The “hearers only” did nothing else but listen. They were true “sermon tasters” who fed upon the ministry of the Word or the written word, only to fatten into sloth and spiritual inertia. They got the hookworm disease in religion and belonged to the shirkers, not the workers. Rabbi Chananiah used to say: “Whosesoever works are in excess of his wisdom, his wisdom stands; and whosesoever wisdom is in excess of his works, his wisdom stands not.”[64] The rabbis said there were two crowns, one for doing and one for hearing, based on Exodus 24:7: “we will do, and we will be obedient” (“hear”). The word for hearers appears nowhere else in the New Testament and was used for attendants at the lectures of philosophers and other public speakers rather than learners or disciples. One thinks of the public reading of the Word in the synagogues. But even so, “Act on the Word,” Moffatt has it. Else it is like pouring water into a sieve. It is in one ear and out of the other. Some people have a sort of religious dissipation in attending revival services and imagine that they have accomplished a great deal if they simply go. People easily acquire itching ears that love to be tickled with some sensation. The word takes no root in the hearts of such men. They run from church to church to get a new word, a sort of soda-water habit. They deceive themselves but nobody else. These spiritual “gadabouts” are shallow and skim the surface only. They make a sort of motion picture but accomplish nothing substantial in their own lives or in the work of the kingdom. They are guilty of a logical fallacy and are the victims of their own delusions (cf. Col. 2:4). One has thus a case of autointoxication. He has inoculated himself with the virus of his own error. And now James draws a wonderfully vivid picture of the idle hearers, the hangers-on in revival meetings, like the scum that comes first to the surface, lighthearted, impulsive, nonchalant, without depth of purpose or seriousness in life. Such a frivolous listener glances at his face in a mirror, taking note to see that he looks natural and proper. A quick look suffices for that, for “his natural face,” the face of his birth, the only one that he has. If nothing is awry about his appearance reflected in the mirror, he is satisfied (or dissatisfied) with the momentary glance. The mirror was probably of metal, and the word is often used by the poets (Mayor). Here the mirror is the Word of God (spoken or written) by which one takes a look at himself, and the quick and superficial view brings satisfaction or a passing pang. See 1 Corinthians 13:12 for the use of “mirror” for the imperfect knowledge of Christ through reflection in the Word of God and in life contrasted with the blessed reality when face to face with him (Mayor). But here in James the man tarries by the mirror for a moment and soon moves off.