OceanSide church of Christ

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JAMES 1:23

Victor M. Eskew

 

For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass.

 

1.   Hearer

A.    Strong (202):  a hearer (merely)

B.    Thayer:  a hearer

C.    Vine:  to listen

 

2.   Word

A.    Strong (3056):  something said

B.    Thayer:  of speech, a word, uttered by a living voice, embodies a conception or idea,

what someone has said…the sayings of God…of the moral precepts given by God…doctrine, teaching

C.    Vine:  the expression of thought, a saying or statement by God…the revealed will of

God…is used of a divine revelation given by Christ…it is the message from the Lord, delivered with His authority and made effective by His power

 

3.   Doer

A.    Strong (4163):  a performer; specifically a “poet”  :- doer, poet

B.    Thayer:  a maker, a producer, author, a doer, performer, one who obeys or fulfills

the law, poet

C.    Vine:  doer

 

4.   Beholding

A.    Strong (2757):  to observe fully

B.    Thayer:  to perceive…observe, understand, to consider attentively, fix one’s eyes or mind upon

C.    Vine:  a strengthened form of “noeo,” to perceive…denotes the action of the mind in apprehending certain facts about a thing; hence, to consider

 

5.   Natural

A.    Strong (1078):  nativity, figuratively nature

B.    Thayer:  that which follows origin

C.    Vine:  birth… lit., “the face of his birth,” ‘what God made him to be’ (Hort)

 

6.   Face

A.    Strong (4383):  the front (as being towards view)

B.    Thayer:  the face, the front of the human head

C.    Vine:  Literally from pros, towards, ops, the eye, thus, towards the eyes, the face

 

7.   Glass

A.    Strong (2072):  a mirror for looking into

B.    Thayer:  a mirror, the mirrors of the ancients were made, not of glass, but steel

C.    Vine:  a mirror…is used of any surface sufficiently smooth and regular to reflect rays of light uniformly, and thus produce images of objects which actually in front of it appear to the eye as if they were behind it