New Testament · General Letters
Faith that works, the tongue tamed, the poor honored, doers and not hearers only.
The most practical book in the New Testament, and the one Luther called an epistle of straw before making his peace with it. James writes in short, hard-edged sayings much closer to Proverbs or to the Sermon on the Mount than to Paul's argumentation, and his subject is the distance between what people say and what they do. He is savage about favouring the rich visitor over the poor one, about wishing someone well while sending them away hungry, and about the tongue, which he compares to a rudder, a spark, and a restless evil. The apparent conflict with Paul over faith and works dissolves on inspection, since they are answering different questions: Paul asks how a person is put right, James asks how you would know.
If you remember one thing
Luther called it an epistle of straw for its emphasis on works, and most readers since have concluded that James and Paul are answering different questions rather than contradicting each other.
“Even so faith, if it has no works, is dead in itself.”
James 2:17
James 2:24
Justified by works and not by faith alone. The apparent clash with Paul dissolves once the different questions are seen, but the wording is genuinely startling and Luther felt it.
James 5:14-15
Anointing with oil and the prayer of faith saving the sick. Traditions differ sharply on what is promised here and what is not.
Named here rather than skipped. Where Christians read a passage differently, we say so instead of choosing for you.
Everyone here has a write-up, drawn from the same records that explain the names while you read the text.
A wealthy man of Uz, described as blameless and upright, who loses his children, his property, and his health in a single stroke, and spends thirty-eight chapters demanding an explanation from God. His three friends come to comfort him, sit with him in silence for seven days, and then start talking.
James son of Zebedee, John's brother, one of the inner three, and the first apostle martyred, killed by Herod Agrippa. James son of Alphaeus, of whom almost nothing is recorded. And James the brother of Jesus, who did not believe during the ministry and became the leader of the Jerusalem church.
A quiz for James is on the workbench. In the meantime, the games for the judges, the kings, and the prophets are open.
