Historically, some people have
questioned whether this book should even be in Scripture. At first
glance it doesn’t seem to fit into the New Testament package of
“salvation by faith through grace alone”. More than one New Testament
scholar has tried to explain away the obviously very functional messages
that James fearlessly proclaims.
About 450 years ago
Martin Luther (who at that time embodied the soul and spirit of the most
far reaching and dynamic assault on “status quo religion” since the days
of the Apostles) struggled so fiercely with and was so exasperated by
the boldly practical claims of this small book of Scripture, that he
wrestled with its validity… that it may not even be inspired by God. It
was all about doing the will of God, and to him, seemed so far
from the Apostle Paul’s resounding declarations about how a sinner is
made righteous in God’s sight. Finally, in utter frustration Luther
totally dismissed the book by labeling it an “epistle of straw.”
But God had other
plans! From the start He intended the “straw” of the Epistle of James
to powerfully feed His Church in very pointed and practical ways
throughout the centuries; and by the authority of the Holy Spirit it
continues to do so today.
The problem Luther
had was that he encountered “analogous experiences” in James…and
didn’t know what to do with them. These were experiences, such as the
healing teaching of chapter 5, that clearly parallel what happened in
Jesus’ ministry yet they didn’t fit into Luther’s theology that believed
such “supernatural events” no longer happened in the Church. He believed
they had ceased after the time of the Apostles (a fancy term for this is
“Cessation Theology”). Bottom line? James clearly tells the
Church to also go about “doing the stuff” as John Wimber called it…to
participate in the same kind of experiences that Jesus had in the
Kingdom.
Analogous
experiences also can refer to living a life that parallels all the
actions and attitudes of our Lord – relationships, difficult
circumstances, attitudes…from our words to our worries to our ways of
thinking. James is a positive first century seed for today’s
“Just do it!” society. In fact, the 46 imperatives (direct commands to
action) of James were just too much for the scholar/priest Martin
Luther and therefore he sadly proceeded, in this instance at least, to
misread, misunderstand, and misapply.
Author and Date
There are four men
mentioned in the New Testament named James (“Jacob” in Hebrew). Most
prominent is the member of Jesus’ inner circle of three disciples,
James, son of Zebedee, brother of John, both part of that dynamic duo,
the “Sons of Thunder.” But it is generally believed that this James
could not have been the author of the book that bears his name simply
because he was a very early martyr, ordered executed by Herod Agrippa I
(who also imprisoned Peter) in A.D. 44, a date that contextually is much
too early to fit the circumstances of James.
A more likely
conclusion is that it was James, the brother of Jesus (Mark 6:3),
leader of the Jerusalem Church, who we meet in Acts 15 and
21, who penned this letter. The Jewish historian Josephus tells us that
this James was also martyred, but later, in A.D. 62; therefore we can
suppose that he must have composed this letter sometime between A.D. 45
and A.D. 50, before the Jerusalem Council mentioned in Acts met.
We notice that:
So what does all
this mean to us? Nothing less than the amazing fact that James
was most probably the first written book of the New Testament…before
any of the Gospels, Acts, or any of the letters written by Paul!
Recipients
Who did James
originally write this very powerful message to? The preface to the
letter simply tells us that it was to “the twelve tribes scattered among
the nations” (1:1)…that these were Jews, and more specifically Jewish
Christians (2:1). Obviously James was intended for a broad
distribution (little did James then know then how broad its reach would
be!). The first beneficiaries of the Spirit’s wisdom and direction were
perhaps those believers forced to leave Jerusalem during the persecution
following Stephen’s death (Acts 7 and 8). These were former
parishioners of James, he had been their pastor and therefore he knew
them very well and most probably still felt a high degree of
responsibility for their continued spiritual growth. He pulls no
punches in his words to them and is very direct; an approach that
familiarity most likely encouraged.
Message
James’
five chapters are filled with instruction on Christian living and the
ways of God that have not lost their vitality, applicability, or
effectiveness with the passage of time. It stands as a well-developed
reminder that unflinchingly takes Christianity out of the realm of just
another great belief system. It’s where the “rubber” of theory meets
the “road” of daily living in our very much less-than-perfect world.
Our world is filled with the weary, worn, and wandering…God’s “little
people” that move His heart…and James points to some very specific deeds
and needs for each professed follower of Jesus to pay attention to.
“Religion that God our Father
accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows
in their distress and keep oneself from being polluted by the world.”
James 1:27
Not only Luther, but
many others since his day, have argued to keep both the practical and
supernatural on the dry pages of a book and in the dusty closets of
history and out of the life of the Church and its members. But James
bridges that gap and fearlessly proclaims the fact that God is the
living God of changed lives, that He is both sovereign and good, that
the Lord is not a God of dead theory but active, breathing practice, and
that He supernaturally acts on behalf of His people for good when they
trust and obey Him.
So, how about some
of that straw from God’s menu?
“But prove
yourselves doers of the word, not merely hears who delude themselves.”
James 1:22 (NASB)
