James 1:19-21

Hearing and Doing the Word

19 Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger;20 for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God.21 Therefore put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.

Welcome back. I love this section of text. It is commonly misused and misinterpreted. Lets get unpacking. I do want to re-iterate, I am not claiming to be an authority on the text. I have not gone to school for it. I have read, meditated and prayed on the scripture that God's will would be known and be clear to me. He has blessed me with a life filled with consequences, however unfavorable, that has led me to a certain perspective that clarifies what has been muddied before me.

Verse "19 Know this, my dear brothers and sisters: everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to grow angry.20 This is because an angry person doesn’t produce God’s righteousness.

I'll start off by saying Anger isn't bad. And "righteous anger" is the only kind of anger that is good. It is not wrong to become angry, but it is wrong to stay angry and then act on that anger rather than on love. Because love produces God's righteousness. Being quick to listen is not natural. That is not our instinct. And even if you can control what comes out of your mouth, you cannot control what comes internally. I love this particular verse because it helps clarify controlling your emotions. Something happens and you become angry. You cannot control that, it just happens. Realizing that you cannot change your heart, should open your eyes to realizing that only God can change your heart. In realizing that, it becomes easier to revert to that when something comes up that causes you to be angry. We all have things in our life that cause us to become angry. But its with God's love that we can rise above that and be quick to listen, and slow to speak. Because you cannot produce God's righteousness out of anger. Only out of love. And the way to produce righteousness out of love is not speak when you're angry. You do not have control over what emotions you feel. But you do have freedom in the control of which emotion your actions come from.

Verse 21 tells us how to produce God's righteousness. We know this because he starts the sentence off with "therefore". "21 Therefore, with humility, set aside all moral filth and the growth of wickedness, and welcome the word planted deep inside you—the very word that is able to save you."
We produce God's righteousness by not acting out of our flesh (our sin nature) with humility and Welcome Christ who has saved you. He talks about "The Word" the way the gospel of John talks about the Word (John 1:14). Word was with God and the word was with God. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. The Word = Jesus Christ. Therefore, with humility, put to death (Colossians 3:5) sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. Welcome the word planted deep within you. The same word thats able to save you. He's referencing the Trinity. He's recognizing that the Jesus Christ that is able to save you is the same God that is inside of you. And He is inside of you because it is He and only He that is able to save you through faith by grace alone. It all goes back to, hold your identity firmly in Jesus Christ. Embrace the word that is planted deep inside you. That same word is love (1 John 4:8). To have your identity in Christ is to have your identity in love. And when you act out of God's love, you then will produce God's righteousness.