Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. (Jam 1:27 NIV)

Ever wonder if the Church is what it should be? I do, probably because I have been conned and bullied by those wearing pastor’s clothes. This verse in James is an explicit statement about what the Christian Church should be. It is not all-encompassing or exhaustive, but it very clearly and concisely describes what we should be doing. Let us consider it carefully, word by word.

James begins with the word “religion,” which is a bad word to some people. Years ago, I frequently heard that our faith is not about religion but relationship, and that is true and false at the same time. Religion is the actions of people that originate from a faith in something, and everyone puts their faith in something. Organized religion tells us what to believe, and then how to live according to that belief. Individuals also have varying personal religion, their actions betraying their beliefs: themselves, the world system, a vain hope for a vague deliverer, or money or power or sex or community, or whatever.

We all have faith, we are all trusting in something, and the acts that come from that belief are what constructs and shapes our religion. If we truly believe Christ and the Bible, then our faith is in a relationship with God Almighty (John 1:10-14, Rom 8:12-17), and hopefully this is reflected in our life. In his letter, James is telling us how to live according to this faith.

It should be obvious that we desire a religion God finds acceptable, since we are trying to please him in this relationship. He is the author of life and the determiner of our eternal destination. Yet James describes our “acceptable” religion as pure and faultless, so let us examine these words.

Pure has to do with Old Testament cleanness, which is holiness (Lev 10:8-11). God is holy, which means special and set apart, and we must also be holy and clean to approach him (Lev 19:2, 22:31-33). To be clean means you are able to approach God and be a part of his community. Lepers were unclean, possibly due to no fault of their own, and were unable to enter the temple or even be a part of the holy community (Lev 13:44-46). Thus, acceptable religion is what makes us able to approach God and his community as holy.

Faultless, also translated undefiled, refers to having filth removed, making us pure and clean. For this, our sins must be atoned for, which was accomplished by Christ’s death on the cross (Lev 17:11, Heb 9:22, Col 2:14). Christ-believers show our faith when we respond to his act of sacrifice by being self-sacrificing (2 Cor 5:14-15), by denying ourselves and living for others (Phil 2:3-4).

One commentary explained pure and faultless this way:

“Pure” expresses the positive, “undefiled” the negative side of religious service; just as visiting the fatherless and widow is the active, keeping himself unspotted from the world, the passive side of religious duty. (JFB)

Next, James very clearly specifies two things which demonstrate this pure and faultless faith: looking after orphans and widows, and keeping oneself from being polluted. As pointed out above, a positive and a negative, what you do and what you do not do.

The “do” part of this regards orphans and widows, which refers to those who could not provide for themselves, the poor and possibly oppressed. I believe this is hugely significant, and is the reason why Christians have always been first to reach out to the poor, creating orphanages and hospitals and missions that sought to care for those who need it most.

Who are the “orphans and widows” that need help today? Some are obvious, some are not. Today, because we live on debt, it is easy to fall behind on payments after an illness or other interruption in work, and then become homeless. Many who have low paying jobs make too much to qualify for aide but still cannot afford health care. My wife recently went looking for a clinic and discovered that there were no longer many options for free or low-cost health care. And what about those fleeing war-torn countries? Some call them refugees, but others call them illegal immigrants trying to get a free handout.

Yes, I am getting a little political, but the goal is not politics, the goal is to be right with Jesus. Do our actions reflect Biblical descriptions of true God-fearing faith? Do we care for the poor? (Exo 22:21-27, Deu 10:16-19, Deu 14:28-29, Deu 24:14-15, Jer 7:2-8, Jer 22:2-3, Acts 2:44-45, Acts 4:32-35, Gal 2:9-10). I wrote more about this in my article Faith and Politics.

Next, the “do not” part, James says we must keep ourselves from being polluted by the world. To do this, we must recognize how much of what surrounds us is drawing us from the things of God and into depravity, and then we must make war against these heart influencers (Pro 4:23, 2 Cor 10:3-6, Eph 6:10-20). We are not to be monks and hide from the world, rather we are to live as exiles among the Babylonians (Jer 29), building and multiplying and praying for the city around us, and at the same time keeping ourselves pure and holy. This is challenging!

We wake up and read the news, which draws our hearts into the muck of divided politics and the nastiness of the murderers and enslavers of our souls, and we get discouraged. We turn on the radio as we drive to work and are influenced by the words of the devil in the music, telling us that we can be free of any restraint and live for pleasure, while still being right with God. By the time we get to work, our minds have created a new religion that shapes how we work and play and treat our families.

I do not have time here to explain in detail how to live this life unpolluted by the world, except to say we must continually be in the word studying and learning from it, in fellowship with other like-hearted believers, and in prayer, constantly working more of Christ into us and getting the world out of us. We must find ways to get the word of God into us every day, to start our day with God’s truth and prayer, to keep a hold of his Ways as we go to work and do our jobs and interact with people, and then after work, how we play and manage our family life (Josh 1:8). We must take off the world by putting on Christ (Eph 4:22-24). And make sure our closest friends, the ones influencing us, have the same goal of pure and faultless religion (1 Cor 15:33, Heb 3:13, Heb 10:24-25).

It is significant that the “do” part of our religion is caring for the poor, and this should shape what outsiders see in us. Is it what people see in our actions and words? Does the world see us mingling with it or keeping pure? What does our religion look like, and does it match what we proclaim as our faith?

Blessings! – Shamar Covenant

(1) (JFB) Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown Commentary, 1871, Public Domain