I guess James’s book will always
have a special place in my heart. Several years ago, while I was in the Army, I
got involved with a group of fellow believers who were running a Bible study in
Temple, TX. I spent a lot of time with them, and I grew spiritually by leaps
and bounds via our mutual encouragement and challenge. The first Bible study we
did was on the book of James, using the Navigator’s LifeChange series
(and I still can’t recommend anything in that series highly enough). For the
first time in my life, I did a small-group Bible study with some peers with
some depth to it.
During that time, there was one main
conclusion I made about James. There are a lot of mysteries in the Bible, a lot
of obscure passages which are hard to understand, passages on which good
Christians can differ. I wish James was like that. I wish James was harder to understand at
times. Most of it’s not. If I had to sum up James’s writing style in one word,
my nomination would be “blunt.” I mean he’s about as subtle as a brick upside
your head.
You can see this almost immediately.
Paul starts his epistles with fairly long introductions and greetings. He mentions
who he is, the fact that he’s an apostle called by Jesus Christ. You know to
whom he’s writing, and he normally starts off with a “Grace and Peace” passage
that includes some beautifully flowery-type phrases about the Lord Jesus. If
you’d like the ultimate example, see Ephesians
1:3-14.
Not so with James at all. He
introduces himself as “James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ.” He
addresses this “To the twelve tribes scattered among the nations.” And his
flowery phrase? “Greetings.” That bluntness is very characteristic of the man
and his letter.
By the way, who is this guy? It’s
not the apostle with that name: That man died early in church history, murdered
by Herod as noted in Acts
12. The best identification seems to be the Lord’s half-brother. He didn’t
believe in Jesus during the latter’s earthly ministry, but according to Paul in
1
Corinthians, the Lord appeared to James after the Resurrection, and not
only did James become a believer, he led and officiated at the first church
council in Acts
15.
That’s what’s amazing in his
introduction; sometimes what Scripture doesn’t
say is almost as important as what it does
say. He could have done the ultimate “name drop” and mentioned that he was the
Lord’s brother. He could've also mentioned that he was a leader of the church
in Jerusalem, where the Church (with a capital “C”) started. Paul called
him a “pillar” of the church. Well, he dropped a name, all right. He dropped
off all the names he could’ve
claimed, and ended up claiming the only title that meant anything to him: “servant
of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ.”
With a lot of the epistles, it doesn’t
matter all that much when they were composed, but here it does. This is a very
Jewish book. A lot of material here is very similar to the book of Proverbs
(and of course all his focus on “wisdom” helps that impression), and he also
has the-- well, I have to say it—bluntness of one of the prophets like Amos. One
of the reasons why it’s so Jewish-sounding is because it’s probably one of the
earliest books of the N.T., probably written around A.D. 44-49, more likely
towards the earlier than the later date. That would jibe with its “Jewishness,”
since the earliest years of the Church had the most Jewish believers, with
Gentiles taking up more of the population as time went by.
Another thing that marks the Jewish
nature of this book is the emphasis on personal righteousness. He’s called “James
the Just” because of his focus on the need for believers to live out their
faith. Yes, he believed
in salvation by grace through faith just as much as Paul did, but while Paul
focused his fight against legalism, James focused on a fight against antinomianism,
which is just as much a perversion of the Message of salvation as legalism is.
Another ironic--yet touching--point
to consider is that while he talks about the Lord Jesus in his 1st
verse and sprinkled here and there in his letter, he doesn’t really talk about
Jesus all that much. But. . .instead of talking about the Master, he talks like
him. If you read this book carefully and compare it with the Gospels, you’ll
notice a lot of similarities. He quotes and alludes to Jesus’ teachings
more than anyone else in the N.T.
As we go through the book of James over
the next couple of weeks, let’s ask the Spirit to use it to change us, to help
us to demonstrate what we believe.
Shall we?
Lord Jesus, I believe in you. But so
often I don’t demonstrate it like I should. With all the titles James could’ve
claimed, the only one that he cared about was “servant.” What else should I claim
for myself?
No comments:
Post a Comment