Faith in Ever’day Clothes
Sermons from the Book of James
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In chapter five James begins by outlining the decay of all wealth. In verse two and three James said:
Your wealth has rotted, and moths have eaten your clothes.
Your gold and silver are corroded
Their corrosion will testify against you
and eat your flesh like fire.
In the East at this time, there were basically three sources of wealth. All three of these will pass away, says James. One source of wealth was corn and grain, and James says this will rot (v3a). Another source of wealth was garments, and James says these will be moth-eaten (v2b). Garments were very important in that day. In Genesis 45:22, Joseph brought a change of garments to his brothers. It was a bright Babylonian garment that Achan took that brought disaster to the nation and death to his family (Joshua 7:21). Paul claimed he had coveted no man’s money or apparel (Acts 20:33).
The third source of wealth was gold and silver, and James says that even the gold and silver will rust. Gold and silver do not rust, but James says even that which does not rust will rust thus showing the absolute untrustworthiness of riches. How will gold and silver rust? Some of it has been rusting a good bit over the last two or three years as the stock market has been up and down, but mostly down. And it may rust some more before it is over.
The point is riches will not last. When we trust in anything other than God, we are creating the conditions for destruction. A pastor was riding with his six-year old daughter when he met a car and waved. She asked, “Who was that, Daddy?” When the pastor mentioned that it was a member of the church who never attended the services, the little girl seemed puzzled. Then he explained that some people are members of the church and they never attend. Her response was revealing. She said, “Have they trusted God?”
When we go our way, do our thing, and live our way, what are we doing? Are we trusting God or are we creating conditions for destruction?
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About the Book
As I reflected on these sermons from the Book of James, I was reminded of something from my post-Depression childhood. My parents were poor, but that didn’t bother us much because almost everyone we knew was as poor as we were. We lived on a farm and were fortunate in that we always had food to eat; but we didn’t always have good clothes to wear. In fact, we had two kinds of clothes. We had what we called our “Sunday go-to-meetin’ clothes,” which were the best we had; we kept them to wear to church on Sunday. Then we had our clothes that we only wore during the week for work and play. These were not as good or nice as our Sunday clothes. In the vernacular of rural Alabama in the mid-1930s we referred to them as our “ever’day” clothes. The expression “ever’day clothes” reminds me of the Book of James. James is about every day religion—Faith in Ever’day Clothes.
About the Author
T. A. Prickett was born in rural Alabama and grew up during the last days of the Great Depression. He graduated with a bachelor of arts degree from Howard College, now Samford University. T. A. attended Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, where he received a master of divinity degree and later his doctor of ministry degree. After seminary, he became pastor of Seven Hills Baptist Church in Owensboro, Kentucky, where he served thirty-four years before retiring in 1999. Since retirement, T. A. has had eight interim pastorates. He has also kept himself busy writing. His other books include We Preach Christ: The Man, The Method, The Message; A Cold Day in July: The Memoirs of a Baptist Preacher; For Our Age of Anxiety: Sermons from the Sermon on the Mount; A Portrait of Jesus: Sermons from Matthew; and The Story of Preaching.