James 1:21

lay apart all filthiness The cognate adjective is found in its literal sense in ch. James 2:2, and figuratively in Revelation 22:11. A kindred noun appears in a like combination in "the putting away of the fifthof the flesh" of 1 Peter 3:21 and in the LXX. of Proverbs 30:12. The word points not specifically to what we call "sins of impurity," but to every form of sin, including the "wrath" of the preceding verse, as defiling the soul.

superfluity of naughtiness Better, excess of malice, i. e. excess characterised by malice. The English "naughtiness," though used in the 16th century, as by Latimer and Shakespeare, as equivalent to "sin" or "wickedness," has gradually lost its sharpness, and has come to be applied almost exclusively to the faults of children. The Greek word, though, like the Latin word from which malicecomes, originally generic in its meaning, had come to be associated mainly (as in Ephesians 4:31; Colossians 3:8; 1 Peter 2:1) with the sins that have their root in wrath and anger, rather than with those that originate in love of pleasure, and so carries on the sequence of thought.

receive with meekness the engrafted word The order of the words in the original is more emphatic, but in meekness (as contrasted with wrath and malice) receive ye. The "engrafted word" is that which was before referred to as the instrument by which the new and better life was engendered. The English "engrafted" suggests one process of growth somewhat too definitely, and implanted would be a better rendering. The word is not found elsewhere in the New Testament (the Greek word in Romans 11:17 is more specific), but, like so many of St James's phrases, appears in the sapiential books of the Apocrypha (Wis 12:10, "their malice was bredin them"). We note the agreement of his teaching with that of the Parable of the Sower, where the Seed is the "Word," and the conditions of its fertility are found in "the honest and good heart" (Matthew 13:23), free from prejudice and bitterness. Moral discipline, the putting away of that which defiles, is the right preparation for the highest spiritual life.

which is able to save your souls The words express at once the power, and the limits of the power. There was in the implanted word, taken in its widest sense, the promise and the potency of salvation, yet it did not work as by compulsion or by a charm, but required the co-operation of man's will. So, later on, St James speaks of God Himself as being "able to save" (chap. James 4:12).