James: Where Faith and Life Meet
Introduction
1/29/12
INTRODUCTION
When I first became a Christian back in the early nineties (1991 to be specific) one of the first things I did as a new believer was consume the Bible every moment I could get. I spent hours at home reading and feasting off the Word of God (I think this is rather common among new believers). In fact one of the books that I consider my favorite even to this day is the Epistle of James.
Now I have way too many Bibles in my collection and I wouldn’t be surprised if you were to pull one of them off my shelf and turn to the book of James to find it mostly highlighted and/or underlined. It helped shape me into the Christian I am today.
When I received the call to enter the ministry in mid 1994 as a fresh young green youth Pastor I believed wholeheartedly that God revealed one of my Spiritual gifts to be teaching. Since this was the case upon entering the pastoral ministry in my hometown of Jamestown, NY at my childhood church one of my missions or goals as a Pastor/teacher was and remains this day to teach the Bible in a manner that is relevant and easily understood and applied so the believer can live a life pleasing to God. This is no small task since many of the Epistles and letters of the Bible are confusing and chock full of theology that has been debated for centuries. I have not received the call nor do I have the desire to become a scholar of the Bible. I will leave that up to others. The ministry God has called me is rooted in God’s word and taking what I have learned and experienced through it and ultimately helping people take what is written in it and helping them figure out how to take what they’ve just learned and use it practically in their lives. This is pretty much what James has done with his letter and I am really excited to finally be preaching on my favorite books of the Bible.
Today my plan is to introduce you to the book itself. We will look at the person James, why this book appeals to so man believers and look at his purpose and intent in writing the letter. I have used many extra biblical sources to gain some background information and those resources include “The Pillar New Testament Commentary: The Letter to James” by Douglas Moo, “James: Faith That Works” by R. Kent Hughes, the “ESV Study Bible” and “The New Bible Commentary: 21st Century Edition” by D.A. Carson. I would encourage you to get a resource for yourself if you are truly interested in delving deep into this book as I will not be able to give deep commentary from the pulpit on some of the conclusions that will be made but they will be conclusions that have been made with much study and prayer. The difficulty in any study (especially an introduction to a book) is to make it concise, understandable and applicable to you. I have read over a 100 pages just dealing with background of this book and I am going to strip it down to a 20 minute sermon, so please bear with me.
NOTES
James is a controversial book and has not always been widely accepted by Christians throughout history. Some have contested that it should even be in the Bible. There are many and various reasons for this that I will not include in the introduction. The reformer Martin Luther called it an “epistle of straw” because it does not refer to the Apostle Paul’s teaching on salvation by grace (which was the foundation of his faith). He believes James “mangles scripture” and thereby opposes Paul and all Scripture. It is believed that even up to the 4th century that parts of both the Eastern and Western church did not accept James as a canonical (inspired) book.
The author of this letter (as stated in verse 1) is a person named James who refers to himself as a servant of God and of Jesus Christ. The majority of scholars believe this James is none other than the brother of Jesus, who was also known as James “the just”. There are other James’s in scripture that others believe could have been the author. However most of the arguments support the idea that the author was in fact James, the brother of Jesus and this is the position I will take for this series.[1] James not only was the brother of Jesus but he was also the first bishop of the church in Jerusalem (Acts 12, 15).
As you can imagine being the half brother to the Savior of the universe would have been interesting at best. We do know he was not a follower of Jesus until after his resurrection so I am sure James knew the Savior in a way that many never had the opportunity to know him. We also know that he didn’t parade around and brag about being the brother of Jesus. I am sure he could have used this fact to pull some clout but instead he chooses not to mention this truth and instead of calling himself the brother of Jesus he refers to himself as a servant to Jesus.
The letter was probably written around A.D. 49, but some have dated it as late as late as the early A.D. 60s. Regardless it is known as the oldest Epistle. If in fact it was written in A.D. 49 we should note that this is a mere 15 or so years after Jesus’ death and resurrection. So the church he Pastored was a young church in its early stages of life.
The letter of James may receive negative response by scholars but this Epistle quite possibly is the most relevant (and popular) letters of the N.T. Not surprisingly it appeals to the common, ordinary believer and deals with real life issues that are still pertinent today.
According to Douglas Moo James appeals generally to believers for three notable reasons…
1) James is intensely practical; and believers looking for specific guidance in the Christian life naturally appreciate such an emphasis.
2) A second factor making James so attractive to believers is his conciseness. He rarely develops the points he makes at any length, being content to make his point and move quickly on.
3) Third, James’s lavish use of metaphors and illustrations makes his teaching easy to understand and to remember.[2]
The Letter
The letter is not addressed to any single church that we know of. It was addressed to the dispersed Jews of the Twelve Tribes of Israel; probably to Jewish Christians living in Palestine and Syria. On the other hand some scholars do think it was written to a specific church; but more likely it is believed to have been written to a group of churches.
The Churches or gathering of believers to whom he was writing were believed to have been a group of Jewish believers who were under a certain economic pressure and persecution. They were not (yet) facing life threatening persecution but it was certainly an oppression that was affecting the unity and life of the church or churches.
We need to understand that the Church was still in it’s infancy at the time James was believed to have been written and it didn’t have strong legs (metaphorically speaking) to stand on. The church was beginning to break under the pressure.
D.A. Carson writes, “There are two ways in which church members may respond to extreme pressure. They can either pull together and help each other or they can compromise with the world and split apart into bickering factions.”[3] It seems the latter was happening. We will see in latter chapters and verses what this looked like and how James addressed it.
The Theme
There are many “themes” to this letter of which include patience and joy during trials, being doers of the Word and not just hearers, God does not show favoritism, faith and works go hand in hand, the dangers of the tongue, true wisdom, staying away from the patterns of the world, the frailty of life, not hoarding riches for yourself, and praying in faith. As you can see James did jump around in his writing and when he addressed something he didn’t spend much time on it. Thus it would be hard to pinpoint one specific theme based on the writings. If I had to choose a general theme it would be instructions on how to put your faith into action. This would be the reason why I have entitled the series “Where Faith and Life Meet”. Metaphorically speaking I think of this Epistle as the skin that covers the skeleton and muscles of the Word.
Some have suggested that there isn’t a specific theme to the letter but it does have a central concern which is “Spiritual wholeness”; or how to merge the Word of God into the life of a believer. James exhorts his readers to not conform to the patterns of the world, to refrain from embracing the world and to live fully for Jesus Christ. I would affirm that James’s practical approach is why this letter is a favorite among many Christians.
CONCLUSION
In the coming weeks we will be looking more closely at the themes I mentioned a few moments ago. The goal for this series is to encourage each one of you to embrace the idea of living out our faith in the world we live in. My hope and prayer is for you individually to come to the intersection of your life where faith (intellectually knowing, believing and trusting in Jesus and His Word) and life (work, school, family, relationships, church, etc.) meet and being able to allow the two to come together to mesh and meld so you can truly live lives separated for the purpose of God in this world that clearly wants nothing to do with Him.
[1] This is where it would be good to have a resource of your own so you can read the arguments for and against the authorship of James, Jesus’ brother.
[2] Moo, Douglas: The Letter of James. Grand Rapids, MI/Cambridge UK: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2000, p. 1,2
[3] Carson, D. A. (1994). New Bible commentary : 21st century edition (4th ed.). Leicester, England; Downers Grove, Ill., USA: Inter-Varsity Press.
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