Books of James & Jude - Intro/Overview

We're starting on the book of James this morning and actually the class initially I thought just the book of James and then after talking with Mike and Vern a little bit we said well why don't we add in Jude because Jude And there's some things here I hadn't actually got in my head here. You know, James is a half-brother of the Lord Jesus, and so is Jude. If you look carefully, some of this you have to really kind of look at the verses carefully and see the brother of so-and-so and this and that, and you know, it's really kind of neat. So we're going to look at two brothers of the Lord Jesus and their writings. probably the first three quarters of the class up through about maybe the end of August will be James and then we'll transition into Jude the last quarter.

And typically we have, I've forgotten your name, I apologize. Al, Al Groey. And you've been down in in Mike and Vern's class. So it's going to be a little bit different. We're all different here. Very different. That's why I changed classes. I wanted to sample the diversity. It's good to get away from Mike for a while. He's a good friend. You speak a little louder. All these classes are recorded so it's on the internet for all to hear.

Anyway, so actually, we've taken the verses and divided them up into sections. And we try to stick pretty much to the schedule we have. Occasionally, we diverge. And at the end, we usually have a chapter review, which is an opportunity for additional stuff. And then at the end, we'll have some special topics. We have time for that as well.

So I'm charged today with the overview. It's really neat, it's fun to do, but I find it's hard because there's just so much there. I'm going to cop out a little bit, using the old 60's term there. I decided to get some help from Macaulay and Constable. and I drew heavily upon their material, and I thought they did a great job. So I'm going to use kind of an outline which is derived from their material, mostly Macaulay.

So first of all, we're going to look at the author's identity, James' identity. And we're actually going to see in that that actually in scripture there are four men called James. James seemed to be a popular name. Actually, James literally translated as Jacob.

Some of these little things you put away in your memory someplace. So we're going to see that. We're going to see where the author of the book fits in. We're going to see his spiritual history. He wasn't a believer initially, according to scripture, but he became a believer after the resurrection. That's kind of interesting. The time period of the book and the audience of the book, both of those are very interesting. The time period is really, it's actually the first, let's say this carefully, it's the first book written, it's not the first book in the New Testament, first book written in the New Testament.

I know we're gonna see that. And the audience is interesting, it's actually to a bunch of Jewish Christians, who were called dispersed, they were dispersed among the, they were not living, he's writing it to those group of people. And then the reason for writing this, this actually is probably the section that could be expanded just, this will be the content of what we teach basically, so you'll see that. And then actually there are three little sections here that I'll just kind of go, we're gonna look at the, kind of going through and looking at kind of selected ways to look at James. He talks about God's attributes quite a bit. He talks about sin an awful lot. There's a Doctrine of Synogyny, and that's really one of the key areas. And there's actually a smattering of the end times, just a little smattering of that. And we'll see that as we go through. So that's kind of the plan. So I actually have a chart on each one of these topics. And if you have questions along the way, please stop me. OK.

So let's look at the first one, the author's identity. Okay, so first of all basically we need to distinguish the other James, James in the New Testament. So the first one to look at here is James the son of Zebedee. And let's look in, I've got someone to read here, Matthew chapter 4. And why don't we start at verse 19, Matthew 4, 19 through 21.

And we'll look at this first gentleman named James. that he said to them, follow me and I will make you fishers of men. They immediately left their nets and followed him. Going on from there, he saw two other brothers, James, the son of Zebedee, and John, his brother, in the boat with Zebedee, their father, mending their nets. And he called them. Great. OK. So we'll see here that this is the James that was the son of Zebedee. And his brother was John. And they were called the Sons of Thunder. That's one name they were called in Scripture. So this is one of the James.

And this James is not from what we can tell is not the author of this book. He could have been, he was a disciple. What we're going to see is that the other James's either were disciples or they were connected with, in fact they're all connected somehow with the disciples in one way or another. So that's the first one, James the son of Zebedee. The second one is James the son of Alpheus.

And he's also called the less. And I'll just tell you what I found. The less kind of meant, it's believed that he could have been less in age, conceivably, less in stature. If he'd been a small guy, kind of like me, smaller in stature, not a big guy. So I don't know. There isn't any super hard evidence. There's just some thoughts about that.

So Matthew chapter 10. Matthew chapter 10. Can someone read three and four? Philip and Bartholomew, Thomas and Matthew. Let's do two. Now the names of the twelve apostles are these. The first is Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother, James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother. Philip and Bartholomew, Thomas and Matthew the Publican, James the son of Alphaeus and Lebeus, whose surname was Thaddeus, Simon the Canaanite, and Judas Iscariot. who also betrayed him. So you actually see both the one I just mentioned before we see James the son of Zebedee and his brother John and then we see down a little farther here's the second one James the son of Alphaeus so that's the second one he also in some passages is referred to it as the son of Mary And let me see if I can find that for you. Let's look at, and we'll look at the last as well. We'll look at the last in the Son of Mary.

Let's look at Mark, Mark 15. I'm sorry, what page you said? I just happen to have a study Bible that goes through the James also, so. Okay, well good, okay. Mark, Mark 15, 40. You probably knew. Yeah, you could read that, that would be great. And the setting here is that this is after the crucifixion is taking place and we're going to see these ladies gathering and then we're going to see them later on gathered at the tomb, the same ladies. So someone could read Mark 1540. Some women were watching from a distance. Among them were Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James the Younger, and of Joses and Salome.

Okay. Yeah, actually, interesting you said... That's interesting. They put the Younger... James the Less and the new King James. Yeah, and it's the Less, the new American Standard, but it's interesting that somebody basically took the idea of being younger, I mean, and put that in there.

That's okay. I'm not sure. I actually didn't look up the Greek for Less, and it may mean there might be some interesting things there. I didn't actually do that. Yeah, because I know, you know, in the, after, what, 180 or whatever, the term less was used a lot for the younger. Okay, that's interesting. In writings. In general writing. Okay, interesting. It meant the younger. I've read that. Also, could someone read, we're going to see the same ladies here again.

It was in 16.1, Mark 16.1. Bonnie, would you like to read that? When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James and Salome brought bought spices so that they might come and anoint him. So this James seems to have three references. He's called the less, he's called the son of Alphaeus, and he's called the son of Mary in some cases.

The thing I found difficult is to connect all those together. I couldn't easily do it. So that's an exercise for the student. I'm sure it can be done. It takes a really careful look at each and how it's phrased. I would say the brother and the son. It's interesting. The third one is James the father of Judas. What we're going to find here is that Judas is actually one of the disciples. So this is another James and he's the father of Judas.

And let's look in Luke 6.16. And this is an account here again of the, in this case it's the Apostles. And I'll just go ahead and read this one.

In 6.16 it says, Judas the son of James. So you can say it one or two ways. You can say he's the son of James or James the father of Judas. You can say either way. Anyway, so those are the three other James. And then the fourth one is the author of the book And we're going to see why that conclusion was drawn. Because it's not obvious when you read in the book of James. He doesn't identify himself.

Go ahead. Well, I was going to say, my 616 says in Judas, the brother of James. Yeah, okay. Yes. That's what I have too. But it's in italics. Yes, and the son of James. Okay, I'll tell you what the deal is. I spent a little bit of time doing it. The translators, there's actually, there's no word there.

All that's there in the original is Judas James and there's no other words in the Greek, but the structure seems to support son of rather than brother of. And there's a market in the sense that King James, you know, the numerical standard uses son and the King James uses brother. They're a decision by the translators on what is more appropriate. I was reading Zodiaces and he was saying that that son of is better than brother of, but there's no word there to, you know, it's the structure of the Greek in those two words. In the New King James they used son.

Yeah, and I think the newer translations, I'll call them the New American Standard, New King James, you're going to see son of, King James you're probably going to see brother of. So now we're going to look at the author of the book of James, the half-brother of Jesus.

Let's look at Galatians 1.19. Thanks Bob. Actually the setting here is that this is the entrance to Galatians and basically he talks about, if you go back to verse 18, three years later I went up to Jerusalem to become acquainted with Cephas and stayed with him 15 days.

But I did not see any other apostle except James, the Lord's brother. What's interesting is, and I think I've come across this before, maybe when we said it at Galatians, is that there were some other men, and James is one of those, who were kind of considered not full apostles, but they were given the honor of that, and James is actually one of those. And that's one of the reasons why I think that he wasn't a disciple. But he was given that Paul would say that he kind of says in other Except it's almost sounds like that James the Lord's brother was an apostle, but he wasn't this James was not so Okay, so that's that's one reference another reference is in Matthew 13 15 And what I like about this one, I include this one, is because it kind of separated, you know, how in the world do they ever decide who's who?

There's so many, there are brothers and this and that, and there's James as your head starts to spin after a while. How do they decide who's who and what's what? But in this one here, it kind of, it says, his mother called Mary, his brothers, so we got his mother, who's called Mira obviously, his brothers, and then it says who his brothers are. The names of his four brothers. So we see James is in here, and Jude's in there too as well. And there's actually another one that I liked. Mark 6, 3. Yeah, same thing actually. Yeah. Okay, thanks. Okay. So, and we're going to see other cases. When we get into the spiritual history, it will list the different groups.

In some cases you say, it's going to talk about the Lord's his brothers. And you're thinking, well, couldn't he mean just like Bob? I mean, we're the Lord's brothers. I mean, couldn't he mean other believers? But it seems like the word brother is used many times for that. When it says his brothers, many times it means his real physical half brothers.

Well, I didn't, I didn't go down that path. And I, you know, and sometimes it probably is because Adelphos is a, is a core word for brother. Well, why didn't, why don't they name the sisters? It is in Delfos. I'm just curious. They name the brothers, but they don't name the sisters. Typically in the Jewish culture, they name the men only. I'm sorry. Are you having some sort of a problem here?

We're going to talk later. I think the sister should be named. How many sisters did he have anyway? Well, he had at least two. It's like the wise men. How many wise men ever say three? Three plus. Are there names? I mean they're half-brothers and half-sisters really, right? Because they have different fathers. Exactly, exactly. That's what we were talking about the other night, that God's DNA is dominant, right?

Okay, so that's the three other Jameses plus the author here. You'll find if you could spend days, if you want to look at, there's all kinds of, people have all kinds of off-the-wall things about this and that. I mean it just goes off for page after page. You could spend a long time.

I'm just going to take the traditional view that that this James, the half-brother of Jesus, is the author of this book. Okay, his spiritual history. This kind of, to me, helped me kind of validate why it made sense that he would be the author, because he really, and he actually gives a little dissertation, which we'll read in Acts, where he talks about, he's with the other apostles, and he talks about some interesting things, so we'll see that.

Okay, so according to John 7.5, James was not a believer until after, during the public ministry of Jesus.

So let's look at John 7.5.

Actually, let's read, I like to read 1-5, John 7.1-5.

After this, Jesus went around in Galilee, purposely staying away from Judea because the Jews were there waiting to take his life. But when the Jewish Feast of Tabernacles was near, Jesus' brothers said to him, You ought to leave here and go to Judea, so that your disciples may see the miracles you do. No one who wants to become a public figure acts in secret. Since you are doing these things, show yourself to the world.

For even his own brothers did not believe in him. Okay, a couple things that are interesting in this passage here, and this is what I mentioned before. Notice that it says in verse 3, his brothers, plural, and then down in verse 5, it's his brothers. And notice that it's separated from his disciples because his brothers, so it's not his disciples could be his brothers, right? His spiritual brothers. So these brothers are not the disciples. you could argue that they were other believers, but it seems in the context, if you look at verse 5, and the force of verse 5 says, not even your brothers, it's like saying, not even your family believe in you. So it seemed like that made sense to me, that these were his real brothers, and his real brothers include the four that were mentioned, that we just read earlier, and they were not believing in him. So at that time period, with his public ministry, they didn't believe in him.

You look at some stuff and it's obvious, like in your family, right? Johnny and Sally and whatever. What do you think that means, though? That they didn't believe in him? Believe in what? Well, and that's true. How many people believe you can see God walking in a fleshly body? And what they believe, even the disciples didn't They didn't really believe in the sense that he was the savior of the world. They say, you know, my Lord and my God, something like that. They realized at some point, but they really realized, you know. And you kind of wonder if Mary and Joseph didn't. Talk to the other brothers and sisters about how special his birth was. But you know how that goes with families, right? He's special, I'm not. Good luck. Look at Joseph and his brothers if you want an example of how things are. But when he went to Nazareth and read, and the people of Nazareth said, Hey, we know this guy. We know his mother. We know his father. We know everybody else. What's special about him? Yeah, but we're going to read that verse actually. That's good. That's a helpful verse. Yeah, that's cool. This guy seems a little different than me, but... there.

Margaret Derrick bookends here. Let's look back at John chapter 2 here and actually there's another verse that kind of separates out the his brothers and the disciples again. Now I'll read this one. This is in in chapter 2 of John, John 2 12 and this is this is the beginning it says in elect 11 so this beginning this This beginning of his signs Jesus did in Canaan of Galilee and manifested his glory and his disciples believed in him. Once again they don't say what they know. That's kind of the answer to Bob's question. Throughout the gospel they believe, they believe. They never really say what they believe.

That's a good point. Then 12 it says, after this he went down to Capernaum. He, the Lord Jesus, his mother, his brothers, his disciples, and they stayed a few days. So it seems like they traveled together. Disciples, his half-brothers, and his mother. You can find a lot more on that. They were visiting relatives, weren't they? Yeah, I guess you're right. You're absolutely right. That's right, and the wedding feast, you're right.

So now we're going to see the same group of people are going to be witnesses to the resurrection. This is a passage in Corinthians here. It talks about the gospel. So let's turn to 1 Corinthians. And at the end of that dissertation of the gospel, then we have an account of who saw the resurrected Lord Jesus. And let's actually go back a little bit. I want to put it in context here. Let's start in verse 5. Does someone read 5 through 8 in 1 Corinthians 15?

And that he was seen of Cephas, and then of the twelve. He was seen of above five hundred brethren at once, all of whom the greater part remain unto this present, but some are fallen asleep. After that he was seen of James, then of all the apostles. Last of all he was seen by me also as of one born out of due time. So this is Paul speaking here, of course. So it kind of separates all different people.

It's interesting, it mentions the 12 disciples. And notice it mentions the apostles kind of, again, it's like the apostles are a greater group than the, we've been on this path before, I can't, they're a greater group than just the 12. But then it says, to my point I was trying to make here, he specifically calls out, he appeared to James, which is the one we believe to be James, the author of the book of James.

So, a bit of a rabbit trap, verse 6, who are these brethren? 500 brethren. I guess if he's resurrected, then he's potentially our true brethren. Yeah, and that's what I was kind of, that's what I kind of picked up on the fact that when he talks about, when scripture talks about brothers, typically it could refer to his own physical brothers, half-brothers, but then when it says brother, and that's a larger group, even though it could be the same word, and that's another translator, translation kind of thing, decision there, and you know, with the Greek, and I, you know, I'm not there to I'm not savvy enough to judge that. Don't you think in context that seeing the resurrected Christ and being called brethren would be believers? I would absolutely agree with you. These are the Thomas's if you will. Exactly. People say now I see your hands and your feet. It's conceivable. There were people that saw him that were not believers. This is really true. This is the son of God.

It looks to me like it says he was seen by Cephas. Then, then of the twelve. So does that mean Cephas is then of the twelve? Or does it mean that he was seen by the twelve? Cephas... Well it sounds like he appeared to Cephas alone and then the twelve. And then of the twelve. After that he was seen by the five hundred brethren. Then he was seen by James. And then again he was seen by the apostles. It's like a different timeline. A sequence of events. And so then again he was seen by the apostles.

But it is interesting that Cephas and James are both identified individually. Why not John? Why didn't he identify both? We're going to find James is going to be called out. We're going to see James involved in the early church as well. So now here's the passage that's going to show that actually, this is actually more precisely, along with other relatives, his mother and his brothers, I believe, they join the followers of Jesus.

Actually, it should be more precisely after the Ascension, and we're going to see that. So the Ascension is in Acts 1. So let's go to Acts 1, and can I have someone read starting in verse 12, 12-14. Then they returned to Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem a set of days' journey.

And when they had entered, they went up into the upper room where they were staying, Peter, James, John, Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James the son of Aptias, and Simon the zealous. and Judas, the son of James. Interesting son of James. He's all contiguous with one accord in prayer and supplication with the women and Mary, the mother of Jesus, and with his brothers. So here we see, this is I think very enlightening because it puts all the players kind of in view. They're all kind of there in names that puts them in their categories and the very last brothers so you're back to that again you know it's the same it's the same base word but it in the context it looks like that's his real brothers and that would include before we mentioned that would include James the author of the book of James Right, and you see that context in there, the mother and brothers together in different places, so that's good.

Okay, now let's turn to Acts 15. We're going to see there was a church council, so-called, and basically James got up and testified to what was going on there. So let's look at Acts 15. Acts 15 and let's see, I don't want to do it all here, I just want to do part here. Let's just set the context here.

The matter that was going on here was circumcision, which seems to come up over and over again. What was happening was that the Jewish believers, their thought process was, I've come to faith in the Lord Jesus, and hey, there's this ritual here, and I think that these new believers, they'll be circumcised too. And so that was the issue. So there was this council that was, or this discussion that was, then that word council wasn't actually used. Maybe it was used in the King James, but not in the New American Standard.

So let's start reading here in verse six. And maybe we could do this in a couple... I'd like to read 6 through about 21, but maybe different people. Bonnie, could you maybe read 6 through 12, and then we'll have someone else read. The apostles and the elders came together to look into this matter. After there had been much debate, Peter stood up and said to them, Brethren, you know that in the early days God made a choice among you, that by my mouth the Gentiles would hear the word of the gospel and believe.

And God, who knows the heart, testified to them, giving them the Holy Spirit, just as he also did to us. And he made no distinction between us and them, cleansing their hearts by faith. Now, therefore, why do you put God to the test by placing upon the neck of the disciples a yoke which neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear? But we believe that we are saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus in the same way as they also are. All the people kept silent and they were listening to Barnabas and Paul as they were relating what signs and wonders God had done through them. among the Gentiles.

Okay, what's cool is that kind of sets the stage and now we're going to see James, I believe, he's going to stand up and he's going to say, and who'd like to read that part, 13 through 21, or do you want to say something? I'm just amazed by this passage. Isn't that an incredible passage? It's such an uplifting passage. It is. I mean, I must admit I've read this, but right now it seems to be No. Well, it is. I felt the same way. I said, wow, they understood. They understood God's grace.

They weren't going to go back. And they were Jews. And they said, we're not going to put that burden out. We couldn't keep it. We couldn't keep that anyway. What are you guys trying to do? You're going to impose something you couldn't keep on these people? Don't do that. Anyway, I thought, I agree with you, Bob. It was great. It was just kind of a shocker, too. And after they had become silent James answered, saying, Men and brethren, listen to me.

Simon has declared how God at first visited the Gentiles to take out of them a people for his name. And with this the words of the prophets agree, just as it is written. After this I will return and will rebuild the tabernacle of David which has fallen down. I will rebuild its ruins. I will set it up so that the rest of mankind may seek the Lord. Even all the Gentiles who are called by my name, says eternity are all his works.

Therefore I judge that we should not trouble those from among the Gentiles who are turning to God, but that we write to them to abstain from things polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from things strangled, and from blood. For Moses has had throughout many generations those who preach him in every city, being read in the synagogues every Sabbath, and have pleased the apostles and elders with the whole church. to send chosen men of their own company to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas, namely Judas, who was also named Barcellus, and Silas, leading men among the brethren."

Thanks, okay. Yeah, that's cool. You know, if you look in verse 19, the my, that's James saying, you know, therefore it's my judgment that we do not trouble those who are turning to God from among the Gentiles. So, he's involved in the early church, he's involved in, you know, So I thought that was really interesting, kind of his spiritual history. So he's come from a believer to the point where he's in agreement with what the church should be going, and he's on the right page. He's focusing on God's grace. So that was kind of cool. Okay, so I mean there's probably a lot more you could do with these two topics, identity and history, but hopefully that was... Yeah, on in verse 28. to the Holy Spirit and to us. Okay, that's excellent, thank you.

So to not lay the full set of the law on them, but to just say avoid these things which are, what shall we say, disputatious. Well, it's interesting that that same topic is still in view today, right? And that's why Burns has spent over a year teaching difference between law and grace. I mean, the same topic is still around, only a different little flavor. We turn it a little bit different way.

It isn't Galatians, it's... It's not circumcision, it's something else. You know, I got to do this, I got to do that. Foolish Galatians. All right, great. All right, so let's go on to the next. Okay, time period. We talked about this a little bit already.

The letter was written around, I believe, 45 to 48 AD, making it one of the first books written in the New Testament. And I kind of did, you know, like, you can look at, most of your Bibles have the date when they believe it was written. So, you know, 45 is pretty early. Most of them are not quite that early. Some of them I don't really know. Like, Romans is AD 57. Right, exactly.

So that's one of the things we're going to have. This is the challenge we're going to have as teachers. We're going to go through here and we know about God's grace from what Paul has taught. It's a different human author, but it's the same God, same Holy Spirit. How does the information we have here, how do they connect up? And that's one of the cool things we're going to be privileged to be teaching. Well, two thoughts here, Roger. One is that the Lord has in mind the order of the books of the Bible. And I don't know why Esper and Job are where they're at.

But the second thing is that I think that ultimately, Paul's epistles are probably based in part by a little bit more of a legal touch that James seems to bring, when we interpret in context. I mean, it all fits, but nevertheless, I mean, when you think, I mean, think about yourself as a believer in terms of growing out of legal kind of grounds ultimately into an atmospheric race. Well, we've all kind of come down that path, we've all come from that path, so in a way we can identify with what's going on here. So, I mean, James, if anything is looked at, and I'm going to just use an analogy as a kind of a book of works, but it's really, if it's founded on Pauline New Testament scripture, ultimately it falls into place.

But yet, maybe the early church was really kind of very Jewish and very kind of more works in law based, and even James here is expressing that, and Peter both expressing the fact that this whole law thing isn't really relevant. And that wasn't God's plan, and that was not his desire. Okay, so the audience, if we look at the first part of James, is really written to the Jewish Christians and the undergoing trials. But one thing that's interesting here is that the recipients of the letter, let's look at James chapter 1 here, just for a second.

And we'll see this word dispersion. Scattering is another term that's used in place of that. The Greek word is... The diaspora. I've heard it pronounced diaspora. I don't know. The problem is I have my computer Bibles and it pronounces it Greek for me, so I listen to that. I don't know. It's diaspora is how I... I'm open to all pronunciations.

So basically it says in the very first one, it says, James, a bondservant of God, of the Lord Jesus Christ to the 12 tribes who are dispersed abroad. And so it was written to that group of people. He says, greetings. So I want to spend a couple of verses that talk about this first group of people. There's really, and also I kind of found, and actually Bonnie was helping me here. She was looking here and there. Now, if you think about it, there's the quote original dispersion, like when Jerusalem was sacked, excuse me, in 721 BC. The Jews were dispersed then. But this is talking about believing Jews being dispersed.

And there's a couple of verses that talk about that. Let's look at Acts chapter 8. Let's see here, Acts chapter 8. Let's read 1 through 5 in Acts chapter 8. And this is Saul, or Paul, and this is before his conversion. Saul was in hearty agreement with putting him to death.

And on that day, a great persecution began against the church in Jerusalem, and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria except the apostles. Some devout men buried Stephen and made loud lamentations over him. But Saul began ravaging the church, entering house after house, and dragging off men and women he would put them in prison. Therefore, those who had been scattered went about preaching the word. Philip went down to the city of Samaria and began proclaiming Christ to them.

Thanks, Bonnie. A couple things that kind of struck me here is that it talks about the being scattered throughout the region of Judea and Samaria. And then it also talks about the fact that when they were scattered, verse 4, therefore, those who had been scattered were preaching the word. It talks about Philip going down to Samaria. So that's one verse that kind of talks about believing Jews being scattered.

And then there's another one in 1 Peter. 1 Peter 1. It's an introduction to that book. Right, I thought that was pretty cool. So we see that this was something that was recognized that they were writing to Jewish believers that were scattered. And so that's the audience for this book. And then the last part is that there's, and we're not going to go through, We're not going to go through these for the sake of time. But basically, there's a lot of Jewish references in this book. We're going to see that as we go through. And there's a sampling of those there. OK, so let's just go on to the next one here. Reasons for the writing. First of all, we're going to see, and we'll see it next week, that they were encountering various trials. And what's interesting is that, you know, This book is so great.

What does he say about when you... What's your mindset when you get trials? Do you say, oh, whoa, it's me. Boy, I'm getting a trial here. Oh, it's really bad. It's all joy. It's just the opposite. He says, count it all joy you think. I think most of the time you say, get me out of this. Exactly. And it's exactly right. That's your prayer. Lord, get me out of this. I'm tired of this. I'm feeling miserable. That's right. Get me out of this. So it's just so different. I mean, God thinks different than we think. I mean, he wants us to think different.

Citizenship, right? Exactly. So we're going to see that. We're going to see that next week. That's going to be cool. And this isn't exhaustive. The believers were being persecuted by the rich. This is a Macaulay thing. I actually hadn't seen that. And actually that kind of shows up. I'm just going to read it to you.

That kind of shows up in that the rich man were oppressing them. He says, woe to the rich man. Like the rich man of Lazarus. The rich man in the New Testament is kind of a a name for those who are outside of Christ but have lots of money, like the rich man, and their destiny is not heaven. They're going to go someplace else.

So he talks a little bit about in 2.6 and in 5.1-6 about the rich man, how he really is in bad shape, so to speak. Then probably one of the cool things that I kind of came away with after this little overview was the fact that the believers that James is writing to were immature. I hadn't actually thought about this before.

And based upon this, that they basically, he talked about the tongue. The tongue is a fire. No one contained the tongue. The tongue produces both blessing and curses. So their speech, their spiritual state indicated by their speech, not too good. They were partial. If a rich man came into their body, oh hey, come to this nice seat over here, right up front here. If a guy was in rags, you sit at the back, toward the back. They were partial. As believers, they should be, as mature believers, they wouldn't be doing that.

They were friendship with the world. Friendship with the world is hostility to God, is an enemy of God. One of the most interesting parts is going to be the confusion over faith and works. One of the key parts everybody thinks about in James is faith and works. I have my faith, you have your works. Can I be saved by faith? Faith alone works alone.

Yeah, Luther didn't like that. So we're going to, God willing, Lord willing, we're going to go through that and I think we're going to sort it out. I'm going to let Bob teach those sections. Make sure I'm out of town. No, I think actually they're explainable, really. I think it's actually pretty explainable. So anyway, let's have a look forward to. Okay, now this last part here, these last three sections are just kind of going through the book, and this is what Macaulay did, and I felt it was so good I decided to include it.

Just kind of looking at James and saying, wow, look at what's in here. So the first one is that God is generous, and if you have James, Probably not possible we can do this all in this short time period, but just try to stay with me here and just kind of look at the verses as we go through. God is generous. Yeah, basically, God who gives generously to all men. So we're going to see about that. God is the source of good. That's in verse 17.

This is cool. Actually, there are two things in here I saw. Every good thing bestowed and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, whom there is no variation or shifting shadow. That actually talks about that God doesn't change. That's another one of his attributes. So that actually is more than just good. There's good and unchanging to be put in there.

He's the only true God. 2.19 says that he, where is it here? You believe that God is one and you do well. The demons also believe and shudder. So God is one. He's the true God. There's only one God. He's our father, 3.9. Talking about our tongue, with it we bless our Lord and Father. So he's both our Lord and Father. With it we curse men who have been made in the likeness of God.

He's sovereign, 415. Instead you ought to say, if the Lord wills, we shall live and also do this or that. And then God is proactive. This is the one where he talks about the fact that his ears hear the cries against the laborers whose pay is being withheld. And then lastly, he is compassionate in 511. It says, Behold, we count those blessed who endure. You have heard of the endurance of Job and have seen the outcome of the Lord's healing. The Lord is full of compassion and is merciful.

So that's just a short, I was kind of thinking back, you guys are here with Hal, I remember his, he had his list, he had a brother who's here, went to be with the Lord, he had this little thing, this little, his list, H-I-S-L-I-S-S, God is holy, infinite, spirit, love, immutable, self-existent, and sovereign. He used that as a template for the attributes of God. So you can find them all in this here, so it's kind of cool. This one's a cool one.

The Doctrine of Sin. Sin is universal, and that's in the fact that we all stumble in many ways. Sin indwells all men. That's about talking about our lust. What happened with our lust in 114. Sin results in death. This is some cool verses here. What does that death mean? The definition of death, we have to keep in mind. Death is separation. Sin is expressed in the following areas. It's expressed in anger in 120. Blasphemy in 2.7. Partiality in 2.9. Hedonism or pleasure in 4.3.

Wrong associations, basically this is friendship with the world in this case. Pride, this is he's opposed to the proud but give grace to the humble. dishonesty, and then self-indulgence, living luxurious, wanton pleasures, and so on. So I thought this is a pretty cool sifting of going through that. And we're not going to actually, you know, we're going to go down, you know, verse by verse as we go through this. This is kind of a top level view.

And then lastly, end times, The Day of Rewards kind of shows up there. That's when we receive the Crown of Righteousness. It talks about the Day of Rewards. And God sets up His Kingdom. This is the Kingdom which has been promised from eternity past. And it talks about the Lord's return. It talks about being patient. Being patient until the coming of the Lord. 5-8, and the Lord is near. And then lastly, a time of judgment. There's one lawgiver and one judge. So, that's a short...

I really appreciate having Macaulay's stuff, it was really great. I thought it was really very helpful. So hopefully you guys are all fired up and ready to go with verses one through four for next week. Read through them for next week. Come with questions about that, you know. How can trials be, you know. Please give me another trial. Please, please, please, please. How's the course on trials?

Go back and look at our notes. Yes, that was very good. Well, I like how Vern referred to it. He says, Hal's giving out free samples next. Yeah, exactly. Thanks for your help and questions and support. It was great. Come next week. Get ready for verses 1 through 4.

Dear Father, we thank you so much, Lord. We thank you for the blessings we have in our Savior. We thank you for a time we've had today, Lord. Thank you for your marvelous Word, the inexhaustible nature of it, Lord. It has all that we need to know you and to walk by faith. We ask it in our Savior's name. Amen.