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THE TEACHABLE SPIRIT

James 1:21

So then strip yourself of all filthiness and of the excrescence of vice, and in gentleness receive the inborn word which is able to save your souls.

JAMES uses a series of vivid words and pictures.

He tells his readers to strip themselves of all vice and filthiness. The word he uses for strip is the word used for stripping off one’s clothes. He tells his hearers to get rid of all defilement as they would strip off soiled garments or as a snake casts off its skin.

Both the words he uses for defilement are vivid. The word we have translated as filthiness is ruparia, and it can be used for the filth which soils clothes or soils the body. But it has one very interesting connection. It is derived from rupos; and, when rupos is used in a medical sense, it means wax in the ear. It is just possible that it still retains that meaning here, and that James is telling his readers to get rid of everything which would stop their ears to the true word of God. When wax gathers in the ear, it can make us deaf; and our sins can make us deaf to God. Further, James talks of the excrescence (perisseia), the ugly growth, of vice. He thinks of vice as tangled undergrowth or a cancerous tumour which must be cut away.

He bids them receive the inborn word in gentleness. The word for inborn is emphutos, and it has two possible general meanings.

(1) It can mean inborn in the sense of innate as opposed to acquired. If James uses it in that way, he is thinking of much the same thing as Paul was thinking of when he spoke of the Gentiles doing the works of the law by nature because they have a kind of law in their hearts (Romans 2:14–15); it is the same picture as the Old Testament picture of the law ‘very near to you; it is in your mouth and in your heart’ (Deuteronomy 30:14). It is practically equal to our word conscience. If this is its meaning here, James is saying that there is an instinctive knowledge of good and evil in the human heart whose guidance we should at all times obey.

(2) It can mean inborn in the sense of implanted, as a seed is planted in the ground. In 2 Esdras [4 Ezra] 9:31, we read of God saying: ‘For I sow my law in you . . . and you shall be glorified in it forever.’ If James is using the word in this sense, the idea may well go back to the parable of the sower (Matthew 13:1–8), which tells how the seed of the word is sown into the hearts of men and women. Through his prophets and his preachers, and above all through Jesus Christ, God sows his truth into our hearts, and those who are wise will receive it and welcome it.

It may well be that we are not required to make a choice between these two meanings. It may well be that James is implying that knowledge of the true word of God comes to us from two sources, from the depths of our own being, and from the Spirit of God and the teaching of Christ and human preaching. From inside and from outside come voices telling us the right way; and those who are wise will listen and obey.

They will receive the word with gentleness. Gentleness is an attempt to translate the untranslatable word prautēs. This is a great Greek word which has no precise English equivalent. Aristotle defined it as the mid-point between excessive anger and excessive angerlessness; it is the quality of the person whose feelings and emotions are under perfect control. Andronicus Rhodius, the Greek philosopher, commenting on Aristotle, writes: ‘Prautēs is moderation in regard to anger . . . You might define prautēs as serenity and the power, not to be led away by emotion, but to control emotion as right reason dictates.’ The Platonic definitions say that prautēs is the regulation of the movement of the soul caused by anger. It is the temperament (krasis ) of a soul in which everything is mixed in the right proportions.

No one can ever find one English word to translate what is a one-word summary of the truly teachable spirit. The teachable spirit is docile and tractable, and therefore humble enough to learn. The teachable spirit is without resentment and without anger and is, therefore, able to face the truth, even when it hurts and condemns. The teachable spirit is not blinded by its own overriding prejudices but is clear-eyed to the truth. The teachable spirit is not seduced by laziness but is so self-controlled that it can willingly and faithfully accept the discipline of learning. Prautēs describes the perfect conquest and control of everything in a person’s nature which would be a hindrance to seeing, learning and obeying the truth.