18 February 2022

What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you? If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill’, and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.

From James 2:14-24,26, NRSV

James continues with the theme we heard about in yesterday’s reading  – that faith without works cannot save us. It is perhaps worth considering the context in which James wrote these words. He was writing to Christians from a Jewish background for whom the message of salvation in Christ meant freedom from the strict observance of the many rules that formed the Jewish Law. Perhaps some had gone to the opposite extreme and were not seeing that their actions completed their faith. James was not telling them that they would be saved by their works, as they might once have believed, but that faith and works are inseparable. Again, he grounds this in his example of the care that should be shown to those in need.

• • Why do you think James gives such importance to the care of those in need?
  • Who are the needy in our communities and how are we called to help them?

If you are in a position to do so, make a contribution to help the hungry in your own community.