James is not speaking of theological concepts

Posted by Alan Knox on Jan 27, 2011 in blog links, discipleship, love, service | 1 comment

Last week, Arthur from “The Voice of One Crying Out in Suburbia” returned from a trip to Haiti where he was working with orphans. He talks about that trip – and some of the orphans that he met – in a post called “Beoda.”

Arthur’s post is primarily about an 11 year old boy named Beoda who lost his father in the earthquake last year. Apparently, spending time with Beoda and other orphans taught Arthur a very important lessons:

I asked Beoda and another young boy, Stevenson, to write their names in the small Bible I brought with me on the page facing the first chapter of James to remind me that James is not speaking of theological concepts to be debated in the ivy covered halls of academia. He was speaking of real people, real orphans who had their lives turned upside down. Real widows who lost their husband and often had children to care for in a very different, very difficult world. James was writing about Beoda and Selene, about Stevenson, about Kimberly.

Yes. YES! We MUST move beyond theological concepts.

What do you think about when you think of “love”? Do you think of people or concepts? What about service or discipleship or missions? What about orphans or widows? What about the least of these?

If we are still thinking only in terms of theological concepts and if we are not truly living these things among real people with real stories and real names, then we do not understand them at all.