02 June 2023
James may well be the earliest of New Testament documents, apparently written mid-40s AD. He was the brother of our Lord, martyred in Jerusalem around 65 AD while Paul was still in Roman custody the second time.
You may recall at one point, Peter had been driven underground after he escaped from jail, possibly heading off to Rome. James took up Peter's role as the Apostle to the Jews. It was a heavy burden, but he seems to have borne it with grace. This letter is quite Hebrew in style, with a powerful emphasis on mysticism. His mission was to peel Hebrew Christians away from the Talmud. This was before the controversy in Acts 15, so the Judaizers are not in the picture yet, but the tendency of Jewish Christians to slide back under the Talmud was strong simply because it was the easy path out of persecution, but there was also their love for tradition. It was all they had known for at least a couple of centuries.
His first command James delivers is that believers should celebrate persecution. Trials help believers to quickly sift through the clutter of their lives and find the real treasure. By all means, we should ask God for the wisdom to handle the pressure. Be confident that the Lord will answer. Faith turns the world upside down.
Yes, God is in control, and your rough passage through tribulation is His hand at work in your life. If you find yourself tempted, that part doesn't come from God, but your fleshly resistance to His will. Whatever God gives is most assertively what you really need. If your obedience takes you through trials, give God time to carry you through it His own way.
Learn how to be placid and serene. Your flesh will always try to seize the lead and take you down the wrong path. Don't just let the sound of the gospel message reverberate in your ears, as if it's only purpose is to make you feel good. The message is loaded with commands to change, so do what it says. And not just your behavior, but watch your mouth, too. Your priority should not be to change the circumstances, but yourself. When you sense a burden of care for orphans and widows, then you have begun to think like the Father.
The second chapter carries on along these lines. Jews were notorious for sucking up to the rich and powerful. Don't form cliques or show favoritism. The real bigshots are people who exhibit genuine faith, regardless of what their fleshly appearance may be. How about fawning over their faith? Your "clique" should be those who sacrifice for the Lord. There's a good reason Jesus emphasized favoring the poor: They have nothing to lose in coming to faith, whereas the rich will simply assume their superiority. If they don't get their way, they will drag you through the courts.
Jesus taught it as the root of all God's Law: Love your covenant brothers and sisters as your own flesh and blood. Showing partiality is a blatant violation of that most basic of all commands. It's the same as being guilty of all the most heinous crimes. Those who exhibit God's mercy won't face much of His wrath.
James very specifically attacks the rabbinical obsession with semantic debate. Only a Pharisee could split the human soul into threads, as if their orthodoxy was what saved them, never mind whether they actually did what God said. They spent hours and hours seeking the precise definitions of terms, and never bothered with actually doing any part of the Law of Moses. So, James lowers the boom on that habit Jewish Christians had picked up from the Pharisees of defining "faith" as orthodoxy, not commitment and obedience.
If your flesh is not conquered and subjected to obedience to God, you are still dead in your sins.
Comments
DarkMirror
How interesting to think of all the different "Talmuds" we have in the modern age. We come up with elaborate, materialist rules and think we can win a wrestling match with God by trapping Him in our little ethical or logical word games.
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