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Theology of James · Reformed Thinking

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  Hello and welcome back to Reformed Thinking.
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  I am your host and as always, we are back at the table with
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  another stack of sources. It's good to be here.
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  We're here to do what we always do, which is to take some, you
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  know, heavy theological material and really try to extract the
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  Nuggets of truth and insight that you can actually use in
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  your daily walk. I always enjoy this process,
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  mining these texts to get back to what the author was really
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  trying to say. Me too.
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  And for today's Deep Dive, we are turning our attention to a
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  book of the Bible, that it has this very practical, almost
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  punchy tone, but it has historically been the source of
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  some pretty significant theological headaches.
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  We must be talking about the Epistle of James.
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  We are talking about the Epistle of James.
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  James is, it's unique. It really does stand alone in
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  the New Testament. I mean, you have a letter
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  written by the half brother of the Lord.
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  Yeah. That alone gives a perspective
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  you just don't get anywhere else.
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  Yeah, it's a window into the early church, specifically for
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  Jewish believers who are really trying to figure out, OK, how
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  does this new belief in the Messiah fit with our ancient
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  traditions? That's right.
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  And to help us get a handle on this, we're relying on the Moody
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  Handbook of Theology, the revised and expanded edition by
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  Paul Enz. We're going to walk through his
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  section on the theology of James.
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  But before we get into the details, the history, the
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  grammar, all of that, we have to address the reformer in the
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  room. I think I know who you're
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  referring to. Martin Luther.
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  I am. You can't really study James
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  without someone, somewhere bringing up the fact that Martin
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  Luther was not a fan. He famously called James a straw
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  epistle. He.
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  Did an epistle of straw. He felt it just lacked the the
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  pure gospel content that he found in a book like Romans or
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  Galatians. That feels so harsh.
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  I mean, this is the word of God we're talking about.
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  Why was he so aggressive against it?
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  Well, context is everything here.
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  You have to remember what Luther was fighting against.
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  He was in a battle for his life against the Roman Catholic
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  system of his day. That system taught that you had
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  to in some way earn your salvation through works,
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  penance, buying indulgences, rituals and.
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  Luther rediscovers this earth shattering truth of solafed
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  faith alone the. Core of the Reformation.
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  The absolute core. So then he opens up James and he
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  reads Faith without works is dead.
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  You can see why that would have irritated him.
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  Yeah, it sounds like the very thing he's fighting against.
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  To him, it felt like James was undermining the very foundation
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  he was risking his life for. So I guess our mission today is
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  pretty straightforward. We want to see if that
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  assessment holds up. Is James really straw?
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  Or, and this is what I suspect, is it possible that James
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  provides a necessary a vital counterbalance to a
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  misunderstanding of faith? I think what we'll find as we go
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  through Paul ends his analysis here is that James is not
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  contradicting the gospel at all. He's protecting it.
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  OK, I like that. So let's get started with some
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  of the detective work. Who actually wrote this and when
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  the book opens so simply James, a bond servant of God and of the
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  Lord Jesus Christ. But I mean, there are a few men
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  named James in the New Testament.
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  There are several. Yeah, it was a very common name.
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  You have James, the son of Zebedee, who was John's brother,
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  one of the 12 disciples. Right one of the inner circle.
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  But he was martyred very, very early on.
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  Acts chapter 12 tells us he was killed around 8044.
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  And that just seems too early for a letter like this, with
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  this kind of authority to be circulating so widely.
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  Most scholars would agree, yes. Then you have James, the son of
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  Alphaeus, another one of the 12. But Ends points out that he just
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  doesn't have the historical prominence.
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  We don't see him taking a leadership role that would
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  justify him writing a circular letter with this kind of
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  authority. He sort of fades from the
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  record. Which leaves us with the main
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  candidate. The one ends identifies James,
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  the half brother of Jesus. Precisely.
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  This is the James who you know didn't believe in Jesus during
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  his earthly ministry. Which is just a fascinating
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  detail on its own. It is, but he saw the
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  resurrected Lord and he became what Paul calls a pillar in the
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  Jerusalem church. And ends points out some really
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  compelling evidence to back this up.
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  It's not just tradition, it's it's linguistic.
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  Linguistic evidence? You mean the way he writes the
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  style? Yes, this is one of those great
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  moments for biblical scholars. If you look at the speech James
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  gives in Acts chapter 15, this is at the Jerusalem Council, a
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  huge moment where they're deciding what to do with the
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  Gentile converts. A pivotal moment.
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  It is, and the Greek phrasing and the vocabulary he uses there
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  is just strikingly similar to the language used in the Epistle
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  of James Can. You give us an example of that?
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  Sure. The greeting alone is almost a
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  dead giveaway. In Acts 15.23, the letter that
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  the council sends out starts with the Greek word cherain,
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  which means greetings. The Epistle of James in chapter
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  1 verse one uses that exact same greeting.
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  It is the only New Testament letter that starts that way,
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  like a writer's fingerprint. That is a great detail.
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  It's like hearing someone speak in a meeting and then you get an
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  e-mail from them later and you think, Yep, that is definitely
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  the same voice. Exactly.
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  But there's another layer of evidence that I think is maybe
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  even more compelling. The source material points out
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  this incredible similarity between the Epistle of James and
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  the teaching of Jesus himself. And this is, you could argue,
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  the strongest case for the authorship of the Lord's half
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  brother. When you read James, you just
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  hear echoes of the Sermon on the Mount everywhere.
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  He doesn't always quote Jesus directly word for word, but he
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  remixes the concepts. It's steeped in his brother's
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  teaching. OK, let's look at a few of
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  those. I made some notes from the
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  source, James 1.22 says. But prove yourselves doers of
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  the Word, and not merely hearers who delude themselves.
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  And you compare that to Jesus in Matthew 7.24.
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  Therefore, everyone who hears these words of mine and acts on
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  them, it's the same exact concept.
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  The contrast between doing and just hearing.
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  It is. Or look at James 3.12.
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  James asks. Can a fig tree, my brethren,
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  produce olives? Or a vine produce figs.
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  And that sounds almost identical to Jesus in Matthew 7.16.
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  Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes, nor figs from
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  thistles. Are they the same agricultural
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  illustration to make a spiritual point?
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  And then there's the concern for the poor.
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  This is a huge theme in James chapter 2 verse 5.
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  Did not God choose the poor of this world to be rich in faith?
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  That just mirrors the beatitudes in Matthew 5.3.
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  Blessed are the poor in spirit. It's fascinating, isn't it?
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  You have to try and imagine James growing up in the same
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  house as Jesus. Even though the Gospels tell us
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  the brothers didn't believe in him during his ministry, they
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  probably thought he was, you know, out of his mind.
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  Right, they tried to take him home at one point.
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  They did, but James would have been saturated in his brother's
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  manner of speaking. He heard the illustrations.
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  He heard the parables, the way of viewing the world.
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  So after the resurrection, when James finally believes, all of
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  that teaching just comes flooding back.
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  He sounds like his brother because he grew up with him.
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  That adds such a personal layer to the text, it makes it feel so
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  much more intimate. OK, so let's talk about the
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  setting. Where is he writing from?
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  The source argues pretty strongly for Jerusalem.
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  Yes. And this is where we get to be
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  forensic investigators. The text itself gives us all
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  these clues about the geography. The writer isn't in some generic
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  place. He mentions the early and latter
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  rain in Chapter 5. What exactly does that refer to?
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  In Palestine, the whole agricultural cycle depends on 2
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  specific rainy seasons. The early rain in the autumn
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  softens the ground for plowing, and the latter rain in the
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  spring matures the crops before harvest.
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  If you were in Egypt, you'd talk about the Nile rising.
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  If you were in Rome, you'd have a totally different climate.
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  This writer knows the Judean weather patterns inside and out.
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  The source also mentions hot winds.
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  Right in chapter 1 he talks about the sun rising with a
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  scorching wind that Withers the grass ends.
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  Identifies this as the Scirocco wind.
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  I've heard of that. It's a hot, dry desert wind that
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  blows in from the southeast. It literally just cooks the
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  vegetation. It's a very specific
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  meteorological event for that part of the world.
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  And he also mentioned salts and bitter springs, figs, olives,
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  the sea being nearby. Yeah.
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  All of those little details, they paint a picture of life in
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  Palestine. The writer isn't looking at a
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  window in Rome or Ephesus. He's looking at the climate and
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  the agriculture of Jerusalem and the surrounding Judean
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  countryside. OK, So what about the date?
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  We've narrowed down the author, but when did he actually put pen
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  to parchment? It has to be early, ANZ argues.
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  It must be prior to AD 63. And the reasoning is it's pretty
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  solid. It's historical.
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  Josephus, the Jewish historian, he records that James was
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  martyred in AD 63, right? So obviously he had to have
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  written the letter before he died.
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  That logic holds up. So we have the author James, the
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  Lord's brother. We have the place Jerusalem, we
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  have a date pre AD 63. Now who is he writing to?
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  The very first verse says it's to the 12 tribes who are
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  dispersed abroad. And that phrase dispersed
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  abroad, that's the key. In Greek it's the word diaspora.
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  The Diaspora. Yes, it's a technical term.
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  It was used to describe Jews who were scattered among the Gentile
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  nations. It actually references back to
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  Deuteronomy 28.25 where God warns Israel that they would be
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  scattered if they disobeyed the covenant.
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  So let's try and build a profile of the listener then who is
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  receiving this letter on the other end?
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  Well, based on the internal evidence that Ends highlights,
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  they are definitely Jewish believers.
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  We know this because in chapter 2, verse 2, James mentions the
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  meeting in a synagogue. He doesn't say.
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  Church. He doesn't use the word church
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  or ecclesia there. He uses the specific Jewish term
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  synagogue. That's a huge clue.
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  It is, and they're fiercely monotheistic.
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  James 2.1 time you believe that God is 1.
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  That is the shame on that is the absolute core of Jewish
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  theology. Right hear, O Israel, the Lord,
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  our God, the Lord is. One precisely.
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  They also use Jewish oath formulas, which James has to
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  correct them on in chapter 5. So you need to picture a
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  community of Jewish Christians, probably living outside
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  Palestine, maybe in Syria or Asia Minor.
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  They're trying to hold on to their Jewish heritage while
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  embracing Jesus as the Messiah, but they are under immense
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  pressure. And that leads us to the big
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  why? Why did James feel the need to
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  write this letter? It clearly wasn't just.
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  No, not at all. It was a corrective letter.
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  Ends identifies 2 main pressures that were just squeezing these
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  believers. First, there was external
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  pressure. They were facing persecution,
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  most likely from unbelieving Jews who saw them as erratics,
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  as a dangerous sect, and they didn't know how to cope with
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  this suffering. They were probably asking why
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  would God allow this to happen to us?
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  And the second. Price second was internal and
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  honestly is probably worse. Ends describes it as carnality.
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  The source says carnality prevailed within their assembly.
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  Carnality. That's a strong word.
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  What did that actually look like for them?
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  It looked like class warfare. It was ugly.
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  You had serious divisions between the wealthy members and
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  the poor members. The rich were literally dragging
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  the poor into court inside the synagogue.
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  They were showing partiality, giving the best seats to the
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  guys with the gold rings and the fancy clothes and telling the
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  poor man you stand over there or sit on the floor by my
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  footstool. And that is where James really
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  starts to sound like one of the Old Testament prophets.
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  He really does, and specifically compares him to the prophet
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  Amos. The prophet of social justice.
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  Exactly. Amos was the great champion of
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  the poor in the Old Testament, just thundering against the
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  oppression of the poor and these wrong attitudes toward money.
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  James picks up that same prophetic mantle.
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  He sees this internal rot in the church, the fighting, the
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  jealousy, the worldliness, and he writes to say stop it.
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  This is not how the people of God are supposed to live.
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  So the whole purpose is corrective, and he's saying that
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  real faith is the antidote to this carnality in this division.
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  Correct. He is telling them point blank
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  that their behavior is contradicting their confession.
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  OK, let's move into section two of our outline, what we're
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  calling the source code. We've established that James is
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  writing with authority, but what is the basis of that authority?
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  We've touched on his connection to Jesus, but Ends points out
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  this massive reliance on the Old Testament.
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  It's just staggering when you actually count them up.
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  In 5 short chapters. James alludes to or quotes from
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  22 different Old Testament books. 22 and just five
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  chapters. That's almost the entire
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  library. It is.
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  And what's so interesting, as Ends observes, is that James
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  doesn't always make a formal statement of inspiration.
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  He doesn't always say, as it is written in the scroll of the
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  prophet Isaiah. He just weaves the language of
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  the Old Testament into his own sentences.
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  So he's not proving it, he's just using it.
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  He assumes it's true. He assumes it's authoritative.
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  It's just the air, he breathes. And he assumes his audience
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  knows it too, that they'll get the references.
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  Absolutely. He's steeped in it and so is his
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  audience. He doesn't need to prove the
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  Bible is true to them. He uses the Bible to prove they
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  are acting wrongly. Now we touched on this a bit
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  earlier, but the source really highlights his reliance on the
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  teaching of Jesus. Specifically, the Sermon on the
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  Mount ends notes about 15 erect illusions.
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  And that's so significant because, you know, historically,
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  James was not a believer when Jesus preached the Sermon on the
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  Mount. He was not sitting on that
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  hillside taking notes. That is a great point.
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  He was probably back in Nazareth thinking his older brother had
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  finally lost his mind. Right, so N suggests this is
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  just logical, that James must have gathered this information
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  from those who did hear Jesus preach.
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  He absorbed the teaching of the Lord from the apostles, from the
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  community of believers after the resurrection.
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  Which just shows how strong that oral tradition was in the early
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  church. They memorized these things,
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  they lived them. They did.
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  Let's look at some more of the specific parallels, because they
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  are just so clear when you put them side by side.
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  OK, take the tongue. James chapter 3 verse 6
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  describes the tongue as a fire, the very world of iniquity.
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  Now you compare that to Matthew 5.22.
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  Where Jesus is talking about the danger of anger, of saying you
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  fool and being guilty enough to go into the fiery hell.
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  The same metaphor. Uncontrolled words are like a
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  destructive fire. Or judging others.
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  James 4.11 says do not speak against one another.
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  He who speaks against a brother or judges his brother speaks
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  against the law. And that is Matthew 7.1.
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  Straight up, do not judge so that you will not be judged.
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  It's the same theology. James is in essence, applying
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  the ethics of the Kingdom of Heaven that Jesus taught to the
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  messy, practical daily life of the Church in the Diaspora.
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  Now James has a very high view of Scripture itself.
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  He calls it the word of truth. What does NS say about the
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  function of Scripture in James's theology?
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  What does it do? This is critical for James.
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  The Bible is not just a dusty rule book, it's an active living
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  agent. NS lists 4 main functions.
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  First, it has the ability to save a soul. 1.18 says in the
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  exercise of His will He brought us forth by the word of truth,
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  and at verse 21 talks about receiving the word implanted,
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  which is able to save your souls.
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  That sounds very reformed. The word creates the life that
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  it calls for. It does.
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  It's regenerative. Secondly, Scripture acts as a
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  mirror. This is that famous analogy in
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  James 1.2325. The word reveals our thin.
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  You look into it and you see your dirty face, right?
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  The problem is many people look, they see this sin, and then they
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  walk away and immediately forget what they look like.
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  I love that image. It's so practical.
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  You don't look in a mirror just to admire the glass, you look in
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  a mirror to fix what's wrong with you.
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  If you see spinach in your teeth and you don't do anything about
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  it, the mirror didn't help you at.
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  All exactly. And James is saying, if you just
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  hear the word but don't do it, you're like the guy who leaves
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  the spinach in his teeth. They have the third function.
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  Judgement James 221 says we will be judged by the law of liberty.
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  The word is the standard. And finally, and this is so
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  important for a church full of arguments, it's the final Court
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  of Appeal. How so?
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  Throughout the letter, whenever James wants to settle an
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  argument, whether it's about showing partiality to the rich
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  or about the quarrels and conflicts among them, he doesn't
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  appeal to his own opinion as a leader.
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  Even though he had that authority.
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  He had it, but he doesn't use it.
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  He quotes scripture in James chapter 4 verse five, He asked
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  this incredible rhetorical question.
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  What do you think that the scripture speaks to?
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  No purpose for James. If the Bible says it, the
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  argument is over. End of discussion.
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  That is a challenging thought for us today.
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  When we have disputes in the church or in our families, do we
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  check the word of truth first or do we check our own feelings and
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  opinions? A very pertinent question.
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  James would say our feelings are usually the source of the
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  problem, not the solution to it. OK, let's move on to Section 3,
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  the anatomy of sin and the nature of man.
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  This is where James gets, I don't know, almost
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  psychological. Or maybe theological psychology
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  is a better way to put. It I think that's a good term
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  for it. Ends points out that James has a
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  very high view of man as created, but a brutally
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  realistic view of man as fallen. Let's start with the creation
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  part, the doctrine of man or anthropology.
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  James clearly affirms the Genesis account in chapter 3
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  verse 9. He's talking about the tongue
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  again. He says with it we bless our
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  Lord and Father, and with it we curse men who have been made in
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  the likeness of God. Made in the likeness of God.
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  That's straight out of Genesis 1.2627, the Imago Day.
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  It is, and notice the application.
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  He doesn't just state it as a dry, abstract fact, he uses it
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  to argue for Christian ethics. He's saying you cannot claim to
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  love God, who you cannot see, while you were verbally abusing
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  someone made in his image who you can see.
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  It's a fundamental contradiction.
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  That is powerful. The person you're yelling at or
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  gossiping about or ignoring. They are an image bearer of God.
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  To curse them is to, in a way, insult the artist who made them.
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  It completely exposes the hypocrisy of a religion that is
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  just words, but at the same time, James knows that man has
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  fallen and ends notes that James provides what is maybe the
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  clearest biblical explanation of the mechanics of sin that we
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  find anywhere in Scripture. This is that famous passage in
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  chapter 1, the chain reaction of sin.
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  Yes, James 1 verses 14 and 15. We so often want to blame our
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  circumstances or even the devil. You know the devil made me do it
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  or I was just in a bad situation.
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  But James says know the process starts inside you.
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  He breaks it down into 4 distinct stages.
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  OK, walk us through those stages.
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  Stage 1 is lust. This is the sin nature within
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  the Greek word here epithelmia implies a strong desire, a
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  craving. It's that initial inner response
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  to something. So the desire itself isn't the
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  sin yet. Not yet.
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  It's the fertile ground. Stage 2 is solicitation or
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  enticement. This is the bait on the hook.
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  The outer temptation meets the inner desire.
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  It's when you're drawn away and enticed.
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  Stage 3, 3 is sin. This is the moment of
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  conception. When that lust meets the
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  opportunity and you consent to it, the ACT itself is born.
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  And stage 4 is death. And when sin is accomplished,
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  James says, it brings forth death.
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  It's like a biological process. Desire conceives and gives birth
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  to sin, and then sin, when it's fully grown, gives birth to
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  death. It's a fatal genealogy.
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  That is the exact metaphor James is using and ends points out two
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  key Greek words James uses for sin in the book.
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  One is hamarcia, which is the classic word meaning to miss the
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  mark. Right, like an Archer trying to
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  hit a target and failing. Exactly.
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  James uses that when talking about partiality or when he says
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  to him who knows to do good and does not do it.
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  To him it is sin. You're missing the mark of God's
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  standard. But he also uses the word
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  parabates, which means a transgression.
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  What's the difference? A transgression is not just
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  missing the mark, it's willfully stepping across a known line.
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  It's a conscious violation of a specific standard.
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  So we both missed the mark of God's holiness and we actively
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  step across the line of God's law.
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  Correct, and this all connect to his view of God.
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  Ends notes that James's theology of God reflects that Mosaic law
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  concept you find in a book like Deuteronomy 28.
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  It's very black and white. Obedience brings blessing.
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  Disobedience brings chastisement.
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  Can you give us an example of that in the text?
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  Look at James 4.4. He calls his readers
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  adulteresses. Such a strong word, he says.
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  Friendship with the world is hostility toward God.
• 20:12
  If you choose to align yourself with the world's value system,
• 20:15
  you are actively making yourself an enemy of God.
• 20:18
  That's the negative side. That's the negative.
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  But on the positive side, James 1.5 says if you lack wisdom, ask
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  God and he gives it generously without finding fault.
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  Or my favorite, James 1.17. Every good and perfect gift
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  comes down from the Father of Lights.
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  Father of Lights, that is such a beautiful title for God.
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  What does it mean it? Refers to the heavenly bodies,
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  the sun, the moon, the stars, but unlike them would shift and
• 20:45
  move and cast shadows depending on where you stand in the time
• 20:47
  of day. God doesn't change.
• 20:50
  There is no variation or shifting shadow in Him.
• 20:52
  He is the consistent, unchanging source of all goodness.
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  But, and this is key for his readers, he is also the
• 20:58
  protector of the oppressed. Yes, back to the social justice
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  issue. When the wealthy land owners
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  oppressed the laborers and hold back their wages by fraud, James
• 21:05
  says their cries have reached the ears of a Lord of Sabbath,
• 21:08
  the Lord of hosts, the Lord of armies.
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  The the theological implication here, as ends notes, is that God
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  is not passive. He's not a distant deistic God.
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  He responds to the behavior of his people, he defends the weak,
• 21:20
  and he will judge the oppressor. Which brings us to the main
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  event, Section 4, the great debate, Faith versus works.
• 21:29
  We circle right back to where we started with Martin Luther.
• 21:32
  We do we have to resolve this tension because on one side you
• 21:36
  have the apostle Paul in Romans 3.28 saying, for we maintain
• 21:39
  that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the law
• 21:43
  clear as day. Seems very.
• 21:44
  Clear. And on the other side you have
• 21:45
  James 2.24 saying, you see that a man is justified by works and
• 21:50
  not by faith alone. On the surface, it really does
• 21:53
  look like a direct, irreconcilable contradiction.
• 21:56
  That's why Luther struggled so profoundly with it.
• 21:58
  It looks like James is just taking a sledgehammer to Paul's
• 22:01
  entire theology. But Ends argues it's not a
• 22:03
  contradiction. If the Bible is the inspired
• 22:06
  word of God, they can't actually be contradicting each other.
• 22:08
  So how do we reconcile them? Well first we have to see that
• 22:11
  James actually has a lot of positive things to say about
• 22:14
  faith. He's not anti faith.
• 22:16
  In chapter 1 verse 6 he says faith is the only way to
• 22:19
  approach God when we ask for wisdom.
• 22:21
  In chapter 2 verse 1 he says our faith must be in our glorious
• 22:25
  Lord Jesus Christ. In chapter 5 verse 15 he says
• 22:29
  the prayer of faith will restore the one who is sick.
• 22:32
  Faith is central for James. So he's not at all arguing for a
• 22:37
  workspace salvation. Absolutely not.
• 22:40
  The critical distinction, according to Enza's analysis,
• 22:43
  lies in the relationship between faith and works and
• 22:46
  understanding the different problems that Paul and James
• 22:48
  were addressing. They were fighting 2 completely
• 22:51
  different enemies. OK, break that down for us.
• 22:53
  What was Paul's focus? What enemy was he fighting?
• 22:55
  Paul was fighting legalism. He was dealing with people, the
• 22:58
  Judaizers, who thought they could earn their salvation by
• 23:01
  keeping the law. If I am circumcised, if I keep
• 23:04
  the Sabbath, if I do XY and Z, then God owes me heaven.
• 23:07
  Works righteousness. Exactly.
• 23:09
  So Paul had to emphasize over and over the work of Christ in
• 23:12
  relation to our faith. How are we saved?
• 23:15
  By trusting in what Jesus did for us, not what we do for
• 23:18
  ourselves. Justification is a legal
• 23:20
  standing declared by God. That makes perfect sense.
• 23:22
  So what about James, who was his enemy?
• 23:24
  James was fighting the opposite error.
• 23:26
  He was fighting cheap grace or what you might call libertinism.
• 23:30
  He was dealing with people who said, oh I believe in God, I
• 23:33
  have faith. But their lives were filled with
• 23:35
  hatred, greed, favoritism and slander.
• 23:39
  They had the confession, but not the life.
• 23:42
  They claimed to have faith, but there was 0 evidence.
• 23:46
  So James has to emphasize the work of the believer in relation
• 23:49
  to faith. He's not asking how are we
• 23:51
  saved, he's asking how do we show that we are saved.
• 23:54
  So it's not faith versus works, it's faith that works.
• 23:59
  That is it in a nutshell. The key phrase that ends
• 24:02
  highlights is in James 2.18 someone says you have faith and
• 24:06
  I have works and Jesus responses.
• 24:08
  Show me your faith without the works, and I will show you my
• 24:11
  faith by my works. So works don't save you, but
• 24:14
  they demonstrate the reality of the faith that does.
• 24:17
  Precisely. I really like the analogy of the
• 24:18
  root and the fruit that the source uses.
• 24:20
  It fits perfectly, doesn't it? Paul's looking at the root of
• 24:23
  the tree. How does it get life?
• 24:24
  That's salvation. If the root is genuine faith in
• 24:27
  Christ, you are alive, you are saved.
• 24:30
  James is looking at the fruit on the branches.
• 24:33
  He's concerned with what that life produces, that
• 24:35
  sanctification. And if he looks at a tree and
• 24:38
  sees no fruit season after season, he's forced to ask, is
• 24:42
  that root actually alive? James is effectively saying
• 24:45
  don't just tell me you're an apple tree, show me some apples.
• 24:48
  Yes, and he uses that frightening example to drive the
• 24:51
  point home. He says you believe that God is
• 24:54
  1. You do.
• 24:55
  Well, the demons also believe and shudder.
• 24:58
  That is such a heavy verse. The demons have the right
• 25:01
  theology. They're not atheists.
• 25:03
  No. They have correct intellectual
• 25:04
  data. They know God is 1, and they
• 25:07
  have more than that. They have a visceral emotional
• 25:09
  reaction. They tremble, but they do not
• 25:12
  have saving faith because they do not submit and obey.
• 25:15
  True saving faith involves the will, not just the mind.
• 25:19
  And that is the Reformed thinking nugget right there,
• 25:21
  isn't it? Justification is by faith alone.
• 25:23
  But the faith that saves is never alone.
• 25:25
  It is always, always accompanied by the new life it creates.
• 25:28
  Well said. If your faith doesn't change
• 25:30
  you, James would argue, it probably hasn't saved you.
• 25:33
  So we've covered the authorship, the context, the massive
• 25:37
  reliance on Scripture, the anatomy of sin, and the harmony
• 25:42
  between Paul and James on faith and works.
• 25:45
  As we start to wrap up this deep dive into Paul Enz's analysis of
• 25:49
  James, what are the big takeaways for us?
• 25:52
  I think first and foremost we have to remember the corrective
• 25:55
  nature of this book, James wrote to people who were in crisis.
• 25:59
  They were being hammered by the world from the outside, but they
• 26:01
  were also rotting from within. They were letting the world's
• 26:04
  values, its obsession with wealth, status, its anger,
• 26:08
  infiltrate the church. And James isn't trying to
• 26:10
  contradict the gospel. He's demanding that the gospel
• 26:12
  actually change the way we live our lives.
• 26:14
  Yes, and he's so specific. He's talking about your money,
• 26:18
  your speech, and how you treat the poor and vulnerable.
• 26:21
  If your theology doesn't affect your wallet and your tongue,
• 26:24
  James would say your theology is worthless.
• 26:26
  It's just straw. And that brings it right home to
• 26:29
  the listener. We always want to ask at the end
• 26:31
  of these Why does this ancient letter matter to you, listening
• 26:34
  right now in your car or at your desk?
• 26:36
  The challenge, I think, is to use James as that mirror we
• 26:39
  talked about earlier. If your life was examined solely
• 26:42
  by your actions, your business ethics, the way you talk to your
• 26:45
  spouse when you're stressed, how you treat the service worker at
• 26:49
  the coffee shop, would the evidence of your faith be
• 26:52
  visible? Or would your life look just
• 26:54
  like everyone else's? That's a convicting question.
• 26:58
  If we were put on trial for being Christians, as the old
• 27:01
  saying goes, would there be enough evidence to convict us?
• 27:05
  James says there absolutely should be.
• 27:07
  Before we sign off, I want to leave our listeners with one
• 27:09
  final provocative thought that you on this week we talked about
• 27:12
  James 1.5 asking God for wisdom. It's a favorite voice for so
• 27:16
  many people. If any of you lacks wisdom, let
• 27:19
  him ask of God. It's so hopeful.
• 27:22
  It is a wonderful promise. But just a few verses later,
• 27:25
  James gives that stark warning about being a double minded man
• 27:28
  who is unstable in all his ways. Indeed, the two ideas are right
• 27:32
  next to each other. So here's the thought.
• 27:34
  Perhaps the greatest barrier to receiving wisdom isn't God's
• 27:38
  reluctance to give it, but our own reluctance to let go of the
• 27:41
  world while we ask for it. Say more about that.
• 27:45
  Are we asking for wisdom to serve God more faithfully, or
• 27:48
  are we asking for wisdom to help us better navigate a world
• 27:51
  system that James says we shouldn't be friends with in the
• 27:54
  1st place? Are we asking God for wisdom to
• 27:57
  help us succeed in a system that is, at its core, hostile to Him?
• 28:03
  That is a challenging thought. Are we asking for wisdom to be
• 28:05
  more holy or wisdom to be more comfortable?
• 28:08
  The double minded man wants both.
• 28:10
  He wants God's blessing and the world's friendship.
• 28:13
  And James is adamant you cannot have both.
• 28:16
  Something to think about this week.
• 28:17
  Thank you for joining us on Reformed Thinking.
• 28:19
  We hope this deep dive into the Epistle of James has been
• 28:22
  helpful and maybe a little bit challenging.
• 28:24
  Deep reading and keep thinking. And we will see you next time.