JAMES – 59th BOOK

JAMES (Letter 59, Larry Crabb’s 66 Love Letters)

Save Your Soul By Living Well

Martin Luther did not want this book in the Canon because of the confusion between faith and works.

Some key points

  • Welcome troubles – hang in there and pray until a hard life makes us better
  • Be quick to listen – listen to His Words and do them
  • Be slow to speak – we have more to hear than to say
  • Be slow to anger – weep over selfishness and stop counting on tomorrow to make life go better. Express anger only when what offends us also offends God.
  • The rich will one day be poor and should treat well those who work for them
  • Be patient when life gets hard
  • Pray when struggling or sick
  • Restore strugglers back to the narrow road

Blessed are they who persevere unter trial because when they have stood the test they will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love Him.

Rich faith, the faith that perseveres under trial, leads to the joy of an unwanted life.

JAMES: From Ray Stedman

Click here for entire Bible Summary from Ray Stedman

JAMES: The Activity Of Faith

“James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ,” {Jas 1:1a}
That is a great testimony, that this one who was his half-brother by nature should address him this way: “Our Lord Jesus Christ.” And throughout this letter, there breathes a reverence and a respect for the person of the Lord that is unequaled anywhere in the New Testament.

There are two things, James tells us, that make faith grow:

  • First, we need trials. “Consider it pure joy my brothers whenever you face trials of many kinds”. God sends trials, the Scriptures say, because we need them. They teach us lessons which we could never learn otherwise, and if we did not have them, we would be weak,spindly, incomplete Christians, unable to take the great responsibilities.
  • Second, the instrument that makes us grow is the word: “Do not merely listen to the word and so deceive yourselves; do what it says.”

Now in Chapters 2 and 3, James answers for us the question, “How can faith be recognized?”
And he suggests three things that are the indication of faith:

  • First, there must be no partiality nor prejudice.
  • Second, he said, faith is made visible by actual deeds of mercy.
  • Now James devotes a whole chapter to the third way by which faith can be recognized: a controlled tongue.

Then in Chapter 4 and most of Chapter 5, James answers the question, “What happens when faith fails?” What if you do not exercise faith?

  • First, wars and fightings break out, and the direct cause is a lack of prayer.
  • Then the next thing is that the love of the world will come in.
  • Then there will be critical judgments.

Another result of lack of faith is presumptuous assurance: You ought to recognize that only God can permit plans, do not get to thinking you own all of life!

The final thing that James brings in is that fraud and neglect come from forgetfulness: What makes a Christian
do that? He forgets that there is a judge watching, listening, hearing everything, weighing all that he does and that the Lord is coming again.

In Chapter 5, there is a wonderful picture of early Christian fellowship.

It involved four things, this chapter brings out:

  • First, honesty – honesty in word, integrity.
  • Then the second was confession {cf, Jas 5:13-16}. Talk to one another about your problems, he said. You ask someone how are things going, “Oh, great!” they say. But they are not great at all, and this kind of hypocrisy must come to an end.
  • And then, prayer; power to control the effects of daily life, and to quiet dissension and riot and tumult within so that, “we may lead a quiet and peaceable life,” {1 Tim 2:2b RSV}.
  • Finally, a concern for each other is evident.

JAMES – David Jeremiah (Understanding the 66 Books of the Bible)

Key thought: The wisdom from above — God’s widsom — teaches us how to deal with trials, care for the needy, control our temper and tongues, and glorify God by the integrity of our daily lives.

Key Verse: But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. James 1:22

Key Action: Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself uspotted from the world James 1:27