James
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About this ebook
Growing in God takes work.
We don’t wake up wise, and faith is not a reflex. James, a pastor in biblical times, recognized this as he wrote the book of James. His letter confronts the confidence we place in our own capacity for wisdom and faith. He challenges us to instead receive God’s wisdom—freely given and available to all—to fill in what we lack. Discover the practices of faith and wisdom that will help you grow more in Christ’s character.
In this study you will find:
- 12 lesson to help lead you through the book of James
- Wide margins and extra space for your reflections
- Discussion questions for group study
- Thought-provoking reflection questions and prompts
- Notes for further study
- Applications to help you go deeper
- Helpful excerpts on the historical context
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James - The Navigators
INTRODUCTION
James the Just
When the first Christian evangelists proclaimed that people could enter the kingdom of God simply by believing in Jesus as Lord and Christ, a lot of people accepted the offer. Inevitably, few became spiritual giants overnight. The apostle Paul wrote many letters to solve problems and amend errors in the churches he founded. And someone who calls himself merely James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ
(1:1) wrote a message to correct a distortion of the gospel: the idea that spiritual rebirth meant we could remain babies forever.
The Lord’s brother
James (the English equivalent of Iakobos or Jacob) was a common Jewish name; in fact, two of Jesus’ twelve apostles were named James (Matthew 10:2-4). However, James the son of Zebedee died too early to have written this letter (AD 44, Acts 12:2), and little is known about James the son of Alphaeus. Tradition attributes the biblical letter to the man Paul calls James, the Lord’s brother
(Galatians 1:19).¹
James was probably the eldest of the four brothers named in Mark 6:3.² While Jesus was wandering through Galilee and Judea proclaiming the kingdom of God, James and the rest of His family thought He was a bit crazy (Mark 3:20-21; John 7:5). But when Jesus appeared to James after the Resurrection, James finally understood his brother (1 Corinthians 15:7). He became a leader of the church in Jerusalem (Acts 1:14; 15:12-21; 21:17-19) — indeed Paul called him one of the pillars
of the church (Galatians 2:9). It was James and Peter whom Paul visited three years after his conversion (Galatians 1:18-19), James to whom Peter sent word of his miraculous escape from prison (Acts 12:17), and James whose judgment regarding the Gentiles was accepted by the whole Jerusalem council (Acts 15:13-29).
James was known as the Just
or the Righteous
by the people of Jerusalem, both Christian and non-Christian. The fourth-century Christian historian Eusebius said that this was because James was scrupulous about observing the Jewish Law, and Eusebius recorded several legends about James’s piety and asceticism. However, the Jewish historian Josephus wrote in AD 93 that James was stoned by the Jews in AD 62 on a charge of violating the Law.³ There is no evidence that James agreed with the Jewish Christians who said Gentiles could not be saved unless they kept the Jewish Law (Acts 15:1). He did apparently try to make Christianity more appealing to Jews by encouraging Jewish Christians to keep the Law and to avoid eating with Gentiles (Acts 21:17-24; Galatians 2:11-13). Still, James was not claiming that the Law was necessary for salvation, and he did not want to hinder the evangelism of Gentiles (Acts 15:19). James was eager to effect a compromise between Jews and Gentiles on matters of secondary importance
⁴ — cultural things like what to eat (Acts 15:20). However, he was unswervingly opposed to compromise with pagan moral values (Acts 15:20; James