John Bytheway: 00:01 Keep listening for part two with Dr. J.B. Haws, the Book of James.

Hank Smith: 00:07 You talk about the tongue is a fire. That’s Chapter 3. The tongue can no man tame.

Dr. J.B. Haws: 00:14 My guess is we’re in good company. We’re all going to be in good company. This is why I think the tongue of angels talk resonated with people is that one of the questions is, well, what do we do? I think this is one of those things that we can pray that the Spirit maybe holds us back. I think about section 63 of the Doctrine & Covenants is this passage about being careful about how we speak about sacred things. Then it uses this interesting word, the constraint of the spirit. If we expand what we think about our relationships, those that are created in the image of God as being sacred things and we’re being so careful how we speak about them, I think that could be one next step is that I can pray that the Spirit will restrain me and constrain me, so hold me back.

  01:00 Then sometimes when I shouldn’t say something, it’d push me forward when I should say something and to be more sensitive to those nudgings, that’s one thing the Spirit can help us do is to give us those feelings. Don’t say what you’re just about to say. I want to be that receptive and to listen.

Hank Smith: 01:17 I call them emotion urges. You feel an emotion, anger or fear and this urge comes, “I better say this.” And if you can say, “Nope, I’m not going to follow my emotional urge, I’m going to hold back,” that’s like a controlling the tongue.

Dr. J.B. Haws: 01:34 That’s good, Hank. I think that’s the bit in the horse, something really powerful. Or a rudder, how much wind force can be controlled with just a little rudder?

Hank Smith: 01:44 Very small rudder.

Dr. J.B. Haws: 01:46 That’s good. I like that emotional urge and then the restraint to be able to say, “I’m not going to do it.”

John Bytheway: 01:51 President Hinckley was talking to the Aaronic Priesthood and there are so many good things in this statement. He said, “When you as a priest kneel at the sacrament table and offer up the prayer, which came by revelation, you place the entire congregation under covenant with the Lord.” And he said, “Is this a small thing? It is the most important and remarkable thing.” And that is amazing, that a priest, a 16, 17, 18-year-old with that priesthood authority can place the entire congregation under covenant. He said, “It is the most important and remarkable thing. It is totally wrong for you to use filthy and unseemly talk at school or work and then kneel at the sacrament table on Sunday. As those holding his holy priesthood you must be a worthy vessel,” something like that.

  02:38 I’m looking at verse 10, “Out of the same mouth proceedeth both blessing and cursing.” I love this. James is shaking his head, “My brethren, these things ought not so to be.” I like what you’re saying. That’s the same mouth you’re using. As Elder Holland said in that talk, “You’re bearing your testimony one week and then you’re berating people on another day with the same mouth. There’s something wrong with this.” I think that’s what James is hitting on here.

Dr. J.B. Haws: 03:09 I love that this theme just keeps weaving its way throughout this wonderful book. Here’s James 4:11, “Speak not evil one of another brethren. He that speaketh evil of his brother and judges his brother speaketh evil of the law and judges the law. But if thou judge the law, thou are not a doer of the law, but a judge.” There’s something about this again, about this humility, about this recognition of how we treat each other. This calls to my mind one of those other lightning moment talks. Elder Cree-L Kofford gave this talk, Your Name is Safe in our House. That was a lightning bolt talk for me. This idea that making a pact that your name is safe in our house. Even when you’re not there, even when you’re not present, your name is safe.

John Bytheway: 03:57 Thank you for bringing that up, J.B.. I have that talk right in front of me, so that’s your April 1999 General Conference. Let me just quote one paragraph, “What a blessing it would be if each of our names truly could be safe in the home of others. Have you noticed how easy it is to find fault with other people? All too often we seek to be excused from the very behavior we condemn in others. Mercy for me, justice for everyone else is a much too common addiction. When we deal with the name and reputation of another, we deal with something sacred in the sight of the Lord.”

Dr. J.B. Haws: 04:34 Wow, that’s so powerful. This one really had an impact. It was one of those talks for me that just thunder clapped. I’m thinking again, well, how do I get there? And back in James 4:8, so we’re just a couple verses before the 4:11 one, he says, “Draw nigh to God. He will draw nigh to you.” I mean, that’s such great counsel, this wisdom literature. But then here’s this interesting line, “Cleanse your hands ye sinners and purify your hearts, ye double-minded.” I’m wondering how this could be practical. I’m going to turn again to a great thought from Richard Bushman. I love what he has said about the pure heart. He’s thinking about this in terms of someone who has had a great education, has learned some things. Sometimes that can create a bit of pride, a bit of arrogance like you want to come into a classroom.

  05:21 He was talking to teachers. He said, “If you come into a classroom and you want to just show off, you want to just amaze people with how much you know, and you want to slaughter some sacred cows or burst some bubbles and it’s all about, ‘Look at me, look how much I know,'” he said, “That’s not going to go down.” But then he said, “If you come in with a pure heart,” and that is how we define a pure heart, “your only desire is to bless people.” He’s talking to teachers, he said, “It’s going to come across completely different.” I love that definition as a working definition of a pure heart, “Your only desire is to bless people.”

Hank Smith: 05:50 One of the ways, I think, we can build trust with our children is how we talk about others who are not present. But when I get home from church, if I’m talking poorly about the bishop, or the Elders Quorum president, or Relief Society president, or one of the teachers, it might teach them that, “Hey, when people aren’t present, I say things that I wouldn’t say if they were present. Maybe I hurt trust with them.” Stephen Covey, we’ve mentioned him today, “One of the most important ways to manifest integrity is to be loyal to those who are not present. In doing so, we build the trust of those who are present.”

Dr. J.B. Haws: 06:30 That’s powerful. Hank, I know this is one of your areas of research and expertise is this idea of building trust and that just rings so true.

John Bytheway: 06:38 I’m still on, “Cleanse your hands, ye sinners. Purify your hearts, ye double-minded.” I’m sure our listeners are going, “Hey, that’s that clean hands, pure hearts thing.” Clean hands are actions and pure hearts are intents. Elder Bednar talked about the Atonement not only cleanses us, but changes us. Cleanses us from past sins and purifies our intents for our futures. That’s a theme that we see all over, clean hands, pure heart,

Hank Smith: 07:06 It does come from within us. Elder Holland said this, “The tongue of angels,” we obviously, have been talking about it so much, we want everybody to go listen to it again, but he says, “It goes without saying that negative speaking often flows from negative thinking, negative thinking about ourselves. We see our own faults. We speak critically of ourselves. Before long, that’s how we see everyone. No sunshine, no roses, no promise of hope or happiness. Before long, we and everybody around us are miserable.” He says, “Speak hopefully. Speak encouragingly, including about yourself.” And then he said, “Try not to moan and complain. As someone once said, ‘Even in the Golden Age of civilization, someone undoubtedly grumbled that everything looked too yellow.'”

John Bytheway: 07:53 Golden age.

Dr. J.B. Haws: 07:55 There’s another Elder Holland gem. Oh, I love it.

Hank Smith: 07:59 Cleanse your hands and purify your heart sounds like, let’s have you see yourself in a glorious way and then you’ll start to see others in a glorious way. It comes from within.

John Bytheway: 08:13 Hank and J.B., I wanted to jump back a bit, because I remember President Oaks saying something that startled me at first. He said, “The primary reason for the commandment to avoid criticism is to protect the spiritual wellbeing of the criticizer, not the person we would criticize,” which was, oh, I don’t know if we say something ill about somebody if it really hurts them, but it hurts us. It reveals where our heart is at.

Dr. J.B. Haws: 08:41 Oh, that’s profound. This is a flash from the past, but I remember when the three of us were talking about Doctrine and Covenants 10. There’s that great line where the Lord’s revealing to Joseph Smith talking about the plot to discredit him. The Lord said that Satan desired to drag the deceivers, the forgers, down to hell. All he cares about is making people miserable by bringing them in and convincing them that they could undermine Joseph Smith. His only goal was to drag them down. Interesting to think about those parallels that the spiritual welfare of the criticizer that sometimes Satan is, I mean, he’s just interested in making us miserable. He’s just interested in sometimes even making people feel justified in their criticisms, because he realizes that he can drag down our souls.

  09:26 Maybe in the same line, and Hank, that quoting of Elder Holland about thinking of ourselves, it’s such a powerful principle, it makes me think of James 4:7, this last sentence. So, the first sentence is, “Submit yourselves therefore to God,” but this last sentence, “Resist the devil and he will flee from you.” An Ezra Taft Benson line October 1974, “Do not despair.” He said this great line, “There are times when you simply have to righteously hang on and outlast the devil until his depressive spirit leaves you.” I think this is a temptation, “a devilish, discouragement temptation,” in Elder Maxwell’s phrase as to how we think about ourselves. That’s one way I think we can resist the devil. We can outlast the devil and his depressive spirit until it leaves us. Sometimes that depressive spirit is about how we see ourselves.

Hank Smith: 10:22 J.B., I want to quote you back to you. You can tell me how much you love this quote, because it came from such a brilliant person who’s with us today. This is back to your BYU devotional, Wrestling with Comparisons. It fits right here to what we’re talking about. You said, “There is no question that you and I are going to fail at many things we attempt to do. In the eyes of those making comparisons, we all are repeatedly going to fall short. There’s always a bigger fish, so to speak. You are going to get emails, voicemails, text messages, maybe even this very day notifying you that someone else was hired for a job, that someone else was picked for a team, that someone else is not interested in a second date, that someone else was called as Relief Society president and so on.”

  11:05 “But do not take that as a mark of your worth. Disappointments seem, but they can be wonderfully, albeit painful, formative. All things can really work together to the good of them that love God. Do not let the temptation to compare or give these disappointments destructive power.” What a wonderful message you gave to BYU students and really, to anyone who listens. Really fits well with what James is saying, that this really hurts you. All this comparison and backbiting and evil speaking, it hurts you.

Dr. J.B. Haws: 11:40 Oh, I couldn’t say it better, Hank. I couldn’t say it better.

Hank Smith: 11:43 I like that. Couldn’t say it better, because it was you.

Dr. J.B. Haws: 11:48 Well, the way you summed it up.

Hank Smith: 11:49 That quote came from a pretty smart guy, J.B.. What do you think about?

Dr. J.B. Haws: 11:54 Or someone who’s had a lot of experience with failure, which is the truth.

Hank Smith: 12:00 How do I do that? How do I not feel disappointed when someone else gets something I was hoping for? How do I resist the devil that way, speak not evil of anyone?

Dr. J.B. Haws: 12:11 You’ve asked one of those $64,000 discipleship questions. Here’s a James thought. Actually, I hadn’t even really maybe lined these up in these two, but here’s some other verses that are very, very interesting. This is James 4:13-17. He’s already hit on this theme a little bit in Chapter 1, but this is verse 13 of Chapter 4. “Go to now ye that say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go in such a city and continue there a year and buy and sell and get gain,’ whereas ye know not what you shall be on the morrow for what is your life? It is even a vapor that appeareth for a little time and then vanisheth away.” He talked in Chapter 1 about the flowers that withereth pretty quickly in the scorching heat of the sun. There’s something powerful I think about that kind of humility that we realize our moments in the sun are fleeting. Youth is fleeting.

  13:03 As I was reading that, I had this memory of one of my great, favorite basketball teammates. When we were in our 20s, he was trying to get a C- League team together. A couple of guys were hemming and hawing and he’s like, “Come on, guys, we’ve got to play now, because there will come a time when we’re going to be too old to play.” That didn’t seem real as a 20-year-old, and in a flash of an eye, it’s real now. There’s something that James would have a say about the fleetingness of our glory days. And by remembering that it helps, keeps us a little more grounded, recognizing that that’s not what it’s all about.

  13:37 The C.S. Lewis quote, I don’t have this one in front of me, but let’s see if we can get paraphrase. But he said, “When you meet a truly humble man, you’re not going to meet a man who is what the world is thinking of as humble, who’s always telling people, ‘I’m not that great,’ or, “Don’t pay attention to me.'” He said, “The only thing you’ll notice is that he was a friendly chap who seemed to take a great deal of interest in what you were saying. He won’t be thinking about humility. He won’t be thinking about himself at all.”

  14:05 So then James goes on to say verse 16 of Chapter 4, “But now you rejoice in your boastings. All such rejoicing’s evil. Therefore, to him that knoweth to do good and doeth it not, to him it is sin.” You just have the sense that he’s almost saying, “Keep in mind that humility comes from not thinking so much about ourselves.” So much easier said than done.

Hank Smith: 14:26 If I’m truly humble, I won’t be walking into a meeting or a conversation thinking, “Okay, I’m going to be really humble. I will just be who I am.” Oh, man, that’s hard, J.B..

Dr. J.B. Haws: 14:37 Oh, it is. But I think it starts with that idea of, and I like what John said, it’s our actions and our motives. That’s maybe the place that we try to tame. As we try to tame our motives, what are we really hoping to happen? What are we really hoping will come about? Oh, it’s tough.

Hank Smith: 14:53 John, you’ve heard me say it many times, my lessons go differently if I’m trying to impress than if I’m trying to bless. The lesson that I’m teaching is so different. And I think J.B. said that about Richard Bushman, “If I’m walking into a class ready to impress, I’m going to fall flat.”

John Bytheway: 15:11 I was on a plane with Virginia Hinckley Pearce going to speak to the same Singles Conference in California. This is when President Hinckley was the president of the church. And she said to me, “I just don’t know what to say to these people. I don’t know how to help them. I was talking to my dad and he said, Well, don’t worry about pleasing them. Just please the Lord. That helped me tremendously. Who I’m trying to please is Heavenly Father and point people to Christ. That’s what I’m trying to do.”

Dr. J.B. Haws: 15:41 Hank, I think you modeled something for us that I think is one of the keys. When we’re this honest with ourselves, that’s probably a significant part of the battle, when we can be honest and say, “There is a difference in my lessons when I try to impress versus try to bless.” There’s something about that kind of humility that feels Jamesesque that we are admitting that. That’s a key that’s worth highlighting, is that when we can model that kind of honesty and humility and recognize it in ourselves, then we’re on our way, I think.

John Bytheway: 16:13 We all wrestle with that, don’t we? You want people to feel the spirit of the Lord and feel healed and motivated or helped. You’re not just trying to impress. Thanks for keeping it real, Hank, because we struggle with that, don’t we?

Dr. J.B. Haws: 16:27 Yeah. In Chapter 3, verse 1, this one really stood out to me because in the New Revised Standard Version, or maybe the Oxford English Bible, one of these, “My brethren, seek not to be teachers,” is how they rendered this, “knowing that we shall receive the greater condemnation.” You get this sense that James is saying, “Be cautious before you seek to become a teacher,” because the way I’m reading is everything you say is going to be measured against the direction of your life.

  16:54 Don’t we all feel that? You can just even imagine people who are listening to this episode, who are thinking like, “Oh, yeah, right. I can think of this litany of episodes where you have not lived up to what you’re preaching there.” It’s a real important theme I hear James speaking to us about getting our desires right and how do we do that?

John Bytheway: 17:14 It’s true. We’re sitting here talking about your name is safe in our home, and I’m like, “Have I been critical of anybody?” This is why we do this. We need reminders. We need course corrections. We all need that. What would President Uchtdorf say? “We’re probably off course most of the time. An airliner is off course most of the time and we keep making corrections.” I just think it’s so interesting that we’re directed to study the scriptures every day, not once a year, because we need to be making corrections and being reminded of the things we’re talking about every day, because I needed these reminders today. When you get that feeling, “I got to do better, I got to be better,” that’s a good place to be, even if it’s painful.

Dr. J.B. Haws: 17:58 Well said, John. This is how the Book of James, I think, is just so memorable for all of us and why as readers of the Bible we love this book, because it is that. Seeing ourselves in the mirror of the law and just being doers, and what things can we see in ourselves? I think you summed that up beautifully.

Hank Smith: 18:15 J.B., one more question. I’m going to take one thing away from you and that is you can’t tell me you’re not this way. I just want to be taught. Honestly, want to be taught. In my interactions with you, I’ve known you, goodness, 12, 13 years. I’ve known you.

Dr. J.B. Haws: 18:30 That’s right.

Hank Smith: 18:30 You use that mouth of yours for so much good. What happens inside of you that makes that part of your character?

Dr. J.B. Haws: 18:41 It’s a tough one, Hank. You’ve been very kind. You give me something to shoot for. In this great book, Our Latter-day Hymns, Karen Lynn Davidson sought out the backstory of every one of our hymns. The one for Lord, I Would Follow Thee, that just rings around in my mind all the time. Susan Evans McLeod was the lyricist and she tells the story that her younger sister called her to go with her to shop for a burial dress for her infant daughter, who had died. Before her sister came to pick her up, if I’m remembering the story right, she just knelt in prayer and just basically said, “Heavenly Father, no one who interacts with my sister today is going to know what’s happening. Please, please bless people to be kind.”

  19:30 Then they go out shopping and she says, “Of course, no one knew.” Some people were kind. Some people weren’t. This is just the daily life. She said that was the story she had in mind and she wrote, Lord, I would Follow Thee. So you think about that line, “In the quiet heart is hidden sorrow that the eye can’t see.” I think that’s the story that we remember. The President Eyring, great quote where, “If you think that half the people you’re dealing with are carrying hidden burdens, then you’re going to be right every time.” What you both said earlier of how much we feel like we need mercy and need love and compassion for everything that we’re experiencing and carrying, boy, that makes us want to give that so much to other people, because we know the things that we’re carrying.

  20:15 If we think, “Wow, if I could just remember that that person is carrying something I don’t know about. In the heart is hidden sorrow that the eye can’t see, then how can I not try to treat them like someone who needs that boost?” Those aren’t easy things to remember and I want to remember them more.

Hank Smith: 20:33 J.B., a couple more points I’d ask you to comment on, let’s talk about faith and works. James seems to take this on. He’s being a touch sarcastic here. He says in Chapter 2, verse 15, “If a brother or sister be naked and destitute of daily food and you would just look at them and say, ‘Be ye warmed and filled,'” but you don’t give them anything-

John Bytheway: 20:54 Don’t worry. Be happy.

Hank Smith: 20:57 That’s right. “Even so, faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone.” J.B., I’m sure you’ve had in your interfaith work, you’ve had the faith versus works concept. What comes to your mind when we talk about faith and works? I’ll give you one idea before we hand it over to you, and that is just a couple of weeks ago we had Dr. Richardson. And he said, “It’s like someone says, ‘Heads or tails,’ and you say, ‘Both.'” And he said, “You can’t say both.” And he says, “I just want the quarter.” There are two sides of the same coin. So, what would you say here, this discussion James has about faith and works?

Dr. J.B. Haws: 21:35 Oh, I love it. I’m so glad you’ve raised this in such a good way. One thing that I appreciate about some really great commentators and two that I’ll maybe highlight, Raymond Brown, a fantastic Roman Catholic scholar of the New Testament and then Craig Blomberg, who is a wonderful evangelical Christian partner in a lot of the BYU evangelical Christian interfaith dialogues has just been a pioneer in that. He’s written a great commentary on the New Testament coming from different theological places.

  22:03 I like how many commentators are saying that Martin Luther, who I have all kinds of admiration for and who I think about the way his own religious life and spiritual life, and as John said really nicely earlier in our conversation, just had felt the beauties of grace that had just relieved him from so many pressures that had just been weighing on him. His commentary about James may have confused the point. It’s good that even commentators from different religious traditions now are coming to the place of saying that James and Paul aren’t disagreeing. There’s a misreading here. What James seems to be doing is trying to correct people who were misreading Paul.

  22:41 James was probably aware that some people were taking Paul the wrong way, and that Paul is talking about ritual adherence to the law of Moses, that kinds of works, righteousness, doing these rituals, circumcision, that was not going to save you. And that some people at the time were taking that way too far. So what James is saying back is saying, “No, you can’t say you have faith if this doesn’t transform your life. If you’re not doing something differently, if you’re not becoming something, if you’re not doing works of charity, then you can’t say that you have faith.” In other words, James is taking a misunderstanding of Paul and saying, “We’re going the wrong way.” I think that’s huge.

  23:21 Here’s a really nice Latter-day Saint take on this, what might be perceived as a conflict between faith and works. I think this captures that sense of the unity. This comes from David Holland, who teaches at the Harvard Divinity School, a brilliant mind. He wrote this essay in the Oxford Handbook on Mormonism. It’s about open canon and revelation. I love what he says here. He’s talking about the restoration thinking suggests the possibility that, “A great profusion of divine words, even with many of those words in tension with each other might result in a greater unity of purpose and understanding than a smaller, more restrained set of revelations.” This is a great concept. I think that more revelations, even if they’re sometimes in tension, brings us to a closer understanding.

  24:10 “At first blush, such a suggestion seems dubious. It is difficult to see how more complexity might result in more coherence. But like brush strokes on a canvas, the endless marks of revelation that color the lives of Latter-day Saints may, in their multiplicity, resolve or more accurately dissolve some contradictions rather than intensify them. A few strokes of red crossing a few strokes of yellow convey the ideas of conflict, but scores of red strokes crossing scores of yellow strokes convey the idea of orange.”

  24:44 “In like manner, Paul’s emphasis on grace and James’s celebration of works struck a reader like Martin Luther as incongruous. The relative preponderance of Paul’s statements seemed to carry the day. But Latter-day Saints living with endless statements in support of both human works and atoning grace have over time watched their boundaries blur into one ineffably understood truth, which they seem to demonstrate everlast interest in separating.”

Hank Smith: 25:17 That’s fantastic.

Dr. J.B. Haws: 25:18 Isn’t that beautifully said?

John Bytheway: 25:20 Some people know how to be writers.

Dr. J.B. Haws: 25:23 Isn’t that image great about the red and yellow might seem in conflict, but what they’re really trying to portray is something new, so that’s orange. I’ll just say what this one calls to my mind, this discussion of James is President Oaks, The Challenge to Become talk, which he reprised so much in this last general conference, that what we’re really talking about is becoming something. It’s the Savior’s grace that changes us and enables us and empowers us, but he gives us the right to choose. And we demonstrate our choice, our agency, by the things that we do. That shapes us and then we’re becoming something. Faith without works is meaningless, because we can’t become something unless we choose something. The Savior’s grace gives us the right to choose to become what he offers us to become.

Hank Smith: 26:11 Man, I really love that idea that you can bring them together, and discussing them more and more and more will bring them even more together. Clarity comes from even more-

John Bytheway: 26:24 Blurring of the strokes or something.

Dr. J.B. Haws: 26:25 That’s right.

John Bytheway: 26:27 We see orange. We’re not in silos of faith and works maybe.

Dr. J.B. Haws: 26:32 I think it’s a reminder. One of Paul’s warnings that I just think comes through really clearly is that he wants to remind us that there’s nothing we have to boast of. I mean, there’s just no way we can boast of ourselves that we can save ourselves. I hear James coming from a completely different place of saying that in the opposite way is that we have to be really careful about saying that we have faith if we’re not willing to be changed, if we’re not willing to be different.

  26:59 This is a pretty homey analogy, but I love water skiing. I often think of this grace works thing is like a water skier. No matter how accomplished someone is as a water skier, no matter how strong they are a swimmer, there is just no way they’re going to be able to water ski without a boat. I mean, there’s nothing they could do on their own. They could never say, “I can do this on my own.” But at the same time, if you don’t choose to respond to the boat, if you do nothing but attach a rope to you, there’s no way you’re going to water ski. You’re going to just be dragged into the water.

  27:27 It’s these two things working in tandem. You can never boast and say, “I can do this without the boat.” But if you don’t respond to the boat and you make those choices, nothing’s going to happen either.

Hank Smith: 27:36 That’s wonderful. The wonderful experience about it is both. It’s both together.

Dr. J.B. Haws: 27:42 I love that idea too, that it’s constant. I mean, the grace is all along the way. It’s always the enabling power, not something at the end, not something that’s compensating for as much as we can do. It’s all along the way.

Hank Smith: 27:57 It can be an incredible experience. It doesn’t have to be an argument as much as it can be a synergistic experience of both grace and works and that tension, that beauty between them both can really take you to a higher place.

John Bytheway: 28:14 Maybe it’s we’ve come to Christ. Now, we’re trying to become like Christ. Our efforts to become like Christ and the measure of how well we’re doing isn’t what saves us or not. We’ve come to Christ. We’ve accepted his gospel. We’ve repented. We’ve been baptized. But now, we’re trying to become like him because he asked us to. I like the idea of striving. Like you said, it’s what Elder Oaks called, becoming. I have done good works with the wrong motives so many times. I’ve gone home teaching the last day of the month. But if I were to sit there and say, “Well, I’m going to wait until my motives are absolutely perfect,” I probably wouldn’t have done anything. I can see how I can’t just wait to have perfect motives either.

  28:58 I like the idea of striving and I hope the Lord will purify my heart and my motives and I’ll get to a place where I’ve got the right motives and I’m just naturally a nice person like J.B. is. But I’m going to keep working on it. That’s why I like the idea of becoming. I can see the tension there, but I also see the value in striving. President Menlo Smith used to say, “The Lord gets the work done through his people, but he gets his people done through the work.” He’s changing us by doing his work.

  29:32 “But it’s the grace of Christ is before, during, and after,” as Elder Hafen said. When have we ever not had the grace of Christ in our lives and the chance that we have to live and breathe, as King Benjamin might say? We’ve always had the grace of Christ. Like you said, J.B., it’s not a after, “Well, we’re waiting to see how this all adds up to see if we need grace to kick in.”

Dr. J.B. Haws: 29:55 That’s right.

John Bytheway: 29:56 Our friend Brad Wilcox has talked about that. Many have. It’s some helpful discussions. Thank you for saying that James is responding to…

Hank Smith: 30:05 A trend.

Dr. J.B. Haws: 30:07 I think that can rehabilitate what sometimes is seen as an intra New Testament argument, but it just rings true to me that that’s not the case. I think it’s corrective on a misunderstanding and saying, “Be careful about misreading this,” and that they are supporting each other and I think that’s powerful.

Hank Smith: 30:27 J.B., as I looked at Chapter 5, the last chapter in James, I saw a lot about patience and endurance. “Patience until the Lord comes, we count them happy, which endure.” What is James getting after here?

Dr. J.B. Haws: 30:42 Like with the other places in this book, I’m impressed with his analogies. I think they’re memorable. This one struck me in Chapter 5 or 7, “Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth and have long patience for it until he received the early and latter rain. Be also patient. Establish your hearts for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh.”

  31:08 I love fruit. Can’t get enough of it. We have some fruit trees in our yard. We have this apple tree and I love apples and I’ve always loved eating the unripe green apples, but we got this apple tree thinking it was a variety that we really love, jonagold. I have to admit, the first couple years I just was so upset about this tree. We almost came to the point where I wanted to get rid of it. I said to Laura, my wife, I’m like, “This tree is just not what I expected.” She’s so wise. She said, “You are eating the apples before they’re ready.” And I’m like, “No, no,” because I was even trying to hold myself back, because I loved to eat the apples too early.

  31:47 I said, “No, I think they already have turned.” And she said, “No, no.” She convinced me last year to wait one week longer. The apples really reddened up that last week. They were totally different. I couldn’t believe it. I mean, for a couple of years I was just so impatient and I was eating them. And that one week, it really was a one-week difference, changed these apples.

Hank Smith: 32:14 I can see Laura laughing at this.

Dr. J.B. Haws: 32:16 Oh, yeah. She will confirm, because this has been a point of discussion for the last couple of years, and so she convinced me I was totally, totally wrong. It makes me think of this husbandman and fruit analogy is that sometimes it might even be that last, tiny bit, that there’s just a little bit more patience needed, that holding on just a little bit longer, the fourth watch of the night, I mean, all kinds of scriptural stories that I think just come in.

  32:44 This is another one that popped into my mind. Elder Richard G. Scott’s got such great things to say about revelation. He tells this story about receiving some really important revelation. There was enough that he could even write down some thoughts. But then he did something that I don’t do enough. He said, “Is there more?” And he prayed. After he’d gotten quite a bit, he’s like, “Is there more?” That’s on my mind with this patience, this last week of the fruit ripening, this holding on is that sometimes when we’re trying to be patient and suffering, maybe it’s that last week that the sweetness is going to be revealed.

  33:21 Maybe it’s that thinking we’ve gotten a lesson, we’ve gotten the message, but maybe to have that slowing down like Elder Scott and saying, “Is there more? Is there one more bit?” Maybe that’s the patience that James is recommending to us.

John Bytheway: 33:34 I’m remembering in section 4, the revelation to Joseph Smith Sr. about the Lord says, “Remember, patience in there.” My hope is that if the Lord’s asking us to be patient, then that means he is patient with us and that he’s long-suffering with us and he is. According to the scriptures he is. I’m so grateful for that, that he can be patient with our ups and downs and our messing up on the covenant path and getting back on. If the Lord’s preaching patience, I know that means he’s got it mastered and he can be patient with us.

Hank Smith: 34:10 I think this falls back in with the way we treat each other as well. When you are patiently waiting, maybe in affliction like James says here, or if you’re trying to be patient in the coming of the Lord, patience, that stretch can make you a little more snarky with each other. Elder Uchtdorf said, “Waiting can be hard. Children know it and so do adults. We live in a world offering fast food, instant messages, on-demand movies and immediate answers. We don’t like to wait. Some even feel their blood pressure rise when their line at the grocery store moves slower than the lines around them.” That’s never happened to me.

Dr. J.B. Haws: 34:48 Guilty as charged.

Hank Smith: 34:51 He says, “We want what we want and we want it now. The idea of patience may seem unpleasant and bitter, but,'” he says, “nevertheless, without patience we cannot please God. We cannot become perfect.” It ties me back to what James has been saying is, “Be patient, but in your patience, be gentle.”

Dr. J.B. Haws: 35:10 Fantastic.

John Bytheway: 35:12 There’s a verse in Luke that says, “In your patience, you will possess your souls.” I’ve always wondered what that means, because I feel like we’ve also heard talks about having a sense of urgency, so which one is it? I don’t know. Be patient and you’ll figure it out. That’s how I feel sometimes, that I just hope the Lord’s patient with me and with us.

Hank Smith: 35:31 I wasn’t very happy when James said, “Remember the patience of Job.” I was like, “Oh, no.”

John Bytheway: 35:36 I don’t want to be that patient.

Hank Smith: 35:39 Please don’t.

Dr. J.B. Haws: 35:41 That verse though about Job that just speaks so well to what John was saying in verse 11, “The Lord is very pitiful and of tender mercy.” I’m so glad both of you brought up that point, that the admonition of the Lord is for us to be patient and reflect his character. He is patient with us. Oh, thank goodness.

John Bytheway: 35:58 I remember when we had Michael Wilcox on and he said something about, “If God’s commanding us to forgive seven times seventy, don’t you think he does the same thing?” And I thought, “Oh, I hope so.” That’s a great thought that we’re forgiving, he can be forgiving, and he can be patient, thankfully.

Hank Smith: 36:16 J.B., let’s say I’m on a road trip and I’m listening to the podcast or I’m at home and I’ve been cleaning the garage, listening to the podcast. In the spirit of James, be doers of the Word, what are you hoping our listeners do with what we’ve talked about today?

Dr. J.B. Haws: 36:35 Oh, it’s such a great question to end a great conversation. Two thoughts. Of course, authorship questions in the New Testament are always complex. But I love this idea of thinking of this author of this book being James, the brother of the Lord, Jesus’s brother. There’s so much that just resonates with what someone who had a close, personal witness of Jesus’s life would highlight as really important and to think about how much of his counsel is essentially, follow the example of our Savior in his daily walk and talk. That brings it home to imagine what special witness James might have to share with us. Then the other one is, especially if we come away from this discussion and looking at ourselves pretty honestly in the mirror, seeing where we may fall short or where we want to change.

  37:29 I’m struck by James 5:16 as a place to just walk away from here. “Confess your faults one to another.” And that’s done appropriately in different degrees in different ways, but just the idea of this humility. Again, I appreciate both of you for being so honest and being able to talk about how we see ourselves in this. “Confess your faults one to another and pray one for another that you may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man or woman availeth much.” I feel this for me, is I’m coming away from a conversation in the study of James of wanting to have a fervent prayer for some of the things that have pricked my heart and that I want to become something different.

  38:13 I would hope that maybe the beginning and the end, James has encouraged us to have faith in the power of prayer, the prayer that starts the Restoration and the prayer that can change us. If we offer up fervent prayer, we’ll be amazed at how effective that can be. I can’t help but think about Mormon’s closing words, the Moroni 7, “Pray unto the Father with all the energy of this heart that you may be filled with this love, which he hath bestowed upon all who are true followers of his son, Jesus Christ, that when he shall appear, we shall be like him.” This idea that a full energy of heart prayer and a fervent effectual prayer can really change us in our walk and talk to follow the Savior.

Hank Smith: 38:56 Beautiful. Thanks, J.B.. That was great. John, what a great day to sit and learn from J.B. Haws.

John Bytheway: 39:04 It’s just good to see you as a friend. To sit here and talk like this is great. The only thing that would’ve made it better is if we were sharing a pizza or something, but it was really great. No, no, an unripe apple. We should have been sharing an almost ripe apple.

Dr. J.B. Haws: 39:22 That’s right. I let them ripen this year. Amazing.

Hank Smith: 39:26 We need to thank Laura for teaching such wonderful lessons to J.B.. J.B., thank you for spending your time with us.

Dr. J.B. Haws: 39:33 No, thanks to both of you. It really is great. So happy to be here.

Hank Smith: 39:37 We loved having you with us. We want to thank Dr. J.B. Haws for spending time with us today. We want to thank our executive producer, the amazing Shannon Sorensen. We want to thank our sponsors, David and Verla Sorensen. And we always remember our founder, Steve Sorensen. We hope you’ll join us next week. We’re going to talk the epistles of Peter coming up on FollowHIM.

  40:03 Today’s transcripts, show notes, and additional references are available on our website. Followhim.co. That’s Followhim.co. You can watch the podcast on YouTube with additional videos on our Facebook and Instagram accounts. All of this is absolutely free and we’d love for you to share it with your family and friends. We’d like to reach more of those who are searching for help with their Come, Follow Me study. If you could subscribe to, rate, review, and comment on the podcast, that will make us easier to find. Of course, none of this could happen without our incredible production crew, David Perry, Lisa Spice, Jamie Neilson, Will Stockton, Krystal Roberts, Ariel Cuadra, and Annabelle Sorensen.

President Russell M. Nelson: 40:42 Whatever questions or problems you have, the answer is always found in the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. Turn to him. Follow him.