James, a little book of wisdom: Introduction

James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ,

To the twelve tribes scattered among the nations:

Greetings.  James 1:1

Welcome to James, the book that follows Hebrews in the New Testament. This book is often described as an epistle, a letter, which raises all sorts of questions as it’s a pretty weird letter – we’ll see that over the next few weeks!

So let’s start with some of those questions.

So the author is James. He describes himself simply as ‘a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ’. But there were a lot of men called James around at this time – still are! So which James is this?

The letter is generally attributed to James the brother of Jesus – that is, the actual brother of Jesus. Which if that is true is pretty inspiring! I’d love to know more about what it was like growing up with Jesus as your brother, but we get to hear none of that. What we do get is practical wisdom about how to live as Jesus lived – and who better to convey that to us than a man who grew up physically alongside Jesus. Jesus was his big brother. He would look up to him and aspire to be like him. My second son always jokes that he could never live up to the achievements of my first, but imagine how James felt!

James, the brother of Jesus, was not among the twelve disciples of Jesus, but he is recognised as one of the key leaders in the early church. In his letter to the Galatians, Paul describes him as one of the three ‘pillars of the Church’ (Galatians 2:9). He was the leader of the Jerusalem church and writes from there to the Jewish Christians dispersed across the known world.

What is really interesting about this letter is that James only mentions Jesus directly twice: once here and once in James 2:1. He does not mention Jesus as the Son of God or the death and resurrection of Jesus. He’s not here to explain what to believe but how to live. Maybe it’s that he accepts all of that as a given. It requires no mention or explanation. He’s starting from the position of ‘Yes, we are all believers and followers of the Way, so what does that look like in action?’

When did James write this letter? There is no definitive answer to this one. There is much speculation as to whether this was written as a complete letter, potentially before, after or during the time Paul was sending his letters to the new churches, or it was a collection of extracts written by James over a period and collated by an editor at a later date. If this writing is to be attributed to James, the brother of Jesus, then it has to have been written before AD62, the year in which he was killed. Because of the sophisticated Greek language of the letter, some scholars believe this could not have been written by a Jerusalem Jew, but accept that it could have been polished by another writer at a later date. Some scholars believe that these words were some of the earliest recorded of the New Testament writings, referring directly to the words of Jesus and not dependent on the writings in the Gospels.

Is this a letter? The Book of James is considered to be a piece of wisdom literature, rather than a letter. It takes the sayings and teaching of Jesus and expands on them with practical examples. This a practical manual on how to live as a follower of the Way. These nuggets of wisdom are delivered into a violent political context of corruption, injustice and poverty.

And so I’m excited, aren’t you? This feels like it’s come at just the right time in our journey. The global political backdrop of our time makes me sense that we need this wisdom right here, right now. Knowledge and wisdom are two different things. We have plenty of knowledge: we have come so far in science and technology, in so many ways…and yet maybe in so doing, we have lost touch with wisdom, with how to live well in this world alongside one another.

Tomorrow, we’re going to look at an essay written about the historical context in which James was writing, before we dive into his words of wisdom.

Until then, greetings!