Hello friends! Soon we start reading James together. I wanted to briefly share some background info on the book and some basics for this study.
Context to James
Let’s start with a story. Did you know Jesus had several half-brothers and sisters? One was a man named James. Imagine growing up with a brother who was supposedly the promised Savior of the world. He was perfect. You weren’t. People swarmed after him as he preached to them and healed them. You watch, skeptically struggling to believe his claims (John 7:1-5).
But the whole thing plays out just as Jesus said it would. He dies at the hands of the Romans, comes back to life, and tells his friends to share his story with the world. Along the way, God changes your heart and you passionately begin to follow Jesus as well. Now, because you lived life with Jesus day in and out, people in the early church look to you for leadership.
This was James’ story. As a church leader in Jerusalem, he wrote a letter to the Jews and it’s been passed down to us today in the New Testament of our Bibles (See Acts 12:17, 1 Corinthians 15:7, Galatians 1:19, 2:9, James 1:1).
Jesus preached a radical message. The Jews had been getting the wrong message about God from their interpretation of the Old Testament. They were seeing him as a distant, demanding Being, but Jesus explained that God could be known intimately, like a Father. Jesus said that God cared more for their hearts than their outward rule-keeping. People were used to keeping the rules just enough to get by, but Jesus called for radical heart change like they’d never known.
Old traditions die hard. Familiar thought patterns can take years to change. These were the challenges facing the Jews when James wrote this letter to them. The Romans and non-believing Jews were driving them out of their homes, throwing them in prison and killing them. They needed encouragement, but also wisdom for their daily lives as Christ-followers, in contrast to their former ways of thinking.
Here’s where we dig in. We may face some of the same or different challenges today, but we still need the same wise words that James shared with the church almost 2000 years ago.
Some study basics
Translation
James wrote this book in Greek. Unfortunately, most of us can’t understand it in its original language (even those of us who studied it in college, ha!) so for this study I’ll be using the English translation called the New English Translation (NET). It’s a newly translated version of the Bible that I’m currently enjoying.
Feel free to use any translation you prefer for your own reading or study, or read along online at the NET Bible site or print out this Text of James. I’ve broken it into the sections we’ll be using to study.
Stay Posted
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I encourage you to use this study as a guide. Open your heart to the Spirit’s leading as you think through these verses. Don’t feel like you have to come up with “right” answers for the questions we’ll look at. Don’t think that what I share is what you “should” be seeing in the passage.
God’s words are the ones that are living and active – not mine. I would love to hear how you just take this study and run with it…to a deeper relationship with God.