“Pure and undefiled religion before God the Father is this: to care for orphans and widows in their adversity and to keep oneself unstained by the world.” (NET)

Christian, child-serving organizations and ministries have used James 1:27 as a guiding verse for years. It’s in our names and mission statements, often describing a command from God to care for orphans at the exclusion of the rest of the verse. For many of us, this verse has become so familiar that we ignore it completely and look for other scriptures to invite God’s people to care for the vulnerable.

Have we really become numb to James 1:27? Or have we simply parsed it out in so many ways to benefit our ministries that we’ve stopped reflecting on the entire scripture?

James 1:27 is not a command. It’s a description. 

In this verse, James is describing something profound about the way God works in our hearts and lives when we begin acting out our faith in a specific way.  

Drawing near and visiting the orphan and widow (those who have the lowest status and can offer you nothing in return) is not only a pure outward demonstration of the inward work of God in our hearts, but it also does a cleansing work within us and helps us become more like Jesus in the process. 

Or to put it another way … 

As we seek to become more like Jesus (holy) and become devoted students (disciples), we will begin to reflect His love and character by entering into the broken and hard places of the world the same way He did … which in turn, helps us grow in purity and look more like Him. 

James 1:27 hasn’t lost its meaning, but it’s in need of renovation to reclaim its full intent. Maybe we should start to think of James 1:27 more like this:

“One of the purest and most undefiled demonstrations of the gospel is to move toward hard places and broken people, not away from them, and to become so close and dependent on God in the process that it changes everything about us for the better … and we’re somehow cleaner for it.”