Bible

20 Resolutions From James

Looking to have a God-glorifying, Biblically-centered week?   Consider these 20 resolutions suggested by Sinclair Ferguson.

  • James 1:5 To ask God for wisdom to speak with a single mind
  • James 1:9-10 To boast only in the exaltation of Christ
  • James 1:13 To set a watch over my mouth
  • James 1:19 To be constantly quick to hear, slow to speak
  • James 2:1-4 To learn the gospel way of speaking to the poor and rich
  • James 2:12 To speak always from a consciousness of the final judgment
  • James 2:16 To never stand on anyone’s face with my words
  • James 3:14 To never claim as reality something I do not experience
  • James 4:1 To resist quarrelsome words in order to mortify a quarrelsome heart
  • James 4:11 To never speak evil of another
  • James 4:13 To never boast in what I will accomplish
  • James 4:15 To always speak as one subject to the providences of God
  • James 5:9 To never grumble, knowing that the Judge is at the door
  • James 5:12 To never allow anything but total integrity in my speech
  • James 5:13 To speak to God in prayer whenever I suffer
  • James 5:14 To sing praises to God whenever I am cheerful
  • James 5:14 To ask for the prayers of others when I am sick
  • James 5:15 To confess it freely whenever I have failed
  • James 5:15 To pray with and for one another when I am together with others
  • James 5:19 To speak words of restoration when I see another wander

3 Comments

  1. So what does it mean “To never stand on anyone’s face with my words”? and What does James 2:16 have to do with it?

  2. Good question, Tom. I had never heard that phrase before either. Ferguson is Scottish… perhaps that’s a more common phrase where he’s from 😉

    I took it basically to mean an empty promise that really turns out to be an insult. In the larger context…

    “What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace, be warmed and filled,’ without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead” (James 2:14-17).

    If I’d like others to think I’m concerned and compassionate but do nothing to show that concern and compassion, in a sense I’m “standing on the face” of that person, making empty, godless promises.

    That’s my take, for what it’s worth.

  3. Thanks for your reply.

    I was able to make a similar deduction from an exposition of James 2:16.

    What I don’t know is the idiom, the other word picture, that makes this phrase alive. I checked word use and idioms in the old and new testaments, British, and Scottish idioms as they can be found on the internet but I could not discover an example or explanation of this word picture.

    It is a Far Side-ish picture of extreme personal interaction, worthy of appearing in the Proverbs, but I cannot quite refocus the caricature into something that makes sense.

    Keep it in the back of your head. Maybe someone else will have come across it or has the ability to contact Sinclair Ferguson.

    Thanks again,
    Tom

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