Doers Under the Lord

The same lesson runs through these readings: a man is not established by rank, zeal, or bold speech, but by humble obedience before God. David ordered Israel well, appointed courses, stewards, officers, and treasures; yet when he desired to build the house, he did not seize holy work for himself. He received the Lord’s refusal and charged Solomon to keep the commandments and seek God with a perfect heart. This is wisdom: not to grasp, but to submit.

Obadiah shows the opposite spirit. Edom said in its heart that it would rise high, but pride builds on smoke and is cast down. James presses the matter into daily life. Temptation does not master a man by necessity, nor is hearing the word enough. Trial must produce steadfastness, and steadfastness must ripen into obedient action. As Origen says, “that woman is not a complete and absolute cause or necessity of his transgressing, since it is in his power, by remembering his resolution, to bridle the incitements to lust, and by the stern admonitions of virtue to restrain the pleasure of the allurement that solicits him;” The battle is near at hand: the tongue, desire, anger, partial obedience, neglected mercy.

Therefore ask not for lofty things while refusing plain ones. The true house of God is not raised by proud hands, but by a people who receive correction, bridle themselves, endure testing, and do what they have heard. So the church rightly prays, “Fit us to become hearers, and not only hearers, but doers of Your word, that we, becoming fruitful, and yielding good fruit from thirty to an hundred fold, may be deemed worthy of the kingdom of heaven.”