Backstory to Origin Story
A little “Class Notes” assignment dump from one of my classes where the prompt was discern and determine the backstory of a general epistle in the New Testament so that we understand what the author was dealing with at the time and how it relates to church today, enjoy!
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Having read the general epistle of James in pursuit of discerning the backstory, it surely seems that God is on the move (gospel expansion), the stakes are high (eternal salvation by grace through faith), and yet the same old failings of the flesh stand to blunt the advance of the good news of Jesus Christ.
James begins his letter with a frankness that means business, "James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ... To the twelve tribes in the Dispersion: Greetings." (James 1:1, English Standard Version) This denotes urgency... it is time to talk turkey at the outset, lest a moment be lost even in pleasantries.
Why the urgency? The presumed author James, the half-brother of Jesus and post-resurrection convert to Christ follower, is understood to have been a pastor of the church in Jerusalem. What greater opportunity cost might present itself than to be a literal blood sibling of the Messiah, and avoid a profession of faith until after he had departed this earth for our sake? As Christ followers plant churches in an expanding radius beyond Judea, I imagine James was motivated to encourage, and exhort, these believers to get it right, by the power of Christ.
Still in the beginning of the letter he speaks directly to individual church leaders by saying, “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.” (James 1:2-4) Two primary resources for these early churches at this time are literally the witness shared and the Holy Spirit leveraged. But as we are told by the apostle Paul to “not quench the spirit” (1 Thess. 5:19), James here promotes endurance for the sake of sanctification.
In sanctification, the work being done day by day by faith, James addresses in this letter how to do the life of a Christ follower well. I believe he is motivated to articulate an intersection between orthodoxy and orthopraxy. Partiality, an untamed tongue, worldliness… these are contrary to both sound doctrine and sound living. In fact, in the letter James asserts for the committed believer that “faith without works is dead” (James 2:26). He draws focus on two prime examples of fruitful, Kingdom-building living couched in the doctrine of “love God, love others”... that is “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.” (James 1:27) Ministering to the needs of widows and orphans in first-century Roman provinces was no doubt a target rich environment.
The whole of the letter remains true today for the church. A brief example; I was the lay President of our congregation up until just before I enrolled at Liberty University in February. The Lord walked my family and I through a season of unexpected discord and enmity at our prior church, brought about by exactly the threats and issues warned against in this letter. Come December 2023, the verses of James 1:2-4 were leaving my tongue only slightly less often as “Hello” and “Goodbye” when dealing with church matters. But, praise God, it even bled into reciting it generally in all conversations in and out of the church!
Having an instructive, practical letter to reference, echoing the challenge of promoting orthodoxy and orthopraxy then as well as today, has proven to be one of the palpable ways I have felt connected to my brothers and sisters who accepted the call to follow Christ in the early days of the church. It was lamentable to contend with a congregation going sideways through metastasized partiality, worldliness, and unbridled tongues… all endemic to the open denial by a critical mass of members of the authority of the Word and rampant hypocrisy in action that only underscored their sad denial. We used to expect better of ~100 year old churches, but now they too often expect something altogether different than Christ crucified.
In January, we peaceably departed. The two prostitute mothers contending with one another before Solomon was the greatest analog to this troubling dispute. Regardless of outcome, it was clear to me to act like the mother would refused to split the baby at the prompt of the wise King (1 Kings 3:16–28). I was reminded by this letter from James of that “situation in which faith is possible” as Dietrich Bonhoeffer summarizes in The Cost of Discipleship, where “two propositions hold good and are equally true: only he who believes is obedient and only he who is obedient believes.” Because of what our Lord and Savior did for me, I could appeal to the encouragement of James to count that season as joyful in deliverance and earnest in its witness, as opposed to the world simply saying it was a failure and without purpose. It was better than any self-help book someone could offer because the Word is the final God-helps book where we are reminded that the purpose is this, “God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.” (Col. 1:27)
[1] Walter A. Elwell and Robert W. Yarbrough. Encountering the New Testament: A Historical and Theological Survey. (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Academic, 2013), 336.
[2] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship (Collier Books, 1937), 69.