We know what Jesus expects out of Christians today by studying what He expected out of Christians in the first century, through His own commands and those of His inspired apostles and prophets. What He commanded is what He expected. We learn what He commanded through inference and approved examples of faithful behavior.
We’ll just use the idea of helping orphans and widows as a case study to illustrate the point because we have had some brethren who claimed that the church was not authorized to help non-Christian orphans and widows. Their argument is that the commands are for individual Christians, not for the church as a whole.
Let’s read James 1:27: “Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.” The approach some take is to show that this command is addressed to individual Christians and not to congregations.
One rebuttal is that this verb (“to visit”) is governed by a singular personal pronoun. But that is not accurate. Please observe that the verb that is governed by a singular pronoun (“oneself”) is the verb “to keep unstained,” not “to visit.” There is no pronoun that governs “to visit.”
A second rebuttal is to cite verses that use singular nouns or pronouns (1:2, 16, 19, 5, 6, 7, 12, 13, 14, 22-27). But, in doing so, they ignore the verses that use plural nouns or pronouns (vss 2, 5, 16, 19, 22). All this proves, however, is that James uses the singular and plural nouns/pronouns interchangeably.
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A third rebuttal is to argue from the “context” of verses 26-27 in such a way so as to leave out the clear address to the churches (1:1) and 2:1ff. It is not proper to limit the context by one’s own reasoning. By that same “reasoning,” I can take verse 27a, and interpret it in its own “narrow” context. That is, I could argue that it is a general command relative to “pure religion” and is still not limited only to individual Christians.
The fact of the matter is some put far too much theological weight on these plural/singular pronouns. By this “reasoning,” if James had wanted to teach that churches could help non-Christian widows and orphans, he should have written in plural pronouns. But by this same “reasoning,” then they would have argued that individual Christians can’t help non-Christians because all the pronouns are plural! Who can believe that!?
These brethren are simply wrong that James is writing “specifically” to the individual in chapter 1. James did not write with verse and chapter divisions anyway. What James is doing is simply encouraging Christians, even in their aggregate body as a church, to follow the example of Jesus who served and fed non-Christians.
–Paul Holland
