It's All about Focus: A study of the Epistle of James

By Robby Charters

To many, James is a difficult work to swallow. It’s the favourite source material of preachers of harsh sermons, who like to rebuke. It seems to fly in the face of everything Paul says about faith and salvation. But if we read it carefully, we find it's not about trying to make our actions match our faith, nor even about trying to control the tongue. It's about much more - FOCUS.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Robby's eBook Formtting
• Release date: Nov 18, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215993620

Robby Charters

I live with my wife and my son, sometimes in Thailand where I was born and my wife is from, sometimes in Ireland where my dad is from. In Thailand, I taught English as a second language. Here in Ireland, I work from home, turning people's manuscripts into e-books. Wherever I am, I write.

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Part 1

It's all about Focus

from the Epistle of James

Getting the Epistle of James - a Parable

Many people just don't get it.

To many, James is a difficult work to swallow. It’s the favourite source material of preachers of harsh sermons, who like to rebuke. It seems to fly in the face of everything Paul says about faith and salvation.

Even Martin Luther didn’t get it - at first...

But, to help us understand the epistle of James, let’s start with a parable:

You’re at a food fair with all sorts of food. Most of it is fattening, with lots of questionable ingredients, but irresistible. You are on a strict diet to avoid most of those ingredients. Your doctor, who put you on that diet, is lingering nearby, glancing at you now and then.

Even with the doctor nearby observing you, the temptation of all the forbidden food is just too great. You succumb a time or two, but you don’t really enjoy it.

You’re just about to give up and go hog-wild, when the doctor gently taps you on the shoulder.

Try that over there.

You look, and you see something you’ve never tried before. Neither, it seems, has anyone else at the food fair, as very few seem to have found that stall.

It’s actually very nice, he says. What’s more, it’s good for you. It has all the nutrients you need, and you don’t have to watch how much you eat.

You go close to it. The aroma is foreign to you, but on the second whiff you realise it’s a beautiful scent. It begins to draw you.

You try some. It’s nice in a wholesome way. The more you eat, the more you want to keep eating.

You look around at the rest of the food at the food fair, and it just doesn’t appeal to you any more. You eat your fill of the new food, and go away satisfied.

The next day you return for another visit. On entering the food fair, all the smells of the various foods draw you. You almost forget your diet and begin to go towards it, but there’s the doctor watching. Next to him is the new wholesome-and-yet-delicious food you discovered yesterday.

This time, it’s easier to resist the bad food, even though it still has its attraction. Instead of performing a heroic display of will power just to maintain your diet, you simply chose one delicious item over the other. That becomes the strategy for sticking to your diet.

The doctor is James, and we should come away from his epistle understanding better how to choose the path of faith and stay on it.

Understanding the life of Messiah in this way, puts it in a totally different perspective than what some of us are used to. It’s not a matter of trying to do it right, or to accomplish something; rather one of focus.

When you focus on the good wholesome food, you lose interest in the non-wholesome, or the junk food. That makes it attainable.

However, the life of maintaining our focus comes with its own challenges, and that’s what Dr. James is here to talk about.

By way of introduction, James was the first to write an Epistle that eventually got included in the New Testament canon.

He was the brother of our Messiah, though he’s too humble to mention it. Some insist vehemently that he was the son of Joseph from a previous marriage, and others, equally so that he was the son of Mary after the birth of Jesus. They can debate that somewhere else, not here.

He became one of the early leaders of the new movement in Jerusalem, as is evident by his taking the leadership at the council described in Acts 15. The 12 apostles, who mostly went on missionary journeys all over the known world, seemed quite happy to let James hold the fort back in Jerusalem. He stayed put in Jerusalem, and became known as James the Just. During the Jewish revolt of 70 ce, he was thrown off a high pinnacle of the Temple, according to Josephus, apparently ordered by the High Priest.

It’s believed by some scholars that James had his roots in the Essence movement before his involvement with his brother, Messiah. This reflects in his statement, Let your yes be yes, and your no be no, which was an Essene directive, which Jesus also quoted.

His epistle was written early in his career. The movement in Jerusalem was largely made up of Jews from all over who had made their annual pilgrimage to Jerusalem for the feast of Passover, and had stayed over for that of Shavuot (Feast of Weeks, or Pentecost). Of course, we know what happened during Pentecost. The persecution had sent believers fleeing to their homes in various parts of the world, spreading the Good News of the Kingdom wherever they went. The faith hadn’t spread far among the Gentiles yet. That’s why he addresses his epistle, To: The Twelve Tribes in the Diaspora: Shalom! By diaspora, he probably didn’t mean the general diaspora that existed since the Babylonian invasion, but that of the new movement more recently birthed in Jerusalem, which then scattered.

According to the book of Acts, there were a few thousand, maybe in the tens of thousands of followers of Messiah in Jerusalem, so the mass exodus that resulted from the persecution would have resulted in a large number of new congregations. Traditionally, ten men make up a congregation. Many, no doubt, had enough original believers to form a ready made congregation which grew as local people were added. Other arrivals could have resulted in whole local synagogues being converted.

Going by the Epistle of James, the congregations included every sort, from rich to poor, business people, travellers, merchants etc. If whole congregations converted, probably a few were only in it to maintain their outward appearance as good members of the Jewish Community - not unlike in many of our churches today. At least I hope that’s the case, from some of James’ sharper rebukes of the rich.

Besides an impartation of the Holy Spirit, all that the believers had was their knowledge of the Torah, and what they remembered of the teachings of the twelve apostles. The New Testament hadn’t been written yet - James was the very first book. As long as they could focus on what they had, things went well, but obviously, they needed reminding.

So, James writes…

Focusing on Joy

If the Epistle of James were an opera or a ballet, chapter 1 would be the overture. Many of the threads make an appearance here.

He begins with the issue that is common to all, which may be especially noticeable when one becomes a follower of Messiah - trials. But the focus is on joy.

‭‭James‬ ‭1:2‭-‬4‬ ‭CJB‬‬

² Regard it all as joy, my brothers, when you face various kinds of temptations; ³ for you know that the testing of your trust produces perseverance. ⁴ But let perseverance do its complete work; so that you may be complete and whole, lacking in nothing.

https://bible.com/bible/1275/jas.1.2.CJB¹

Just like Peter and other epistle writers suggest, the thing to do is take joy in our trials, as they lead to perfection. We could talk all day as to just what we mean, or don't mean by perfection.

Our