If there is one thing we learned in the last five weeks as we spent some time going back to the basics of our faith, it is that our faith in Jesus is not just about what happens to me some day when my life here on earth ends. Living as a disciple of Jesus, as the ambassador for His kingdom, requires that my relationship with Jesus impacts every area of my life right here and now.
Perhaps there is no book of the Bible that illustrates that fact better than the book of James. So we’re going to take some time over the next few months to see what we can learn from his letter about how to become more mature disciples of Jesus.
This morning we’ll begin that journey by looking at just the opening verse of James letter and using it as our starting point for a look at the background of this very practical book of Scripture:
James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ,
To the twelve tribes in the Dispersion:
Greetings.
(James 1:1 ESV)
Sometimes, I think we forget that, other than the gospels and Acts, most of the other books of the New Testament were originally letters that were written by godly men, as directed by the Holy Spirit, to specific audiences. So understanding the background of both the author and his audience is crucial if we are going to make a proper application of what is contained in those letters.
This morning’s message is going to be one of those rare times that I’m going to be long on information and short on application. But hopefully the time we spend today will be very profitable in helping us to make personal application as we proceed through the book over the next few months.
Let’s begin by seeing if we can’t identify…
The Author
The author identifies himself as James, a very common name. In fact, in Greek, his name is actually a form of the name Jacob. There are four men in the New Testament who bear this name. Although we can’t be totally certain that the author is not another James who isn’t mentioned elsewhere in Scripture, that seems quite unlikely.
Four men named James in the New Testament:
1) James the son of Alphaeus
and Matthew, and Thomas, and James the son of Alphaeus, and Simon who was called the Zealot,
(Luke 6:15 ESV)
He is also referred to as James the younger in Mark 15:40.
2) James the father of Judas
and Judas the son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor.
(Luke 6:16 ESV)
Little is known of either of these first two men. One is an obscure apostle, mentioned only in the list of apostles and the other is the father of an obscure apostle. So it is extremely unlikely that anything written by either of them would have ever made it into the canon of the Bible.
3) James the son of Zebedee and brother of John
And going on a little farther, he saw James the son of Zebedee and John his brother, who were in their boat mending the nets.
(Mark 1:19 ESV)
Although James is an important figure in the gospels, he had a very limited role in the early church, probably due to his early death at the hands of Herod in the spring of 44 AD:
About that time Herod the king laid violent hands on some who belonged to the church. He killed James the brother of John with the sword,
(Acts 12:1-2 ESV)
4) James the half-brother of Jesus
I am going to refer to this James as the “half-brother”” of Jesus because he had the same mother as Jesus, but obviously had a different father. Although he is mentioned by name only twice in the gospels, he rose to prominence after Pentecost.
During Jesus’ earthly ministry, he joined the rest of his family believing that his half-brother was mad:
Then he went home, and the crowd gathered again, so that they could not even eat. And when his family heard it, they went out to seize him, for they were saying, “He is out of his mind.”
(Mark 3:20-21 ESV)
But the resurrection changed everything. We know that Jesus appeared to him after the resurrection.
Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles.
(1 Corinthians 15:7 ESV)
By the day of Pentecost, James and the rest of his family were so convinced that Jesus was in fact the promised Messiah that they joined the rest of the believers who were gathered together:
All these with one accord were devoting themselves to prayer, together with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and his brothers.
(Acts 1:14 ESV)
By the time of the Jerusalem Council, we know from the account in Acts 15 that James was well respected as a leader of the church in Jerusalem and Paul referred to him as a “pillar” in the church in his letter to the Galatians.
So of all the men named James in the New Testament, James the half-brother of Jesus is by far the most likely author of the book. In addition to the external evidence in the writings of the early church fathers that he was indeed the author, the letter itself contains a great deal of internal evidence that supports his authorship:
Internal evidence that James, the half-brother of Jesus is the author:
• The Hebrew background of the author
The author is clearly well versed in the Old Testament Scriptures and he also uses a Hebrew prophetic style and makes use of Hebrew idioms.
• Similarities with James’ speech in Acts 15
The author uses many of the same words and phrases that James used in his speech in Acts 15 – language that is not common in the rest of the New Testament.
• The conditions in the community
We’ll discuss this some more in a moment, but the conditions in the community of Jewish Christ followers match the period in which James was ministering in the church in Jerusalem.
When we put this all together, there is very strong evidence that this letter was authored by James, the half-brother of Jesus.
Given what we know about James, the way that he introduces himself at the beginning of his letter is remarkable. He does not appeal to his audience on the basis of the fact that he is the half-brother of Jesus. Nor does he claim his authority as one of the leaders of the church in Jerusalem. Instead, he calls himself “a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ”.
The word that is translated “servant” is the Greek word “doulos”. In Greek culture that word referred to the involuntary, permanent service of a slave to his master. But not surprisingly since they were all Israelites, James, along with Peter and Paul, use that word in the Hebrew sense of a bondservant. This passage from Exodus captures the essence of that kind of relationship.
But if the slave plainly says, ‘I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out free,’ then his master shall bring him to God, and he shall bring him to the door or the doorpost. And his master shall bore his ear through with an awl, and he shall be his slave forever.
(Exodus 21:5-6 ESV)
Here the bondservant willingly commits himself to serve a master he loves and respects. He was absolutely surrendered to the will of his master. He had no personal rights and was at the disposal of the master at all times.
As I mentioned earlier, this message probably isn’t going to lend itself to a lot of personal application, but certainly James’ attitude here ought to cause us to pause to consider our own relationship with Jesus. And every one of us needs to ask the question:
Do I consider myself to be a bondservant of Jesus?
Am I completely surrendered to His will rather than my own? Am I willing to give up my personal rights in order to be obedient to Him? Is my life at His disposal at all times?
So let’s pause for a few minutes right now so all of us can spend some time in prayer focusing on that question, asking God to help us honestly evaluate our attitudes. And as we do that, it’s likely that some of us are going to need to confess to God that we don’t have that attitude. And all of us probably need to ask God to help us maintain that mindset as we live our daily lives.
Let’s pray.
[Give people time to pray]
Now that we’ve identified the author, let’s see what we can learn about…
The Audience
James addresses his letter to “the twelve tribes in the Dispersion”. You’ll notice that the term “Dispersion” is capitalized. That’s because that term normally refers to the scattering of the Jewish people that began in 722 BC when the Assyrians conquered the northern 10 tribes of Israel and those people were scattered among the surrounding nations. Then in 587 BC the Babylonians conquered the southern two tribes of Judah, taking many into captivity in Babylon. While some of those people eventually returned to Judah, many of them remained in Babylon.
By the time that James wrote his letter, there were many Israelites scattered outside of Palestine. Philo, a Jewish philosopher, estimated that up to one million Israelites lived in Alexandria, Egypt, with an equal number in both Persia and Asia Minor.
But James’ audience seems to be much more limited. As we’ll see in our study, James uses the word “brothers” 15 times in the letter. The context clearly shows that he is using that term to refer to fellow Christ followers as opposed to just fellow Israelites.
There are two catalysts that may have led to the dispersion of these Jewish believers who make up James’ audience:
• The persecution of the church under Saul in 34 AD (Acts 7-8)
• Herod’s persecution of the church in 44 AD (Acts 12) which included the death of James, the son of Zebedee and the imprisonment of Peter.
So all we can say with certainty is that the audience consists of Jewish Christ followers who had been scattered outside of Jerusalem and possibly even outside of Palestine, although a more widespread dispersion seems unlikely given the difficulty of getting James’ letter to a large geographical area.
However, from both the internal evidence we find in James’ letter as well as external evidence from historical records of the time, we can draw some conclusions about the people to whom James is writing:
Characteristics of James’ audience
1. Jewish background
In addition to the fact that the letter is addressed to the twelve tribes, we’ll find in chapter 2 that these people were meeting in a synagogue and there are frequent references to the Old Testament.
2. Poor
This is particularly apparent in chapter 2. In Palestine at the time of James’ letter, the majority of the population consisted of peasants who subsisted on a small parcel of land or who worked the land of the rich landowners. A few were fortunate enough to enter into a trade, but most were relegated to unskilled labor.
3. Oppressed
Not only were these people oppressed by the rich, they were also subject to harassment due to their faith in Jesus. We’ve already discussed how these believers had been scattered due to the persecution of the early church.
4. Immature
As we’ll discuss more fully in a moment, these believers were very immature in their faith. They were struggling to “practice what they preached.”
The Purpose
One of the first things that we notice in reading through James’ letter is that there is very little doctrine in the letter. James doesn’t seem to be very concerned about convincing his readers that they need to join him in placing their faith in Jesus. He apparently assumes that his audience has already done that as evidenced by the fact that he constantly refers to them as his “brothers.”
And yet these believers were obviously struggling to live their lives in a manner that was consistent with their professed faith. Sound familiar?
So James addresses what at first appear to be a whole series of unrelated issues – things like how to deal with difficulties in life, how to resist temptation, how to control the tongue, how to avoid partiality, how to deal with conflicts, prayer, materialism, illness, and many other practical matters. But there is one underlying root cause of all these problems – spiritual immaturity.
Unfortunately, not a whole lot has changed in the last nearly 2,000 years. Our churches today are also full of spiritually immature people who have all kinds of problems in their lives because of that immaturity. In his book, Be Mature, Warren Wiersbe summarized the problem like this:
Too many churches are playpens for babies instead of workshops for adults.
James understood that spiritual maturity is not a matter of just learning more information. It is a matter of putting what we are learning into practice in our everyday lives.
That is why I’m so excited about spending some time in the book of James. It is full of practical teaching that will help us to put our faith into practice in our day-to-day lives and help us to become more mature disciples of Jesus.
This week’s message is much shorter than usual – perhaps to make up for last week. So that leaves us plenty of time this morning to spend some time in prayer. As we do that there are a few things I want to encourage you to pray about:
• You might want to reflect some more on whether you are living as a bondservant of Jesus and asking God to develop that mindset in your life.
• Pray and ask God to help you mature in your walk with Him as we go through the book of James. Make a commitment right now to do your very best, with His help, to put into practice the things that we’ll be learning over the next several months.
• Thank God for His provision in your life and for the ability to give back to Him out of that abundance as we take our offering in just a few minutes.
• Ask God if there is any other way that He wants you to respond to Him this morning as result of our time together. Perhaps something in one of the songs we sang or something else in the message touched your heart and God wants you to respond to Him in some way.
Once you’ve had a chance to spend some time in prayer, the worship team will come back and sing a new song titled “From the Inside Out” as we take our offering this morning. This is a great song which asks God to take our lives and to change us from the inside out as we surrender our lives to Him. What an appropriate song to sing as we think about becoming bondservants of Jesus. As we sing that song, please feel free to join us. We’ll be singing it once again at the end of the service as well.
Let’s pray.
