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WorkJames the Just

The General Epistle of James

Faith that does nothing is dead: a letter of plain moral advice whose reading of Abraham was later set against Paul's.

by James the Just8 passages held

  • English, a translation held here, and your language
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Original title
Ἐπιστολὴ Ἰακώβου
First published
(published posthumously)
Original language
Greek

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Overview

In Romans and Galatians, Paul builds his case on a verse of Genesis in which Abraham trusts God and is counted righteous for it: a person is put right with God by faith, not by doing the works the Jewish law requires. This short letter takes up the same verse and draws the opposite lesson. Abraham's faith, it argues, was made complete when he was ready to offer his son Isaac on the altar, and Rahab, the prostitute of Jericho who hid Israel's spies, was put right by what she did; faith that does nothing is dead, as a body without its spirit is dead. The letter is an exhortation, written in Greek in the manner of Jewish wisdom books such as Proverbs and addressed to the twelve tribes scattered abroad, and its other subjects are as practical: trials that teach patience, the tongue as a small fire that sets a whole life alight, the congregation that gives a man with a gold ring a good seat and tells the poor man to stand, the rich whose hoarded silver will testify against them. Jesus Christ is named only twice. The letter names its author only as James, a servant of God. From the third century on, the tradition has taken him to be James called the Just, the brother of Jesus who led the church in Jerusalem until he was stoned there in 62, as the Jewish historian Josephus records. Many scholars think it was written later in his name, around 80 to 100, and read its argument about works as answering a debate that came after Paul's lifetime; others defend a date before James's death. Its place in the Bible came slowly. Eusebius, the fourth-century church historian, listed it among the disputed books, and Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria, included it in his canon of 367. In 1522 Luther praised the letter, denied that any apostle wrote it, called it an epistle of straw beside the letters that preach Christ, and moved it to the back of his German New Testament. Calvin and Zwingli, the reformers of Geneva and Zurich, did not follow him, and in 1547 the Council of Trent used its words on works in its decree on justification. The library holds all five chapters of the letter in the King James Version of 1611, verse numbers removed, but not the Greek original.

Key concepts

What does James mean by 'works'?

Works are what faith does, not a second achievement beside it. The letter's examples are deeds of trust and mercy: Rahab, a prostitute of Jericho, receiving Israel's messengers and sending them safely home another way, or a brother given the food and clothing he lacks. Without such deeds, faith is like a body without its spirit, whole to look at and dead.

What does it mean to be 'justified' in this letter?

To be justified is to be counted righteous, put right in God's eyes. Its sentence is blunt: 'by works a man is justified, and not by faith only.' Being put right is therefore not a verdict on what someone holds true but on what their trust has done, and Abraham, whose belief was acted out, was called the Friend of God.

Why call God's law 'the perfect law of liberty'?

Because the letter treats the law as a word planted in a person that frees and saves, not as a list of burdens. Its summit is the 'royal law', love your neighbour as yourself, and it holds together as one: someone who avoids adultery but kills still breaks it. Whoever keeps looking into it becomes a doer, and everyone should speak and act as one judged by it.

What is 'pure religion' according to James?

Pure religion is two things: visiting the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and keeping oneself unspotted from the world. The first turns worship toward those with no one to provide for them. The second means refusing the world's way of valuing people, the way that seats the rich man in front. Religion that looks devout and does neither is, in the letter's word, vain.

What is the 'wisdom that is from above'?

It is wisdom known by its conduct rather than its cleverness: pure, peaceable, gentle, open to persuasion, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality or hypocrisy. Its opposite is an earthly wisdom of bitter envy and rivalry, which brings confusion and every evil work. The wise person shows it in meek and good living, and its harvest is righteousness sown in peace by those who make peace.

Why is 'friendship of the world' enmity with God?

Because 'the world' here means a life run by craving, and loyalty to it leaves no room for loyalty to God. The letter traces its marks: people want and do not have, so they fight; they ask and do not receive, because they ask only to spend it on their pleasures. Even prayer becomes a tool of desire, which is why the two friendships cannot be held together.

Themes of the book

What this book returns to, gathered into themes and ordered by how much of the text each one occupies.

Faith That Acts

Belief that changes nothing is the letter's target. The question is whether a person can be put right with God by agreeing to the truth, and the answer decides what religion is for.

Believing, for James, is not yet faith: the devils believe in one God and only tremble. The letter takes the verse of Genesis in which Abraham believes God and is counted righteous, and reads it through the altar where he offers Isaac, his faith made complete by the deed. Rahab, who sheltered Israel's messengers, stands beside him. Paul draws the opposite lesson from the same verse. Against anyone content to hear and agree, religion is measured by acts: feeding the hungry, visiting orphans and widows, doing the good one knows.

  • faith and works
  • belief
  • action
  • moral action
  • religion
  • charity
  • righteousness
  • practical ethics
  • moral responsibility

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The Gold Ring and the Withheld Wage

A seat in the assembly turns out to be a verdict on who counts. At stake is whether a congregation that defers to wealth has already judged the poor whom God chose.

Favouritism is no small courtesy here. To seat the man with the gold ring and send the poor man to stand is to judge by wrong standards and break the royal law, love your neighbour as yourself, and whoever breaks one point is guilty of the whole law; judgment without mercy awaits those who showed none. The rich fare worse still: their riches rot, rust on their silver testifies against them, and the wages they withheld cry out. Traders counting a year's profit are told their life is a vapour.

  • economic justice
  • exploitation
  • impartiality
  • justice
  • law
  • mercy
  • judgment
  • human finitude

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A Small Fire

Words look like the smallest part of a life and prove the hardest to govern. What is in question is whether someone who cannot rule their speech has any religion at all.

Speech is where James tests every claim to piety: whoever does not bridle the tongue deceives his own heart. The tongue is a little member that boasts great things, a fire that sets the course of life alight, and no one can tame it. One mouth blesses God and curses people made in his likeness. Behind the words lie envy and cravings at war within, which breed quarrels; against them stands the wisdom from above, peaceable and gentle, and the humble whom God lifts up.

  • speech
  • self-control
  • honesty
  • wisdom
  • envy
  • conflict
  • desire
  • peace
  • humility

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Patience Under Trial

Trials are to be met with joy, yet God tempts no one. What needs settling is where hardship comes from and what enduring it makes of a person.

Testing works patience, and patience allowed to finish its work makes a person complete, lacking nothing. Temptation is another matter: God tempts no one, and each is drawn away by his own desire, which conceives sin. Endurance has its models in Job and in the farmer waiting for the early and the late rain, and its help in prayer that asks without wavering. The sick are prayed over and anointed by the elders, faults are confessed to one another, and a righteous person's earnest prayer, like Elijah's, avails much.

  • suffering
  • patience
  • perseverance
  • temptation
  • prayer
  • healing
  • confession
  • forgiveness
  • moral restoration
  • virtue

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Within this work

passages held
8
distinct concepts
36
by passages held, corpus-wide
#822

Works held

The author's work in order, this book marked in place. Your-language title first, the original beneath it where the two differ; side chips show which full texts are held.

  1. 90 The General Epistle of James (Ἐπιστολὴ Ἰακώβου) you are here EN
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