Ezekiel 35:1-36:38, James 1:1-18, Psalms 116:1-19, Proverbs 27:23-27
Today is the 17th day of November welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I’m Brian it is a joy to be here with you today around the Global Campfire taking the next step forward. And we’re still working our way through the book of Ezekiel in the Old Testament but when we get to the New Testament we’re moving into entirely new territory and we’ll talk about that because, I mean, we’re gonna be hearing from a totally different voice than we’ve heard from so far in the whole Bible. So, we’ll talk about that when we get there. But first, Ezekiel chapters 35 and 36. And we’re reading from the New Living Translation this week.
Introduction to the book of James:
Okay. So, for the most part in the New Testament we’ve…we’ve read the Gospels, of course, and we read the Acts of the Apostles, of course, which was written by Luke or the same author that wrote the gospel of Luke. Luke and Acts are two volumes from the same author. But then we’ve spent most of the rest of our time reading the letters of the apostle Paul. Then of course we got to the letter to the Hebrew’s and its author is debated…well it has been debated for centuries and so most people just would say unknown. The origin, the absolute de facto for sure author of the letter of Hebrews is unknown, as scholars’ debate about some of the…the letters of the apostle Paul. Nevertheless, not to get too far in the weeds we’re moving into new territory now, territory that we haven’t been in before with a voice that we haven’t heard before, although we know this person. We’re about to read the letter of James, and James is known to be the brother of Jesus. But like all of the rest of the Scriptures that have been poured over for thousands of years by everybody from laymen to scholars to theologians to clergy and teachers. Billions of people over thousands of years have poured over the passages, every passage that we find in what we now know of as the Bible. So, James, the letter of James, has fallen under the same kind of scrutiny and scholarship as we would expect, and that includes debates about which James we’re talking about here. Which James wrote the letter of James? Which makes it difficult than to date James because which James we’re talking about would matter. And although there isn’t like 100% consensus there’s really not 100% consensus about a lot of things in the Bible. There is a scenario that’s maybe…maybe the most likely and that would be that the letter of James’s probably really was written by James, the half-brother of Jesus. And this James that we’re talking about, the half-brother of Jesus didn’t believe in Jesus or His ministry or His claims during His earthly ministry. James emerges as a leader and even like a foundational pillar of the early church after the resurrection. And it was James, if we remember from the book of Acts…if we remember from Paul’s letters, we have talked so many times about the Jew / Gentile distinctions and the problems and the controversies and the challenges that the early church faced. And one of the earliest challenge…challenges was, “if God is doing a new thing in the world and Gentiles are allowed to be a part of it, how do they get in? Like, what governs that? How does it work?” And the first counsel that we know of, the first major decision in the church era was the Jerusalem Council, which is referenced in the book of Acts. It was James, the leader of the mother church, the Jerusalem church, the half-brother of Jesus who presided over that counsel. And, so, the reason that…that James, the half-brother of Jesus, is the leading, by far, candidate for who wrote the letter of James is in many ways because it was preserved. You know, if just some James decides to write some letter and nobody knows who this James is, and he writes this letter and gives it to somebody, I guess theoretically it could be preserved, but probably not preserved and passed around other churches and held in high esteem or even low esteem, as we’ll see in a second. Whoever wrote this letter had credibility. Same way with the letter to the Hebrews. Whoever wrote this people knew who they were. They were recognized, and it seemed as if they should save what was written down. So, you would think that James, the half-brother of Jesus the Christ fit the criteria necessary to maybe hold onto the letter and would maybe give it credibility and significance in a way that…that there are no other candidates that could fill. So, although there’s debate, James was probably written by James, the half-brother of Jesus, the leader of the Jerusalem church. And this letter really gives us glimpses into the Hebrew side of the early church. Most of what we look at, most of what we examine is examined through Gentile eyes. And certainly, the apostle Paul spoke to Hebrew people and tied the story of Jesus to the Hebrew narrative that had always been going on. Certainly, he did that, but his primary mission was to bring the good news of the gospel to the Gentiles. And we know that after the Jerusalem Council not everybody was on board with those decisions. And, so, we get a look in this letter from James into the early Hebrew believer’s perspective of the faith. It's…it’s addressed to the 12 tribes, the scattered 12 tribes, the diaspora, for those who have been dispersed. And, so, that tells us it’s a pretty broad audience that this is sent to bring the gospel. But it may have been…it may have been more specific than just those who have been carried away in exile. Persecution, marginalization, these kinds of things had begun and the gospel had begun to spread because of that. So, if a person lost their job and they were marginalized in their neighborhood and nobody was being nice to them anymore because they believed in Jesus and they decided they’d had enough and God is leading them to another city and they pack up their things and move to another city than they take the gospel with them to that city, a place where it’s more receptive and the gospel than spread throughout the empire, the Roman world of the time. And of course, the stoning of Stephen that we read about in the book of Acts would and could have been a large catalyst. So, if that scenario’s true than James would possibly be writing to the early believers who had been in his pastoral care in Jerusalem but had now begun to spread out. And the believers who received this letter wherever they received this letter, they had fled in all different directions to find a place of peace where they could just live their lives. But they would’ve always felt connected to the place that they found their faith in the Jerusalem church. And that’s the mother church. So, a letter from the Jerusalem church. But that would’ve been something that would been treasured and kept and preserved especially…especially if James wrote it, the half-brother of Jesus, the leader of the church. And what we’re about to see is a little bit of the nuance that is a very important one. In Paul’s letters and in the letter to the Hebrews we’re exploring faith and we’re going all the way back to the beginning of the Hebrew story, all the way back to Abram and seeing that it was his faith. And remember in the book of Hebrews we read the hall of faith. So, all of these…example, after example, after example in the Scriptures showing that faith is the essential activator of everything in relation to God. James believes that very thing, but he makes a very important distinction that is basically yes indeed faith is the essential piece. We must absolutely live by faith; however, faith without works is dead. That distinction has not always been popular throughout the journey in the history of the Christian faith. Even the reformer Martin Luther would have preferred to omit James from the canon of Scripture because Martin Luther, among other things, held a conviction of solo fide, it’s faith alone…faith alone that saves you. James wouldn’t argue with that, he would just say, “there’s a way of evidencing that you have faith, and that is how you live your life, your works. You can say whatever you want to say but there are ways of speaking that are far more powerful than words. Anybody can say anything, but you live what you actually believe.” So, the reformer Martin Luther may have called a letter of James, a letter of straw, but James probably couldn’t, wouldn’t have cared less. Because we’re about to hear a new tone in the Scripture. James is very, very forthright, very direct, very…attempting to be very clear so that there are no misunderstandings. And, so, we really are entering into the portion of Scripture that is about probably to kick our butt. And our butts will be kicked throughout James and the letters of Peter. So let’s just get ready for that and let’s just be grateful for it out in front because sometimes it’s the things that challenge us or disrupt us or kick our butt that make us stand up and wrestle with it and move forward instead of staying stagnant. And, so, with that, let’s begin. James chapter 1 verses 1 through 18.
Prayer:
Father, we thank You for Your word. We thank You for another day, another day of life and another day to be in community together in Your word. And we thank You for this new territory, this letter of James that is certain to challenge us. It challenges me every year. And, so, we welcome that. We often try to minimize disruption and challenge and anything that we might have to endure, anything that we might have to go through even though it’s the very thing that will make us stronger. We try to avoid those things but we’re grateful that in the Scriptures You confront everything, You touch everything. You move into whatever is going on with us and force us to ask the right questions about where we’re headed and we’re grateful that James begins to unpack that this very day by telling us when our faith is tested our endurance has a chance to grow. And we should let that happen. We should let it grow because if our endurance is completely developed, we’ll be perfect and complete, needing nothing. We’re also told that if we need wisdom, which we do, we’re to ask You Father and You will give it to us generously You’re not gonna rebuke us for asking for wisdom. So, we’re asking for wisdom. Give us wisdom as we move into this new territory in the Bible and as we move into this new territory in the world. Come Holy Spirit we pray. In the name of Jesus, we ask. Amen.
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And that’s it for today. I’m Brian I love you and I’ll be waiting for you here tomorrow.