The word 'naughtiness' has lost its original meaning, and is usually

limited to the acts of children.  It would be incongruous in a court of law

today to speak of a full -grown criminal as 'naughty'.  In Shakespeare's time

and in the days of the Authorized Version translation, 'naughty' retained its

original sense of 'a thing of naught', 'worthless', 'bad', 'Naughtie and

pestilent bookes should be burned' (a.d. 1560).

Kakia, the original of the word in question, is rendered mostly by the

word 'malice', and the Revised Version brings the passage up to date by

translating it 'Wherefore putting away all filthiness and overflowing of

wickedness' (James 1:21).  Further, James does not exhort his hearer to 'put

away wickedness' any more than Paul exhorts his hearer to 'put off the old

man'. Paul says, 'Put off concerning the former conversation the old man'

(Eph. 4:22); so James speaks, not of wickedness itself, but its

'overflowing'.  The old man itself can be dealt with only by Christ (Rom.

6:6); the new life can but deal with its 'former conversation' or its

'overflowing'.  All these considerations go to show that James speaks of

those things that 'accompany' salvation, and has little to say about the

gospel and initial salvation.  Even when he speaks of justification by faith

he emphasizes the place that 'works' must have in 'perfecting' that faith

(Jas. 2:20 -26).  Moreover, one of the key thoughts of James is the relation

between enduring and receiving a crown, the perfecting work of patience.  The

words of James 1:21 therefore are addressed to a believer, in whom the

incorruptible seed has commenced to send forth shoots, the saving of the soul

referring to the conditions of Matthew 16:25,26 rather than the initial

salvation unto life.  Here then is another of the workings of 'the effectual

Word'.  It is not only able to make wise unto salvation, but able to save the

soul in the ultimate and 'perfect' sense of those believers who embrace it

with meekness, giving it a welcome into their hearts and homes.

The effectual Word has been seen at work in the heart of the sinner and

the saint.  We have seen that it is able to make wise unto salvation and, at

the goal, to save the believer's soul.  The figures that have been used both

by James and Peter have been that of the seed, the nourishing of a child by

milk, the growth of a plant manifested by its first young shoots.  We now, by

an easy and Scriptural transition pass from the figure of 'growing' to that

of 'building'.

'And now, brethren, I commend you to God, and to the word of His grace,

which is able to build you up ... an inheritance among all them which

are sanctified' (Acts 20:32).

These words come at a crisis in the ministry of the apostle Paul, and

at a point where dispensational changes were foreshadowed that have a very

personal bearing upon ourselves, our calling and our hopes.  Paul is

conscious that one ministry is about to close and he gives a survey of his

ministry 'from the first day' that he came into Asia (Acts 20:18).  He

reveals the sad news to the Ephesian elders that they would 'see his face no

more' (Acts 20:25,38).  He was about to enter his 'prison ministry' and was

desirous of finishing his course (Acts 20:24).  There is a stress upon the

apostle's absence in this passage.  He warns them of what will happen after

his departing (Acts 20:29), and reminds them that 'by the space of three

years' he had ceased not to warn them every one 'night and day with tears'

(Acts 20:31).  What substitute has Paul to offer them in the absence of so

full and so faithful a ministry?  He offers them 'the effectual Word'.  'I