SUMMARY
True “religion” is this: to care for orphans and widows and to keep oneself unstained by the world.
ANALYSIS
This familiar verse is not such a bad way to summarize the practical implications of the theology and exhortation that characterize the book of James. Wisdom as the gift of God and primary benefit of the believing community is intensely practical. The “implanted word” of God is able to save souls, and that salvation is evidenced in action. Such action has a double focus. First, it involves avoidance of all that characterizes earthly “wisdomWisdom encompasses the qualities of experience, knowledge, and good judgment. The Old Testament book of Proverbs, which sometimes invokes a Woman as the personification of Wisdom, is a collection of aphorisms and moral teachings. Along with other biblical passages, it teaches, "The fear of the... More”: partiality, conflict, desire, arrogance, and the like. Also, it fulfills the perfect law of liberty exercised in the care of the needy and oppressed, symbolized in the specific reference to the orphan and the widow, the supreme examples of at-risk people in the first-century world. “Religion” here has a very “this-worldly” ring to it. The exercise of godly wisdom on behalf of the poor and needy, to carry out the call to love of neighbor, is the supreme spiritual activity (see James 3:17-18).
