Main Idea

The book of James is a practical guide for how we live in light of the story of Jesus we saw in Mark, and the power by which we can do what he calls us to is the hope of the resurrection.

Sermon Notes

Passage

James 1:1 (NIV)

James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ,

To the twelve tribes scattered among the nations:

Greetings.

Background

Author

The book begins with the author giving his name as James. In Greek, that name is Iakobos - the Greek version of the Hebrew name Ya’akov. This name is most commonly rendered as Jacob - so why do we call him James?

Basically, it is a long history of how names shifted between languages over time. It starts with the shift from Greek to Latin, rendering Iakobos as Iacobus or Jacobus. Next, the shift in Late Latin and Old French had the spelling and pronunciation change, having the latin evolve into forms like Iacomo, Giacomo, Jacques, or James depending on the region.

In the Middle Ages, English absorbed names through Old French and Latin, which had already morphed “Iacobus” into forms like “James.” William Tyndale’s 16th-century English translation and the subsequent King James Version influenced the perpetuation of “James” in English Bibles. Although Tyndale sometimes used “Iames,” the eventual standardized spelling became “James.”

So, while Jacob might be more accurate, there is a lot of history behind using the name James, and for the sake of consistency and ease, we will continue to use that name.

But, which James are we talking about here as our author? There are a lot of options to pick from, as there are at least four different men in the New Testament with that name:

• James the Father of Judas (Luke 6:16, Acts 1:13)

• James the Son of Alphaeus (Matt. 10:3; Mark 3:18; Luke 6:15; Acts 1:13)

  • Maybe the same as James the Younger (Mark 15:40; Matt. 27:56)

• James the son of Zebedee

  • One of the most prominent apostles in the gospel narratives along with Peter and his brother John.

  • Witnessed the resurrection of Jairus’ daughter and the Transfiguration.

  • Executed by Herod Agrippa (Acts 12:2)

• James the brother of the Lord (Matt. 13:55; Mark 6:3)

  • Became a follower of Jesus after the resurrection (1 Cor. 15:7 and John 7:5)

  • Leader in the Jerusalem Church (Acts 12:17)

  • Discusses the nature and scope of the ministry with Paul (Acts 15:13; 21:18; Gal. 1:19; 2:9, 12)

  • Leader at the Jerusalem Council (Acts 15:13-21)

Other views include a James that doesn’t appear in the New Testament, or a later writer who is using the name James.

The traditional view, and the view we are going to take, is that the author of this book is James, the brother of the Lord. There are some good reasons to take this view:

• First, the letter has a few suggestive similarities to the wording of the speech given by James of Jerusalem, the brother of the Lord, at the Apostolic Council (Acts 15:13–21) and to the letter subsequently sent out by him to Gentiles in northern Syria and southern Asia Minor (Acts 15:23–29). 

• Second, the circumstances reflected in the letter fit the date and situation in which James of Jerusalem would be writing. As leader of the Jerusalem church, James would have been in a perfect position to address a letter to Jewish Christians who had been forced to flee from Jerusalem and its confines because of persecution.

• James became a respected and beloved figure in the early church, especially among Jewish Christians. He was considered the first “bishop” of the Jerusalem church and was called the “righteous” or the “just” because of his faithfulness to the law and his devotion to prayer. Hegesippus, an early second-century Christian, describes James’s death in his Memoirs (which have survived only in fragments quoted by other authors, mainly Eusebius). He claims that James was stoned to death by the scribes and Pharisees for refusing to renounce his commitment to Jesus (Eusebius, History of the Church 2.23). The Jewish historian Josephus confirms the essentials of this story, and he also enables us to date the incident to a.d. 62 (Antiquities 20.200–201). Moo, Douglas J. The Letter of James. Grand Rapids, MI; Leicester, England: Eerdmans; Apollos, 2000. Print. The Pillar New Testament Commentary.

• James was a martyr who died in 62 AD

What was James’ relationship with Jesus? The New Testament calls him “the brother of the Lord”, but in the history of the church, that relationship has been debated, especially because over the years the doctrine of the perpetual virginity of Mary became more and more influential. 

Jerome argued that the word for brother could be translated as cousin, and is a popular view, especially in Roman Catholic circles.

Another view, called the Epiphanian view, was that James was a child of Joseph’s from a previous marriage. So, in this view, James would be the older step-brother of Jesus.

The last view, and the one that we on the preaching team take, is called the Helvidian view and says that James is the biological child of Joseph and Mary, making him the younger half-brother of Jesus.

Date

Hand in hand with the issue of the author is the issue of dating the book. If we take the author to be James, the brother of our Lord, then the book has to be written before his martyrdom in 62 AD.

If James the brother of the Lord is not seen as the author, then the dating often will get pushed back into the 2nd or even 3rd century. Since we take the traditional view of James the brother of the Lord as the author, we will not need to argue this point.

While there are some who will put this toward the end of the 50’s, we believe that this book was most likely written before the Jerusalem Council (Acts 15) in 47-49 AD. As such, the book was most likely written in the early to mid 40’s. 

As such, this is probably one of the earliest Christian writings that we have, written by one of the first leaders of the first Church. James is taking in the context of the whole history of the Jewish people, and showing how to live that out in light of the Lordship of Jesus Christ (1:1).

Audience

The letter was written “to the twelve tribes in the Diaspora” (1:1). The Diaspora was the technical term used to describe all of the Jewish people who lived outside of Palestine since the time of the Exile.

Back in 2 Kings 17, we see the Northern Kingdom of Israel carried into exile in Assyria for their sins. In 2 Kings 24, we see the Southern Kingdom of Judah also carried into exile in Babylon for their sins. From this time forward, there would always be Jewish people living in exile, in the Diaspora, among the Gentiles and outside of their land.

Even after the returns under Ezra, Zerub, and Nehemiah, there was still a significant Jewish population in the Diaspora. We see many of these people returning in Acts 2 on Pentecost, which is why the gift of tongues was so powerful to hear the gospel in so many languages.

The question here then is, who is James writing to? Is he writing to all the Jews, Christian and non-Christian, in the Diaspora? Is he writing to all Jewish Christians scattered in the Diaspora? Is he writing to the Church, like Peter who later takes the image of Israel in the Diaspora and applies it to the Church (1 Peter 1:1)? Or, is he writing to a specific subset of Jewish Christians?

We are taking the view that the intended audience of this book are Jewish Christians that were scattered from Jerusalem during the persecutions that arose in Acts 11:19. They had left their homes in Palestine, and as refugees are facing economic hardship, including persecution from wealthy landowners during a time of famine. James, as their pastor in Jerusalem, is concerned about them and writing a general letter to them in their Diaspora.

Genre

James is one of the Catholic Epistles. This means that it is a letter (epistle) that has a general or universal audience (catholic). This is in contrast with letters that are written to individuals, like Titus or Philemon, or letters written to specific churches, like Romans or 1 and 2 Corinthians.

James seems to be working in the Jewish wisdom tradition of the Old Testament and Intertestimental period. His style is like a sermon, a profound work of practical theology. It has more imperative (command) frequency than any other New Testament work, calling the Christian community to live like people Jesus described in the Sermon on the Mount. 

Douglas Moo puts it this way:

NT Wright gives a great chart showing how the words of Jesus in the Gospels, especially Matthew, show up clearly in James

Themes

We believe that the central theme of the book is what faith looks like in practice. That is why the subtitle for the series is Faith + Action (2:18). James is centrally concerned with the idea that God’s people should be “perfect”, the world teleios which signifies a sense of completeness, maturity, and wholeness.

In order to be “perfect”, God’s people have to wisely view the whole world the way that God does. They have to understand, and properly respond, to trials and tribulations. They need to relate to one another with love and justice. And they need to perceive economic issues with an eternal perspective.

Servant

The word here is doulos, and is traditionally rendered as slave. James is not alone in claiming this title! Jude calls himself a slave of Jesus Christ (Jude 1), as does Paul (Rom. 1:1, Gal. 1:10; Phil. 1:1; Tit. 1:1), and Peter (2 Pet. 1:1).

For James, he willingly subjugates himself both to God, and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Barclay says that by using the word doulos James is implying three absolutes:

• Absolute Obedience

• Absolute Humility

• Absolute Loyalty

That said, James is also putting himself in the tradition of some of the greatest heroes and leaders of Israel’s past. Members of the OT who were doulos of God include:

• Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (Deuteronomy 9:27)

• Job (Job 1:8)

• Moses (Deuteronomy 34:5; 1 Kings 8:53; Daniel 9:11; Malachi 4:4)

• Joshua and Caleb (Joshua 2:8; Numbers 14:24)

• David (Ezekiel 37:25)

• Isaiah (Isaiah 20:3)

• The Prophets (Amos 3:7; Zech. 1:6; Jer. 7:25)

Jesus told his disciples that the greatest among them must be the doulos of all (Matthew 20:25 -28: Mark 10:42-45)

42 Jesus called them together and said, “You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. 43 Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, 44 and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. 45 For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

To belong to Jesus is to remind ourselves that we have a purpose, and that purpose is to serve, to do the bidding of our Lord. It is easy to call Jesus Lord, until we realize that Lord has an implication that I am below that Lord, and I have to serve not my will but His.

God and the Lord Jesus Christ

The idea of being a doulos of God is common, as we have seen. In the New Testament, being a doulos of Christ is also fairly common. However, the phrase used here as a Doulos of God and the Lord Jesus Christ is unique to James.

One thing that really sticks out here is the idea of the phrasing of Lord Jesus Christ. This picks up from Peter’s sermon in Acts 2:36 that God has made the man Jesus both Lord and Christ.

Jesus is the Lord - the Messianic King. 

This is a dramatic change for James in how he views his half-brother. During Jesus’ ministry, James tried to take Jesus in hand because he thought he was out of his mind (Mark 3:21).

But the resurrection changes everything, and now James knows that seeing his brother as Lord is not crazy, but wisdom itself.

Greetings

The word here is the normal Greco-Roman greeting of the day. We see it in James’ address from the Jerusalem Council (Acts 15), as well as the letter Claudius Lysias, the Roman officer, wrote to Felix in Acts 23:26.

Hopeful Outcomes

As the preaching team met, talked, and prayed about this series, there were some hopes that we had for the church that the Spirit will do for us. These include:

• That we will be doers and not just hearers of the Word.

• That we will see trials as opportunities to see God’s redemptive hand and help us to become more like Christ

• That we will approach life like a marathon, and not a sprint. In so doing, we will see the events in our lives as a step on a path, leading to the return of Christ and the New Heavens and Earth, rather than be consumed with our present issues.

• That our lives will be lived out of gratitude for the abundance of grace that we have received, regardless of our circumstances

The overarching goal of James is to make us people who live like Jesus in the world. In the words of NT Wright, “God’s implanted word brings us to faith, and that faith works itself out in love, mercy and true worship. If your faith has no verbs, no imperatives, no discipline, no denial, no mercy, and no struggle, then you are probably doing it wrong.”

We are praying that by the end of this study, by the indwelling and empowering Holy Spirit, each of us will be people who do it more right than we did before we started.

Resources Used

• https://bibleproject.com/guides/book-of-james/

• https://biblehub.com/q/why_use_'james',_not_'jacob',_in_the_bible.htm#:~:text=The%20reason%20%E2%80%9CJames%E2%80%9D%20appears%20in,unaltered%20by%20these%20translational%20nuances.

• Barclay, William. The Letters of James and Peter. The Daily Study Bible. Rev. ed. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2003.

• Blomberg, Craig L., and Mariam J. Kamell. James. Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2008.

• Bray, Gerald L., ed. James, 1–2 Peter, 1–3 John, Jude. Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture, New Testament XI. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2000.

• Moo, Douglas J. The Letter of James. Pillar New Testament Commentary. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000. (Digital edition)

• Motyer, J. Alec. The Message of James. The Bible Speaks Today. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1985. (Digital edition)

• Wright, N. T. The Early Christian Letters for Everyone: James, Peter, John, and Jude. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2011.

• Wright, N. T., and Michael F. Bird. The New Testament in Its World. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Academic, 2019.