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.
Luther did what Christians are always in danger of doing in
reaction to controversy. They blind their minds to the fact that the
whole Bible is the Word of God. The greatest tragedies in Christian
history are those who come about because Christians pick and
choose which parts of God's revelation they are going to live by.
Every time this happens it produces a kind of Christianity which is a
perversion. All cults are based on selected Scriptures instead of the
whole counsel of God. No church and no Christian will ever have
the kind of balance that leads to true godliness and Christlikeness
until they can accept all the Scripture as their authority for faith
and practice.
Luther could not see beyond his conflict, and rise above it to
incorporate the practical emphasis of James on works with his
emphasis on faith. The result was Lutheranism in Germany and
surrounding nations came to a point where dead faith dominated.
Luther had God's truth about faith, but he didn't have the balance
of God's truth about works, and because he failed to listen to all of
God's Word his movement was not all it might have been. It was the
dead orthodoxy of Lutheranism that led to the formation of other
evangelical denominations, which would not have been necessary
had Luther listened to James.
If we can learn from Luther's mistake, we can find God's best
instead of His second best. Do not reject anything in God's Word
just because it seems to contradict, or conflict, with a truth you hold
to be precious. Do not ignore parts of the Bible that are misused and
abused by cults and extremists. Jesus said we are to live by every
word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. All Scripture is
inspired of God and profitable, and not just the parts you like best.
If you pick and choose, you will be an unbalanced Christian. What
you have may be good, but it will never be God's best.
All of this relates to the letter of James because it is a part of the
Bible which has suffered from attack and abuse. Many have
ignored it in building their Christian lives. Those who have studied
it, however, have found that it does not at all conflict with Paul, but,
in fact, adds to, and compliments Paul. James is not writing to help
Christians formulate doctrine. He is writing to help Christians
make doctrine practical. James is a man of action, and his letter is
on how to put faith to work. It is practical from start to finish, and
you cannot criticize him for not saying anything about basic
Christian doctrines, for that was not his purpose in writing.
Calvin points out that God does not require every man to handle
the same arguments. Paul was chosen by God to deal with certain
aspects of God's truth. James was used to communicate other
aspects of God's truth. There would be no point in the letter of
James if all he said was what Paul had already said. James did not
fail because he wrote nothing of the cross or resurrection. It was not
his purpose to do so, and every man is to be judged according to
what his purpose is, and not according to what others think his
purpose should have been.
Let's begin our study of this letter then with the assurance that
whoever James was, he was a channel through whom God spoke in
his day, and through whom he continues to speak today. Some will
not like James because he speaks too frankly on subjects where all
Christians have some big hang-ups. He will step on all or our toes
before he is done. He will hit all of the major weaknesses and sins of
the Christian life, and he will hit them hard.
Doremus Hayes, one of the greatest Bible teachers of all time,
writes in The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, "There
are those who talk holiness and are hypocrites; those who make
profession of perfect love and yet cannot live peaceably with their
brethren; those who are full of pious phraseology but fail in
practical philanthropy. This epistle was written for them.....The
quietists who are satisfied to sit and sing themselves away to
everlasting bliss ought to read this epistle until they catch its bugle
note of inspiration to present activity and continuous good deeds.
All who are long on theory and short on practice ought to steep
themselves in the spirit of James."
If true doctrine was enough to be an adequate Christian, James
says that the demons themselves would be perfect Christians, for
they believe that God is one. The demons acknowledge Jesus as the
Son of the Most High in the Gospels, but they believed the truth and
tremble says James in 2:19. Their theology doesn't do them or
anyone else any good because it is truth not obeyed and practically
applied. If one's creed does not control one's conduct, his creed is
not worth the paper it is written on. Many will feel the wrath of
God who had a beautiful creed, but who never learned the lesson of
James to put it into practice. James wants to see saints in shoe
leather, and not just in stained glass windows. The Christianity of
James is Christianity in action. It is above all-practical.
One of the greatest problems the church has struggled with all
through history is that of getting Christians to act like Christians. It
is no problem to get them to talk like Christians, and to believe
doctrine like Christians should, but it is a battle to get them to act
like Christians should, and that is why James is such an important
part of God's total revelation. It wakes us up to the realization that
all our belief, and all our words are dead and useless unless they
lead us to practical action that does some good. Action is what
makes faith come alive. All the Christian talk about faith, hope, and
love are only theory until action makes them real to life.
C. S. Lewis captured the essence of the message of James when he
wrote, "Do not waste your time bothering whether you love your
neighbor or not; act as if you did. As soon as you do this you find
one of the great secrets. When you are behaving as if you loved
someone, you will presently come to love him." We so often fail to
be Christian because we want to get the feeling we love someone
instead of acting on God's Word, and finding that out of action love
comes. James says that theoretical Christianity is not the religion of
the Bible. If your religion is not practical, it is not biblical, even if
everything you say if from the Bible. We need to recognize that we
cannot wait until we feel like being Christian. We need to just go
ahead and act like a Christian should, for it is being a doer of the
word that really matters.
James is a great believer in prayer. Tradition calls him camel
knees because he spent so much time on them in prayer that he
developed calluses. However, he does not hesitate to blast away at
all the superficial ideas of prayer that many Christians have. Prayer
is not always answered, and he makes this clear. Prayer can be
abused and misused. Prayer that does not get results is of no value.
Nothing counts with James which is not practical, and that even
includes prayer.
James has such a love for the practical because that was the
emphasis of his Lord and brother Jesus Christ. You remember
when the rich young ruler came to Jesus, and he acknowledge that
he had kept all the commandments from his youth, but he asked
Jesus what he still lacked. Jesus knew he was a good man, and a
reverent man. Jesus loved him, but he said that he still lacked one
thing, and so he said, "Go and sell what you have and give to the
poor." Jesus said that he had a beautiful religion, but it lacked
practical application in life that helps solve some human problem.
The young man went away sorrowful because he just couldn't see
getting so practical that would cost him a great deal. He wanted
religion to be a comfort to him, and to give him assurance of eternal
life. He didn't want a religion that made him get out of the ivory
tower of his pleasant isolation from the sufferings of others, and do
something about it. That, however, is the only kind of religion that
is Christlike, and the only kind of Christianity we find in James.
You don't just pray for a man who is hungry, you give him
something to eat.
James condemns all the pious religion of those who say lovely
things and believe glorious things, but who do not do the practical
things that help meet human needs. If James was going to be
stranded on a deserted island, and he could only have one book with
him, he would not likely say, as most Christians would, give me the
Bible. James would likely choose a book about survival or on how to
build a boat so he could get back into the stream of life where he
could be a channel of truth and love into the lives of others.
James is theology in action; a creed in conduct, and a call to
practice what we preach, and to walk the talk. Vance Havner said,
"We do not actually believe any more than we are willing to put into
practice." A study of this letter will reveal, not what you believe, but
whether or not you really do believe what you say you believe. Bob
Harrington said, "What this nation needs is a better me." That is
practical theology. It is what we see in Paul when he spoke his first
words when confronted by the Living Lord. He asked, "Lord, what
wilt thou have me to do?" That is the question the whole book of
James urges us to ask daily.
