it is to be used...

james heads into the 5th chapter like it was written last year. james 5.1 (ms), and a final word to you arrogant rich: take some lessons in lament. you'll need buckets for the tears when the crash comes upon you. wow! is that ever true today.

let me give you a little background. back in the days when this was written, there was no middle class. you were either rich or poor, no in between. and the system was set up for the rich to get richer and the poor to get poorer and the poor were constantly being abused by the rich.

and james here unleashes his strongest attack in his book on the arrogant rich and their abuses. but it also seems that his purpose here is more to warn those CHRISTians of the day who were generally poor about the total foolishness of their trusting in riches and of the danger that wealth poses to the character of those who possess it. so in this section he start laying out these dangers and encourages the avoidance of them. so let's look at them.

look at verse 3 (ms), you thought you were piling up wealth. what you've piled up is judgment. he is saying here that wealth is not to be stockpiled, collected in piles just for the sake of having it.

now he's not talking about savings. GOD encourages us to save money but he's referring here to getting more and more simply for the sake of getting more – so you can have it. he is talking about hording it because you are afraid of losing it. and that is what has been happening in our nation for so many years.

people during the time that the new testament was written would hoard their stuff in three ways: they stockpiled food, collect clothes and gathered precious metals and jewels. this was the way they showed off their wealth. and james deals with this in verses 2 and 3 (ms), your money is corrupt and your fine clothes stink. your greedy luxuries are a cancer in your gut, destroying your life from within.

here is the point he is making...what accumulates, deteriorates. GOD doesn't want us to get wealthy just for the sake of getting wealth. HE want us to put it into circulation.

your food has corrupted or rotted. it's not the food you eat but the food in the back of the fridge that rots. new life forms are back there.

your fine clothes stink. i don't know if they had moth balls back then or not but you get the point. it isn't the clothes you wear that stink but the ones in the back of the closet.

your luxuries cause you to get ulcers because all you do is worry about them. your looking online all the time at the price of gold and silver, at your investments and your getting sick over them. your afraid that you will get robbed or whatever.

and james is saying here that wealth is not to be hoarded, it is to be circulated, it is to be used.

just some thoughts from the front porch...