Receive it the way soil receives seed

James gives an instruction about receiving the Word, and he puts two conditions in front of it.

Therefore put away all moral filth and every expression of evil, and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save your souls.

The verb behind put away is the ordinary word for taking off a garment. Strip it off, the way a man takes off filthy work clothes at the door.

And then humbly accept — the word is meekness, and the older versions render it with meekness receive the engrafted word.

Meekness in the New Testament is not timidity. It is strength that has agreed to be governed — the word used of a horse that has been broken to the bridle without losing its power.

So the posture James asks for is not passivity. It is a man with his own opinions who has decided that this text outranks them.

And the object received is the implanted word — the seed image from Week Five, and the only occurrence of that adjective in the New Testament. Something put in from outside and left in.

Filth and evil, in this sentence, are not primarily crimes. They are what is in the ground when the seed lands. Jesus said the same thing with thorns: nothing dramatic happened, the seed was simply outcompeted.

So the instruction is: clear the ground, then receive what is planted, and do not fight the planting.

And James follows it immediately with the verse this volume opened with in Week One — do not merely listen to the word and so deceive yourselves; do what it says — and then the mirror from Week Seven.

Which is where seventeen weeks arrive, and the ground has not moved.

The Book has been fire, hammer, honey, lamp, sword, seed, milk, mirror, goad, nail, gold, washing, dew, a stumbling stone, a plumb line, a trumpet, a polished arrow, and food ranked above bread. Seventeen threads have been walked from Genesis to Revelation. Its writers have testified, and left their own failures in the record.

And note the tense of the planting. The word is already implanted — James is writing to people in whom something has been put. The receiving he asks for is not the first arrival of the seed but the daily consent to what is already in the ground, which is what makes it an instruction anybody can obey this morning.

And the instruction is still: take off what you came in wearing, and let it be planted.

The word rendered moral filth is ruparia, related to a term for dirty clothing; James uses the related adjective two verses into chapter 2 of a poor man in shabby clothes. The metaphor of removing garments runs through the New Testament for putting off the old self.

Emphutos, implanted or engrafted, occurs only here in the New Testament. Whether it means innate or implanted has been argued; the context of receiving something favors implanted, and the parable of the sower stands behind it.

The phrase which can save your souls attaches saving power to the word received, which sits alongside 1 Peter 1:23 — born again through the living and enduring word of God — and Romans 10:17, faith comes by hearing.

James 1:19–27 is one paragraph: quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger; put away filth; receive the word; do it; look into the perfect law and continue in it; bridle the tongue; visit orphans and widows. The receiving and the doing are never more than a sentence apart.

The paragraph opens with the reason: everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, for man’s anger does not bring about the righteousness God desires. The instruction to receive the word with meekness follows an instruction about temper, which is not an accident.

Look it upG659 ἀποτίθημι apotithemi, to put off, lay aside · G4240 πραὯτης prautes, meekness, gentleness under control · G1721 ἔμφυτος emphutos, implanted, engrafted · G1209 δέχομαι dechomai, to receive, welcome

Where this touchesJames 1:19–27 · Luke 8:11–15 (Week Five, Day Two) · 1 Peter 1:23 · Romans 10:17 · Colossians 3:8–10. The earlier turns were James 1:22–25, Ezra 7:10, the two builders, the Bereans, Colossians 3:16, Psalm 119:11, Acts 20:32, 1 Thessalonians 2:13, 2 Timothy 2:15, Deuteronomy 6, John 8:31, Luke 11:28, 2 Timothy 4:2, Revelation 1:3, Hebrews 2:1 and Psalm 1.