How to Relate

(James, after Jesus -- _ -- _ --)

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Be gentle like your Lord, even with those

like Nicodemus who were teachers of

the lore of God, that Moses gave as chose-

zen by the God who’s source of all that’s “tov”*.

Old James has said it “to the point” as he

learned from his older brother the right way

to be with others in this world where we

are learning from him how we should relate.

He said that all his brothers (in the faith)

should copy that prov-erb-i-al way to

be interacting with folk, in this place

of holy overlapping as things do

in temple here, between Heaven & Earth.

It starts with something to get quickly to:

the art of list’ning, letting that new birth

be shown as it would like to if it true-

ly was alive down here. To give some space#

for things to open up here from above°.

Then see that we will slowly do the grace-

ful thing that is: to speak the truth in love√,

and also to be slow to anger here.

So ask good questions as a way to use

the quick to listen part that would appear

in godly life on Earth, & don't refuse.

It’s concentrating on the other bloke.

It tries to join with God in this whole deal

of what can help in fact, not just with smoke

& mirrors trickery, but in what’s real!

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Footnote

*  tov: Hebrew word for “good”, as in Genesis 1, “God saw that it was good” nine times, and the tenth time “tov tov”;  “God saw that it was very good”.

#  “give some space for things to open up here” is copying both “the big bang”, what God did in making the heavens, & the making of “the sky”, the atmosphere, where most life on Earth lives (in this space between the heavens and the earth), and on the land (space for land animals to live, in between “the waters”, a symbol of chaos.

°  “from above”- Greek ἄνωθέν (anothen), see verse 17 of James 1 (below, in Bibliography), but also used in John 3, in Jesus’ famous statement, misunderstood by Nicodemus, and given the interpretive key by John the Baptist near the end of that chapter, and played on at other times as a Hebraism to not just say “from GOD” all the time.

√  Jesus often models this acting (& even looking) before  speaking, with compassion, while carefully weighing truth spoken (“Amen amen”; famously translated by the KJV as “Verily verily…” and by other translations as “Truly, truly..”), then his apostle Paul later summarises this method to a small group of Jesus followers in present day Turkey as “by truthing it in love, we will grow up to be just like Jesus, really” (Eph 4:15); as John puts it saying in effect let’s not focus on loving words (which can be cheap), but rather on loving actions (1 John 3:18).

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Bibliography

James 1:17-27

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