:25He can't cheat his way out of it, bribe, nothing.
17:29There is nothing you can do to get to escape God's justice.
17:33It's a law of the universe that if you are this kind of person, this is what's going to happen to you.
17:38Now, obviously, there's repentance, but repentance is changing what kind of person you are, or at least committing to changing what kind of person you are.
17:48All right.
17:49So going back to our passage.
17:52So come now, you rich, weep and howl for the miseries that are coming upon you.
17:56So what all of these things had in common, whether you are gaining your wealth for your own benefit instead of others or for the kingdom, or whether you're gaining it through theft or injustice, or you're using it for injustice, eventually something's going to come back and get you.
18:15And, you know, if you manage to get all the way through to the grave without suffering the consequences of your own behavior, then chances are you haven't repented.
18:26You didn't do anything to change because you never saw any reason to change.
18:31Well, that's where the rich man ended up.
18:33And what Yeshua said is that if this man, it's too late for this guy to repent now.
18:40And even if he were to go back and warn all of his relatives, this is what happened to me.
18:46People have been warning his relatives their entire lives, and they didn't believe them.
18:50So why would they believe them now?
18:51So there is recompense for these things.
18:55And at the end of Revelation, when we see the final judgment, and God essentially separates all of humanity into two groups, those whose names are in the book of life and those whose aren't.
19:06But he also adds that every single person will be judged by his works, by what he did and didn't do.
19:14I always think of the Keith Green song when I say that phrase.
19:18I don't understand exactly what happens in the grave, shale, or in the lake of fire, or any of these things.
19:26I think scripture is ambiguous at best.
19:28It only gives us tiny little hints.
19:30But we do know that there's a judgment, and we do know that there are rewards for behaving in a righteous manner, and punishments for not behaving in a righteous manner.
19:41Even if your name is in the book of life, and you have repented from all your sins, there is still a consequence, an eternal consequence for how you behaved in life.
19:51I don't know what that consequence is.
19:53It's not going to send you into the lake of fire.
19:55You do get that eternal life because God promised it.
19:58But that eternal life may not be what it could have been.
20:03I can only speculate as to what those results would be because, like I said, scripture only hints at it.
20:10And if I speculate too much, I'm sure I'd get myself into trouble.
20:13You just brought up Lazarus and the rich man.
20:15That gives you a good template.
20:18Yeah, that's a start for Sheol.
20:20That's prior to the judgment.
20:21At least that's how I interpret it.
20:23Some people interpret this as sort of hell and heaven.
20:27I don't think that's what's going on there.
20:29I think it's different regions within the grave.
20:33It's a spiritual place, so what does regions even mean in that sense?
20:38Different experiences, anyways.
20:41Any other comments on verse 1?
20:43Yeah, it struck me after I read this that he's not really speaking to a pagan nation per se.
20:51When you go to James 1.1, he's speaking to the lost tribes of the house of Israel.
20:55So I don't want to say he's predicting judgment upon them, but he kind of is, you know?
21:02Yeah.
21:02Well, some of these passages that he seems to be referencing in here, like Amos and Habakkuk,
21:08these are addressed to the people of Israel.
21:12And in one of them, God even says,
21:14You, O Joseph, who has treated all of your brothers with such disdain, you will suffer for this.
21:21And this is God's favorite.
21:24Well, at least it's Jacob's favorite.
21:25And God seems to put a lot of favor on the sons of Joseph, Ephraim and Manasseh, especially Ephraim.
21:32But they are the ringleaders of idolatry.
21:37And they do suffer for it.
21:39Yeah, one that reminds me of another thing that I have seen a lot when reading commentaries and watching video teachings on this book is that this section here,
21:51a lot of people will say is directed at unbelievers outside of the kingdom.
21:56And you're right.
21:57I think this is addressed to Israel.
21:59These are addressed to people who are either native branches or these are people who have professed faith, but they haven't repented in these areas.
22:10Maybe they've repented of things that they were aware of, but they have this, you know, what people call a besetting sin.
22:16In their particular besetting sin, this struggle, this temptation that they're always dealing with has to do with money and the abuse of power.
22:24I'm not prepared to say that somebody who is prone to abusing power can't be saved, that they're not in the kingdom and have eternal life.
22:34That's not my call because there are obviously people in all kinds of bad straits who give in to temptation and continue living in sin,
22:46not because they haven't committed to obeying God, but because they are weak or they don't know that what they're doing is a sin
22:52or all kinds of reasons for it.
22:54But yeah, I think this is addressed to people within the kingdom, but they are in serious danger.
23:01They are playing with being kicked out.
23:05Let's go to the next verse.
23:09Verses two and three.
23:11Your riches have rotted and your garments are moth-eaten.
23:14Your gold and silver have corroded and their corrosion will be evidence against you and will eat your flesh like fire.
23:20You have laid up treasure in the last days.
23:24And James isn't pulling any punches here.
23:27Your riches have rotted and your garments are moth-eaten.
23:29He's speaking to people who are rich.
23:32They have great wealth right now when he's writing this letter.
23:36But he says your riches have rotted, your garments are moth-eaten, your gold and silver have corroded.
23:42What do you think he means by that?
23:43The illusion of security that the riches bring reminds me of Matthew 6, 19.
23:51Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, for your moth and rust destroy.
23:55Yeah.
23:56In this, I also have a note that to go back to Ecclesiastes 11, verses 1 and 2.
24:03Really, divide your portion to seven or even to eight, for you do not know what misfortune may occur on the earth.
24:08And that's really about the motivations, you know, the parable of the rich man and his storage barns.
24:15So I probably need to put that comment on a different verse.
24:20But there's something else I think that James is getting at with the idea of your riches have rotted, past tense, and your garments are moth-eaten.
24:29Is it some kind of allusion to them not tithing?
24:33I don't think so.
24:36I mean, that's certainly one of the ways that they are, they would likely be abusing their wealth or not using it the way that God said.
24:44But I think that James isn't really talking about their material wealth.
24:48I think he is talking about the state of their own spirits.
24:54That, you know, your riches have rotted and your garments are moth-eaten.
24:57It's like he's saying, you think that all of this stuff that you have are your riches.
25:03That these are the things where your real wealth is stored.
25:05But that's not it.
25:07Your real wealth is stored in your soul.
25:10And in the riches that you are laying up for the kingdom, those are your real riches.
25:15And those things have rotted and are moth-eaten because you've neglected them.
25:19So the riches that are laid up in heaven are not composed or are not on the same par as that which is taking place on earth.
25:31So if you obtain those riches on earth in a bad state, that's held accountable in the book of life, so to speak.
25:38Yeah, I think it's in Amos where the prophet is talking about how you built the houses and you're not going to live in them and you planted vineyards and you're not going to be able to eat the fruit of them.
25:51We just read that a few minutes ago.
25:52So this is all material wealth that this wealthy man has acquired, you know, that he's accrued over years or whatever it is.
26:02But he's done it on the backs of people in poverty that he has kept there on purpose so that he can use their labor for his own benefit to create all this stuff that, you know, he couldn't even use if he kept it.
26:17But he will certainly lose it later. But if everything you do is building up wealth in heaven or in a spiritual sense, think about what was it about hay and stubble, gold and silver.
26:32What are you laying up? You might have piles of gold here, but because of the way you acquired it, you've got piles of hay over there and it's molding and wasting away.
26:45There's it's nothing lasting. But on the other hand, here's why I was going to Ecclesiastes, I think, where it says.
26:55Cast your bread on the surface of the waters for you will find it after many days, divide your portion to seven or even to eight, for you do not know what misfortune may occur on the earth.
27:05This is, you know, take your resources that you have because you don't know if you're always going to have them.
27:10You don't know what the future holds and do something good with them.
27:15Give it away. Help people who are around you create a better life for other people.
27:20And by doing this, by trusting that investing in other people and in the good of the kingdom, by trusting in that, you are actually building up something that's going to last a lot longer.
27:32You may have less money in this world.
27:35You might have less nice clothes or you might see your bank balance just slowly withering away.
27:42But on the other hand, you're building up a store of gold and silver in a spiritual sense that is going to last a lot longer.
27:51And this is what I think James is trying to say in these two verses.
27:56And it will eat your flesh like fire.
27:58Yeah, this is not a literal statement, obviously.
28:01It's not that your your gold and silver is going to eat your flesh like fire unless you eat it.
28:06That would probably be bad for you.
28:09But it's really you have laid up treasure in the last days.
28:12I think that's the key to what he's saying.
28:14Hey, Jay, in my translation, it says that your gold and silver has rusted.
28:20And when I looked it up, that rust in the Greek, that's IOS, IOS, which is venom or poison.
28:28And I thought that was interesting as that word meaning venom or poison or even corroded.
28:34But that is interesting.
28:35Well, that's interesting because it doesn't rust.
28:41Gold doesn't rust.
28:42So that is very interesting.
28:43Yeah.
28:44Yeah.
28:45Thayer says to rust over to cover with rust.
28:47And really, it's oxidation, whatever it is.
28:49And yeah, silver does that.
28:50But gold doesn't.
28:51At least not if it's pure.
28:52I wonder what the Greek word is, katiou.
28:57And where were you saying that it said it was related to venom?
29:00I don't know if you can find a reference for that.
29:03I'd be curious about that, whether it's like an etymological thing or the way that the word is used elsewhere.
29:08Because there's another reference to something like that in, it might be in Habakkuk, one of the related passages that I think that James is relying on.
29:18Oh, no, actually, I think it might be in Proverbs.
29:20And it's talking about taking advantage of people.
29:23In that particular instance, it follows one of the verses where it's talking about using your wealth to abuse people.
29:29And then right after that, it talks about mixing venom with wine in order to essentially be able to take advantage of people by getting them to act stupid so you can watch them or even more nefarious things, but essentially spiking people's drinks.
29:47Any other comments or questions on verses two and three?
29:51Jay, it's the Strong's G2447.
29:56G2447.
29:57Oh, there are two words there.
29:58There's your gold and silver is katayu and the rust of them, aios, a poison of asps.
30:11Interesting.
30:11And in the ESV, it's their corrosion.
30:15It's unfortunate that sometimes to make it make sense in English, they use words that are the same or very close to each other.
30:21When in Greek, it's not, they're not even close.
30:24They should have kept it and their poison will be evidence against you or something like that.
30:30I understand why they said corrosion because it just makes sense in context, but that's not the word that James chose to use.
30:36Thayer's does say that the word eos or eos is sometimes used for corrosion, like rust, but the primary meaning is poison, which that explains why he then said will be used as evidence against you and will eat your flesh like fire, because that's where the poison comes in.
30:59All right, let's move on to the next couple of verses, verses four and five.
31:06Behold, the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud are crying out against you.
31:12And the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts.
31:16You have lived on the earth in luxury and in self-indulgence.
31:19You have fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter.
31:22The wages of your laborers you've kept back by fraud.
31:25Anybody know what that's a reference to?
31:30It's not just not paying people what they're owed, but yeah, go ahead, Alan.
31:34I was just going to say Deuteronomy 24.
31:37Let me pull it up.
31:3914 through 15.
31:4424, 14 to 15.
31:45Yeah, you will not oppress a hired servant who is poor and needy, whether he's one of your own countrymen.
31:51You will give him his wages on his day before the sun sets, for he is poor and sets his heart on it.
31:56Yeah, exactly.
31:57That's the one I was thinking of.
31:59I was actually thinking of the same law in Leviticus.
32:02It's worded a little bit differently, but it's the same idea.
32:05And the expectation, I mean, there were no banks.
32:10They couldn't get a paycheck or direct deposit or anything like that.
32:13You paid people gold, and many of these people live from day to day.
32:18If they didn't have their own crops to take care of, then they would get money that day, go buy food for their family, and that's what they would eat that day.
32:28And so if you are not paying your laborers that day, then there was a chance they didn't have what they would want, or the accounting would get confused or lost.
32:40So the longer you waited, the easier it was to cheat people or for the hours to get lost.
32:45So paying them on that day was a way to ensure that you paid everybody exactly what you owe them, and nobody got cheated.
32:54Like keeping short accounts.
32:56In which you kept back by fraud.
32:58So the reason that he's keeping it back is that very purpose.
33:02He's not paying you that day so that then when payday comes around, he can say, oh, no, you didn't work that many hours on this day, or claim that you damaged something when you actually left it in good order.
33:15Whatever method he's going to use, he's trying to cheat his workers out of their pay.
33:20And this guy is wealthy.
33:22There's no reason for him to do that except to get more for himself instead of other people.
33:30I thought it was interesting that it says the wages of the laborers are crying out against you.
33:36In the second part, it says the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts.
33:42But in the first part, it says the wages are crying out against you.
33:45Or at least that's the way it reads in English.
33:47And multiple translations seem to say the same thing.
33:51So it's the actual injustice that's crying out to God.
33:54Even if the person doesn't know that he's been cheated, God knows.
33:59And the fraud is there for him to see.
34:02He knows.
34:04James also refers to God here not just as God or the Lord, but the Lord of hosts.
34:11Anybody have any thoughts on why he used that particular phrase?
34:14It's pretty unusual for the New Testament.
34:17It implies power.
34:18It implies that you have an army of sorts to back you up.
34:22Yeah.
34:23I read that that was his title for vengeance and judgment.
34:27Yeah, I think that's fair.
34:28God owns all power on earth.
34:30And when it really comes down to it, who has more power?
34:34The guy who has the gold or the guy who has the guns?
34:37The guy who has the guns controls the gold.
34:39And God has them both.
34:42And so, yeah, by referring to God as Yahweh Tzevaot, or the Lord of hosts, he actually uses a Hebrew word there.
34:50It's transliterated into Greek, but he uses the Hebrew word Tzevaot.
34:55It was kind of funny listening to multiple preachers mispronounce that word earlier today.
35:00And I'm sure I'm not getting it exactly right either.
35:02But, you know, the King James set a bad precedence there.
35:07Save your oats, right?
35:08What's that?
35:09Save your oats, right?
35:10Yes, exactly.
35:13Sabaoth.
35:14Sabaoth.
35:14And I heard it pronounced Sabaoth and Sabaoth and all kinds of different things.
35:22And one person pointed out that for years, he thought this was talking about the Lord of Sabbath.
35:26And it was just a weird way to spell Sabbath.
35:29And then he actually read the Old Testament one time and saw that, oh, no, this is talking about the Lord of hosts.
35:37So I appreciate that the ESV translated it that way, not leaving that Hebrew word in there.
35:42The Hebrew word, I'm sure, meant something to James's audience.
35:46But to most English speakers, they don't know what Tzevaot means.
35:50So Lord of hosts does, though.
35:52That means something.
35:54This is the God of armies.
35:56He controls all the armies on earth.
35:58And so there is no gold or silver that will protect you from him.
36:03But there's another reason that I think he used that specific phrase.
36:07And it goes back to Amos.
36:09Amos and Habakkuk.
36:10They both use it in the same context.
36:12Let me find the verse here.
36:15Okay.
36:16For those who turn justice into wormwood.
36:18Sorry, let me pull this over here.
36:20And cast righteousness down to earth.
36:23He who made the Pleiades and Orion and changes deep darkness into morning.
36:27Who also darkens day into night.
36:29Who calls for the waters of the sea and pours them out on the surface of the earth.
36:33Yahweh is his name.
36:34It is he who flashes forth with destruction upon the strong.
36:38So the destruction comes upon the fortress.
36:39They hate him who reproves in the gate.
36:42And they abhor him who speaks with integrity.
36:46Therefore, at such a time, the prudent keeps silent.
36:48For it is an evil time.
36:50Seek good and not evil that you may live.
36:52And thus may Yahweh Tzevaot be with you just as he has said.
36:56And since that says Lord God of hosts, I think it's Yahweh, probably Yahweh Elohim Tzevaot in the Hebrew.
37:05And he says this, he uses this phrase several times in this one chapter.
37:11Hate evil, love good, and establish justice in the gate.
37:15Perhaps Yahweh Elohim Tzevaot may be gracious to the remnant of Joseph.
37:20And Habakkuk 2, 2 verses 6 to 14.
37:24Does the same thing in the same context.
37:29Woe to him who builds a city with bloodshed and founds a town with violence.
37:34It is not indeed from Yahweh Tzevaot that people toil or fire and nations grow weary for nothing.
37:40For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of Yahweh as the waters cover the sea.
37:45Woe to you who make your neighbors drink, who mix your venom, even to make them drunk so as to look at their nakedness.
37:52That was the passage I was referencing earlier.
37:53Both of these passages are talking about the abuse of power.
37:58And they both keep referencing Yahweh Tzevaot multiple times.
38:03And yeah, the intent is that you don't know who you're offending.
38:07You think you're offending these little guys who can't fight back.
38:11But you are actually offending the most powerful being who could ever exist.
38:16Because he created all the others.
38:18Hey Jay, when you said that it's unusual or odd to see that term in the New Testament.
38:23I looked it up.
38:24That's the only time that it's explicitly used in the New Testament.
38:27Only once.
38:28Yeah, that makes sense.
38:30I was playing it safe by saying it was unusual.
38:33Well, I was familiar with it at Jeremiah specifically.
38:36But I had never given it any thought about it in the New Testament.
38:40Mm-hmm.
38:41Any thoughts on the first part of this in verse 4?
38:43All right.
38:44Well, verse 5.
38:45You have lived on the earth in luxury and in self-indulgence.
38:47You have fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter.
38:50Again, this goes right back to that passage in Habakkuk talking about nations and cities built on violence.
38:59And usually this is what power comes down to.
39:02Most of the time, people don't want money just because they like money.
39:06A lot of people do that.
39:07But most of the time, people want money because it gives them influence.
39:11It gives them power.
39:12And power ultimately comes down to violence.
39:15You have the power to make one person hurt another person.
39:19That's what all politics is.
39:21And that's ultimately what all financial transactions are.
39:26You agree to this exchange.
39:28And if you don't follow through with it, then this other guy is going to make somebody hurt you.
39:34You know, whether that's the sheriff or goons, you know, it depends on who you're dealing with.
39:39But that's really what it all comes down to.
39:42If everybody's honest, that threat stays implied.
39:46But, you know, when you start abusing that and cheating people, then the threat will often come out into the open.
39:53Any other comments or questions on these two verses?
39:57It's a little poetic how it talks about your heart is fattened.
40:02And then it brings up slaughter, you know, like you're being fattened for the slaughter.
40:07Yep.
40:07Fattening yourself in a day of slaughter for a day of slaughter.
40:12I like that.
40:13Okay.
40:14The last verse, and we are getting through this pericope pretty quickly.
40:19You have condemned and murdered the righteous person.
40:21He does not resist you.
40:23And this seems a really odd sort of thing to throw in here.
40:27You have condemned and murdered the righteous person.
40:29Okay.
40:30That kind of makes sense in context.
40:32He does not resist you.
40:34Okay.
40:34What does that have to do with anything here?
40:37That seems kind of strange.
40:40However, let me find it.
40:42I think I just read it a second ago.
40:44It brought to mind Messiah for me.
40:46Yeah, definitely.
40:47I mean, that is, he is the one who went to the slaughter like a lamb, didn't cry out, didn't try to defend himself.
40:55But I think that, yeah, I'm not disagreeing with you at all, because I think that that is the point of the pattern that is being shown here.
41:04But I think James is deriving this from back in Amos 5 again.
41:09And this is Amos 5, verse 13.
41:13Therefore, at such a time, the prudent person keeps silent, for it is an evil time.
41:18This is talking about a time when evil people are in control.
41:23And if you think about, you know, much of the last 20 years in the political state in the United States, the political climate,
41:32there were certain things that you just kept your mouth shut about, if you wanted to keep your job.
41:37You know, if you have to deal with somebody who has pronouns in their bios and insists on, you know,
41:45a man who insists that everybody treat him like a woman, that he can go into the women's restroom.
41:50Well, you can object to that, and you can refuse to go along with it, and that may be the honorable thing.
41:55But a lot of prudent people in some circumstances decided not to, just to keep silent about it.
42:02Because there wasn't anything practical that they could do about it.
42:06Now, in retrospect, that probably wasn't really true.
42:09If more people had just spoken up all along, then it never would have gotten so far.
42:15But there are times when you simply have no control.
42:18You have no power.
42:19Think of a place like North Korea, or Iran, or Soviet Russia,
42:24where if you speak up about an injustice, you not only might get fired,
42:32you and your entire family could end up in a prison camp.
42:36And you have a responsibility to your family to watch out for their welfare.
42:40It's not just your own head.
42:42It's everybody around you.
42:43And so, when evil people are in charge of everything,
42:48and they hold all the gold and silver and all the guns,
42:53prudent people frequently just keep silent.
42:55There's nothing you can do about it, and standing up isn't going to help anything.
42:58So, you spare your family some trouble by just not sticking your head up.
43:04And I think that's what James is alluding to here,
43:09is that sometimes bad things are going to happen,
43:13and there's nothing you can do to stop it.
43:16And in Yeshua's case, he actually didn't want it to stop it.
43:20He wanted it to go all the way through.
43:23I mean, he certainly could have stopped it any time he wanted to.
43:26But because it was necessary, it had to happen.
43:30He kept silent.
43:31But most of us aren't in that particular situation.
43:35For most of us, it's a choice of speak up and risk the consequences,
43:40or keep silent, go along to get along.
43:43Yeah, there's a proverb that this reminds me of,
43:45and I can't remember what it is right now.
43:47And it's along the same kinds of lines,
43:50that when the wicked are in charge,
43:52the righteous essentially keep to themselves.
43:57And then it immediately follows,
43:59saying that when the wicked fall,
44:00the righteous rise up.
44:03So when wicked people hold all the power,
44:06and being a martyr isn't going to accomplish anything,
44:09because no one will ever know,
44:10because you're going to just disappear in the middle of the night,
44:13the best course of action is to protect your family,
44:16and not create a problem that won't solve anything.
44:21That's not to say that there aren't times to stand up
44:25against powerful forces.
44:27I mean, we think about all the martyrs,
44:29and we think about Yeshua's instructions to count the cost,
44:33and be willing to give up your life for the kingdom.
44:37He who tries to save his life will lose it,
44:40and he who loses his life for the sake of the kingdom
44:42will gain eternal life.
44:45That is true.
44:46And if you are in a situation where you are presented with,
44:52curse God or die,
44:53then you die.
44:57You don't curse God.
44:58You stand up for what's right.
44:59Or thinking of Paul's instructions,
45:02when he said that if you are a slave,
45:04and you can get yourself free,
45:05then by all means, do it.
45:08But if you can't,
45:09if there's nothing you can do to get out of this situation,
45:11then you make the best of it.
45:12You live in that as a slave with grace,
45:15and you honor your master as much as you can,
45:20even if he's an unbeliever.
45:22And so this is the same kind of thing,
45:25where if you can do something about evil,
45:28then do it.
45:30If you can change something in the world by being a martyr,
45:34it might be worth doing.
45:35But if there's nothing you can materially do,
45:39I mean,
45:39if there's no material change you can make
45:41by speaking out or by becoming a martyr,
45:44but you can just keep your head down
45:48and preserve your family,
45:50and by not making waves,
45:52usually that's the better course.
45:55There's no requirement that we have to go
45:57and volunteer to be martyrs
45:59when nobody's trying to make us a martyr.
46:01Does that make sense?
46:02I just want to be clear
46:04that I'm not encouraging people
46:05not to stand up for what's right,
46:08to stand up when it's going to actually do some good
46:10and not when it's pointless.
46:13Okay.
46:15Okay.
46:17I guess from a practical standpoint,
46:18you probably never know
46:20when it's going to not be pointless.
46:22Many times that's true.
46:24I think in extreme cases,
46:27it's usually pretty clear
46:28what I was saying in a place like North Korea
46:31or something.
46:32If you know that the government is saying
46:36everybody in this village
46:38must live in this one apartment building
46:41that's rat infested
46:43and has no running water,
46:44and you know that you can make everybody's life better
46:48by you can say,
46:51hey, I know how to do some plumbing.
46:52Maybe we can get some running water in here
46:55and get some flush toilets.
46:56But you know that if you do that,
46:57you're going to be executed
46:58and your family is going to be sent off to a prison camp
47:01and the plumbing won't change.
47:04What's the point?
47:06You do what you have to do to survive
47:08and protect your family.
47:09I mean, I realize that's an extreme case,
47:11but that's really what I'm talking about.
47:14Most of the time in a place like the United States,
47:16it's going to be pretty unusual
47:18to be in a situation
47:19where speaking up is going to be that hazardous
47:21and won't do some good
47:23because we do have a voice.
47:25I mean, you can go to city council
47:27and you can get arrested and go to jail,
47:29but you're probably not going to be executed.
47:31Your family probably isn't going to be sold into slavery.
47:34It's just you have to weigh the pros and cons.
47:38Are you going to make enough of an impact
47:40for this to be worth depriving your family
47:42of your protection and provision?
47:46And that would be a difficult call.
47:47Yeah, not yet anyways.
47:49I think every place gets there eventually.
47:53Unfortunately, it might be true.
47:55I think to not oppress your neighbor.
47:57I think to not oppress your neighbor.
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