James The Practical Series

A contemporary author who loves mysteries describes his

frustration when the mystery gets too great. A friend gave him a

mystery book to read, and soon he found himself deep in the midst

of the sinister plot. "Imagine my consternation," he says, "as I came

to the end of the unraveling of the mystery to find the last page had

been torn out. The final lines of that next to the last page went like

this: 'What was it that Mrs. Daisy Dick had seen when she looked

through the window of the tower-that had torn from her that last

terrible shriek of protest, that cry of No! No! as she plunged to her

death on the flagstones beneath?'" She plunged, and the reader was

left hanging in the air because the conclusion was missing. That was

more mystery than he cared for.

The letter of James begins with a mystery also, and this mystery

is one that has caused a great deal of frustration. Many have found

it hard to be happy with the unknown. Thousands of pages have

been written about the mystery. It is the same mystery that you

would experience if you received a letter signed James. If you only

knew one James, the mystery would not be difficult to solve, but if

you knew several by that name it could be quite a task to figure out

which one it was who wrote the letter.

This is the mystery which has faced scholars all through history.

Nobody but the God who inspired him to write knows for sure

which James of the New Testament wrote this letter. There are four

men by the name of James in the New Testament, and each of them

has been made to be the author of this letter. Some argue that it

could have been a James not mentioned in the New Testament at all.

Tradition has attributed this letter to the James who was the

brother of Jesus. He opposed Jesus until after the resurrection.

Jesus made a special appearance to His brother when He rose from

the dead, and James became a believer and a dedicated leader in the

church at Jerusalem. Paul called him one of the pillars of the

church, and though he was not an Apostle, he was for many years

the head of the home church of Christianity.

The vast majority of scholars through history agree that the

evidence supports this tradition. James writes with the authority of

one who lived with the Master of the art of living. This letter is

more like the Lord's Sermon On The Mount than anything else in

the New Testament. You might think it is a waste of time to dwell on

who the author was, but not so. Thousands of hours of the time of

the greatest Christian scholars in history have been consumed in

struggling to solve the mystery of who James was. If you are not

convinced of the authority of the author, but believe he was just

some godly man writing down some pious advice, it will undermine

the value of what God is saying to you in this letter.

This happened to Martin Luther, and to many others. He did

not consider the letter of James to be equal with the other Scripture

written by the Apostles. He called it an Epistle of straw, and when

he published his Bible in German, he put James in the back, and he

didn't even list it in the contents. He influenced many others

including Tyndale to follow the same pattern in their Bibles. Luther

did not reject James, but he made it second class Scripture. There is

an extremely value lesson to learn from Luther's attitude toward the

letter of James. It is a lesson that can help us avoid the folly of many

of God's greatest servants.

First we have to understand why Luther had the attitude he did.

Luther was a reformer in constant conflict with the Catholic church

leaders. Luther's main theme was justification by faith. Luther

emphasized the need for personal faith in Jesus Christ; a trust in His

atonement, and His shed blood for forgiveness of sin. The death and

resurrection of Christ, and faith in the Christ who died and rose

were the foundations of his Reformation theology. The letter of

James does not deal with these things at all. It does not mention the

blood of Christ, or His death and resurrection. James does not

emphasize faith, but his focus is on good works. He even says that

faith without works is dead. The opponents of Luther used the book

of James constantly in their debates with him. The result was that

Luther looked upon James as a hindrance to the doctrine of

justification by faith.