The Book of James in 5 minutes

the book of James it's fairly short book it's about five chapters it's known as being one of the most relevant practical books you can ever study in the Bible well James is simply put the half-brother of our Lord Jesus Christ James the best we understand from extra biblical writings he spent his whole life in Jerusalem he actually became pastor of the Jerusalem church he was actually martyred in Jerusalem and he writes this book from Jerusalem to various Jews who are scattered in what we call the Diaspora and these Jewish Christians were probably kicked out of their land by Saul of Tarsus who persecuted them and they they fled but anyway what's this whole book about it's basically written to Jewish Christians who were worried not about whether they're saved but they're really worried about the whole subject of practical righteousness and you have to understand that they're Jewish people and they understand that practical righteousness meaning how we live is very important to God and they knew very well from Jewish history that God disciplined them many times in the Old Testament because of a lack of practical righteousness so here they are now in the church age they're believers in Yeshua or Jesus they don't have an apostle with them where they're dispersed they can't go back to the Old Testament law because the Old Testament law governed Israel and they're in the church age now so these issues of practical righteousness were foremost on their thinking and so James writes this very short book the very first New Testament book written to teach them what a practical righteousness is that pleases God in other words as a Christian how do you live a life that's pleasing to God and many people misunderstand the book they try to make it sound as if James is questioning whether these people are believers at all and that's not true he calls them brethren all the way through the book and even in James 1 2 through 4 he says their faith is being matured you can't have a maturing faith unless you have a faith and even in chapter 4 he talks about how the spirit within them zealously desires them so there's no question the any calls them born again James 1:18 born again by the living and enduring Word of God James 1:18 so there's no doubt these people are saved that the issue is not are you saved or not the issue is how do you live for God as a Christian and so James develops this whole book about practical righteousness and just very quickly he talks about how to achieve a practical righteousness that pleases God in the area of trials when a trial hits a problem and these people had problems how do they have the right type of mindset about suffering that pleases God he deals with that in chapter 1 verse 1 through verse 18 and then in verses 19 through 27 he deals with the fact that they should not just be hearers of the word but doers of the word then early on in chapter 2 he talks about how they shouldn't show favoritism they shouldn't treat people differently based on wealth you know give one man a place of luxury in the synagogue because he happens to be wealthy and then you get to chapter 2 verses 14 through 26 and he says faith without works is dead now dead doesn't mean non-existent dead simply means is their faith productive death in the Bible is never non-existence it has to do with usefulness of faith so he's not saying if you don't have works you don't have faith that's a misunderstanding of the book he's saying here's how you as a believing Christian can make your faith productive in other words become useful for God and then he gets into chapter 3 verses 1 through 12 where he says the ultimate good work you can do to please God in your daily life is to control your tongue which is always a very convicting chapter to read then he gets into the whole subject of wisdom what does divine wisdom look like chapter 3 verse 13 through 18 then he applies wisdom to their spiritual life chapter 4 verses 1 through 12 to their commercial life and how they handle business affairs chapter 4 verses 13 through 17 and then he applies divine wisdom related to wealthy oppressors how Christians should not use their wealth to oppress others and he there talks about judgment coming upon unbelievers he switches topics and talks about judgment coming on upon wealthy unbelieving oppressors in hell but then at chapter 5 verse 7 through 12 he talks about wisdom and waiting for the Lord then he talks about wisdom in the issue of prayer there in chapter 5 and also in chapter 5 he talks about wisdom in terms of restoring the sinning brother so it's a wonderful book about how we as Christians can achieve a daily life that pleases God where we allow our practice to catch up with our position you

Channel: Andy Woods

Views: 70,463

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Keywords: bible study, Andy Woods, James, espistle of James

Id: HcfVrqKpOd8

Length: 5min 54sec (354 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 19 2016