Book of James - Part 8
November 27, 2022This was Pastor Patrick's last message in this series on the Book of James. A video of the message is here.
[Conversation Starters will begin again with the start of the next official life groups session on February 1, 2023.]
Patrick mentioned that the word "trouble" (James 5:13) in the Greek indicates many forms of trouble. The word in Greek is kakopathei and indeed includes not only trouble, but also sufferings, afflictions, hardships, and suffer evils. It's actually a compound word. Kakos means "of evil disposition" and pathos means pain, so there's an element of painfulness in all the aforementioned meanings. Strong's Concordance goes on to suggest that the word implies the appearance of a setback where there is none necessarily.
Patrick concluded the series on the Book of James by focusing on the last eight verses, James 5:13-20. One of the message points was "Prayer puts the unknown future in the hands of an all-knowing God." And I scribbled down "hope."
As it happens, today is the first Sunday of Advent, and "Hope" is generally the liturgical theme for this Sunday (followed by Peace, Joy, and Love).
Hope in the Old Testament is interesting. And it is the Old Testament, afterall, which started hoping for the Messiah. Two words mean hope, yakhal and qaval. Rather than reiterate what's in this succinct video on the subect, I'll simply point you to the 5-minute video: here.
I was particularly taken by the difference between hope and optimism. Optimisim is focused on circumstances ("it looks like all will be fine") but hope is not. Hope does not need optimism based on conditions, rather it's based solely on faith in God. God's past acts give us hope for the future. Just wait for God who will act in His time. This is the Hope of Advent.
"Hope" in the New Testament is elpis (Greek) which means hope, expectation, trust, and/or confidence. It's from elpo which means to anticipate or welcome. Interestingly, the Greek word suggests more optimism, that what is being hoped for is a sure and good thing (from HELPS Word Study). There is also a Greek goddess of hope named Elpis.
Bonus
Leviticus chapter 23 describes the seven holidays prescribed in the Torah:
- Sabbath (every Fri/Sat)
- Passover (Pesach, Feast of Unleavened Bread)
- Pentecost (Savuot, 49+1 days after Passover)
- Tabernacles ("Booths", Su-kot)
- Eighth Day (Shemini Atzeret, immediately follows Su-kot)
- Rosh Hashanah (New Year}
- Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement)
The United States used to have "cathedrals in time" like Lincoln's birthday, George Washington's birthday, 4th of July, etc. That is until it became more important to have these holidays on Mondays to make for extended weekends. This killed the meaning, much to our loss. Columbus Day went away all together. These were rituals (physical representations of ideas) whose loss means that these ideas, values, are no longer being passed to the next generation. It is literally a crying shame.