More on Arrogance

By now, you all should have recovered from our hike on Sunday. As things turned out, the trail we took was quite challenging. All those steps! You all did well and made it through the whole hike. Then again, what would you have done if you had decided to quit halfway through the hike. Its not like there was an elevator to the top. Sometimes, giving up is not an option.

During lunch, Chris raised a question about Cain’s wife: where did she come from? I gave you an abbreviated answer. Later, Chris and Beth asked me about dinosaurs in the context of the creation story in Genesis 1. I told him I might take a Sunday or two and discuss some questions about creation. Staying with our study in James, though, seems to me to be a more important issue, but I do want to share some of my thoughts about creation and the early earth. So, here’s what I’ll do. For those of you who are interested, I will post some articles over the next week or so about creation on another of my blogs, http://hermeneian.blogspot.com. On 2collide-2collide is a link to this blog and one other.

Now, back to James. In our last study in James, we looked at James 3.1 and arrogance. We will be continuing the study in chapter 3 this next Sunday. We’ll look at 3.1-12. I think I’ll cover that whole section in our study. The main emphasis in this part of James is speaking in an idle, careless and thoughtless manner. James wanted his readers to see two things. First, his intent for his readers was for them to understand the inherent contradiction for believers in careless speech. Second, he wanted them to see the danger in that practice.

As we considered the concept of arrogance in our last study, we used some examples of high-profile individuals from our popular culture whose speech is characterized by arrogance. Remember some important implications of arrogance. An arrogant person is proud, condescending contentious and contemptuous of others.

Arrogance communicates a fundamentally unbiblical attitude about God and other persons. An arrogant persons is a superior-minded person; he believes everyone else is less valuable and important than he. An arrogant person is contemptuous of God and only superficially considers or disregards the Lord altogether in his planning. Indeed, the height of arrogance is to ignore God and his expectations.

In James 3, the use of the tongue is the human mannerism the author used to highlight the dangers and paradox of arrogance. Throughout the Bible, simple human attributes, the tongue, the stomach, the eyes and the hands, are often used to illustrate greater truths. Even more important, how these simple features are used, their importance in the life of a person, point to greater truths. In an extreme statement, Jesus suggested gouging out our eyes or cutting off our hands if they lead us into sin. His point was for believers to go to the most extreme lengths to exercise control in their lives. Surely, Jesus was not teaching self-mutilation. He did say, though, we are to do whatever is required to stop any activity or thought leading us into ungodliness.

Paul used another metaphor. He said, in 1 Corinthians 9.25-27, “Everyone who competes in the games exercises self-control in all things. They then do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. Therefore I run in such a way, as not without aim; I box in such a way, as not beating the air; but I discipline my body and make it my slave, so that, after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified.” No one is so good and committed as to be exempt from exercising self-control in his life. To fail to do so, to believe one is good enough, is arrogance in the extreme.

Among those to whom James wrote, arrogance was a real issue. Some lived their lives oblivious to their own arrogant sinfulness. Others were teetering on the brink of arrogance (see James 2.1-6). Many times, we are as James’s readers: we are unthinkingly judgmental about others. We decide some are worthy and some are not. We use a number of criteria, social, economic, ethnic, racial, etc., as the basis of our evaluations of others. At times, we do so unconsciously, at others, we are intentional. In all cases we are arrogant. James will help us overcome this problem.