Chapter 1: Who is the author of the Book of James and what is his background?
Hey Bible readers, I'm Tara Lee Cobble and I'm your host for The Bible Recap. If you're doing our New Testament plan, you finished your fifth book today. And if you're doing the whole Bible, you finished your 44th book. This book has a lot going on, so we'll only have time to hit the major points. Let's get into it.
This book was written by the half-brother of Jesus, which is incredible given that his brothers used to mock him.
Chapter 2: What is the significance of the name 'James' versus 'Jacob' in the New Testament?
But this book shows what an incredible change of heart James went through, because it opens with the author calling himself a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, from mocking him to serving him. But, spoiler alert, this book isn't actually by James. Huh?
It seems the real name of this James and every other James in the Bible is Jacobus, or Jacobus, or Jacob in English, so that's what we'll call him. It turns out that there was a problem a few hundred years ago when they translated this book to English, so only English speakers encounter this issue. We'll link to more info on this in the show notes in case you're interested.
This letter is written to the church outside of Israel, and that's important. It's written to believers. If we take it out of that context, it sounds like this book is listing things we have to do in order to earn God's approval instead of them being things that serve as markers of knowing Him.
Over the centuries, this book has caused quite a stir because it seems to be advocating salvation by works, which is contrary to everything else in Scripture.
But if we remember the rules of Bible interpretation, the first of which is that Scripture is the lens we use for interpreting Scripture, and if we remember the author's original audience and context, then all those things help us understand this book rightly.
In chapter 1, Jacob addresses trials the early church encounters, but he tells them steadfastness is developed in those trials, and steadfastness is part of being whole. Wholeness, or completion, is the idea behind the word perfect that we see so much in this book. Only God can bring that kind of wholeness to our lives. This talk about trials and steadfastness hits his readers where they live.
Because outside Israel, they're enduring not only religious persecution, but also a famine. And Jacob, in Jerusalem, has first-hand experience of this. He's leading the church in Jerusalem as they endure the same things, but probably even more severely. Not long after this, he will die as a martyr. So he not only knows what he's talking about, but he also lives what he's talking about.
He opens his letter with a call to ask God for wisdom. He says this is a prayer we can always get a yes to. What a promise! God gives wisdom to anyone who asks. I literally ask God for this every day, and I'm never stopping. True wisdom is the knowledge of God, and it's one of the tools he uses to shape and restore our fractured lives into wholeness.
It's how we persevere through trials, and it's how we resist temptation, and it's how we handle riches and blessings, and it's how we walk in humility and faith through it all. In this book, Jacob repeatedly talks about taming the tongue and how challenging that can be. He knows a bit about this himself, since he once used his tongue to mock Jesus. He gets it.
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