Intro James 1:1

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Introduction: Let’s open up our Bibles to the Book of James in the NT. Just go past all the letters of Paul and the Book of Hebrews. If you get to 1 John or Revelation, you’ve gone too far. 

Today I have the wonderful privilege of introducing a new series to you in the NT Book of James entitled “Prove Your Faith.” For the next several months we are going to take a deep dive into this book. And this is a series that is going to be team-taught by a group of young preachers I’m affectionately referring to as the “VBVF Preachers Guild.” 

For the next twelve weeks we are going to be working through this amazing and hard-hitting Biblical book—the book of James. 

This is actually a very short book in the NT. You can read through it in its entirety in about 15 minutes. It’s a short book, but I’ll be honest, this little book packs a wallop.

And let me just contrast it with the Book of Romans which is sometimes considered the gold standard of letters in the NT. Romans is very intellectually challenging (and satisfying). Romans is about getting your mind right and getting the truth of the gospel right, both justification and sanctification. Not exclusively, but primarily, that’s the message of Romans. 

James is different. James is a punch to the gut. James says, “You believe this… good! Start acting like it.” “Get your tongue under control.” “Quit showing favoritism.” “Quit whining about your suffering.” “Stop being a ‘hearer’ of the Word only. Start doing it.” “Stop being wasteful and self-indulgent with your finances!” 

And as you start reading these statements every day, you start to see more clearly your bad habits and your sin patterns emerge. If you don’t want that, then don’t read James. Don’t come to church on Wednesday to hear it preached. If you are coming to get your ears tickled and your biases confirmed, this is not the book for you. And quite frankly, this is not the church for you. 

But if you want to be challenged. If you want to change and experience God’s goodness and God’s pleasure in a deeper way. If you want to live your life meaningfully and impactfully in this world where we’ve been commissioned as ambassadors for Christ, then stick around. Stick around and let’s journey together through the Book of James. 

And today what I want to do is introduce you to Jesus’s kid brother. I’ve entitled this message today, “Introducing Jesus’s Little Brother.” Let me ask you as we get started: How many of you have an older brother? How many of you are the older brother? That’s me. I’m an older brother. 

Now let me ask you this morning: How many of you have an older brother that was virgin-born without a sin nature? How many of you have a brother who is God incarnated into human flesh? Anyone? Honestly, I would love to hear from my little brother on that question. He would say “no” so fast, it would make your head spin. 

Well James, the man who wrote this book, his older brother was Jesus. How about that? His older brother was God in the flesh. Those are pretty big shoes to fill. And just so you know, James wasn’t always keen on following or even respecting his big brother. We’ll talk more about that in a second. But let’s start here. 

Today, I want to answer three basic questions for you about this great book. Let’s answer “who?” Let’s answer “when?” And let’s answer “why”? First the “who”? 

1) Who wrote the book of James?

The answer to that is the Apostle James. 

The Apostle James, Jesus’s younger half-brother 

The first verse in this book clearly identifies the author of the book as a man named “James.”

1:1 James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, 

To the twelve tribes in the Dispersion: Greetings.

Now when you talk NT, I know it can become confusing when you use the names James, John, or Mary without qualification. Because those names were very prevalent in first century Jewish culture. And there are several Johns, Marys, and Jameses in the NT. So we say Mary the Mother of Jesus to differentiate her from Mary Magdalene and the other Marys. We say John the Baptist to differentiate him from John the Apostle, the son of Zebedee. 

Well we need to do the same with the James who wrote this book, because there are two prominent men in the NT named James. 

By the way the name “James” is an anglicized version of the Hebrew “Jacob” or יַעֲקֹב֙. So you can imagine why many families wanted to name their little boys “Jacob.” Jacob was the father of the twelve tribes of Israel; his name was later changed to Israel. So Jacob, or James as we say it in English, was a popular name in first century Jewish culture. 

And in the NT, there were two prominent individuals named “James.” And when you see that name “James” as the first word in the Book of James, you might be wondering which James are we talking about here? Are we talking about James the son of Zebedee, the brother of John? If you remember, he was in Jesus’s inner circle of three: Peter, James, and John. He saw Jesus’s body transfigured on the Mount of Transfiguration (Matt 17:1-8). But that James died early in the Book of Acts; he was beheaded by King Agrippa. So he (probably) is not the author of this book.

The “James” that authored this book was not that James, but instead the James who is the half-brother of Jesus. That James becomes a major figure later in the Book of Acts. He led the church in Jerusalem as Paul and the other Apostles traveled throughout the Roman Empire preaching the gospel (see Acts 12:17, 15:13, 21:18).

Now let me just tell you a couple things about this James, the author of this book:

1) First of all he was Jesus’s half-brother. What does that mean? It means that he was the biological son of Joseph and Mary, whereas Jesus was the virgin-born son of Mary, and Joseph was his adoptive father. The Bible makes clear that Mary and Joseph had sons after Jesus. Their names were James, Joseph, Simon, and Judas (Matt 12:46-50, 13:55-56; Mark 3:31, 6:3; Luke 8:19; John 2:12, 7:3; Acts 1:14; 1 Cor. 9:5). Matthew and Mark also make reference to Jesus’s sisters (Matt 13:56; Mark 6:3). So to be candid, those who hold to the perpetual virginity of Mary are quite frankly wrong. Joseph and Mary clearly had children after Jesus, but none of them were virgin-born like Jesus. 

So Joseph was the adoptive father of Jesus. And James, the author of this book, was Jesus’s half-brother. Now maybe “half-brother” isn’t the best term here because adoptive fathers aren’t like stepdads. And Joseph was not Jesus’s stepdad. But I’m preserving that term “half-brother,” because I want you to see that Jesus grew up in a family with siblings. Jesus had siblings like many of you had siblings growing up. James shared a bathroom and a bedroom with Jesus. They wouldn’t have called him their half-brother; they would have just called him “brother.” But he was categorically different from them. He was virgin-born and never manifested a sin nature. That’s key. And that’s unlike any sibling that you or I have ever had. 

2) Secondly, James didn’t always believe that Jesus was the Messiah. In Mark 3:21, when Jesus’s popularity was growing in Galilee, it says that “when his family heard it, they went out to seize him, for they were saying, ‘He is out of his mind.’” A few verses later, Mark says that Jesus’s mother and brothers were calling to him. And Jesus, pointing to the crowds, said, “Here are my mother and brothers” (Mark 3:31-35). That probably hurt Jesus’s mother and his brothers. That must not have gone over well with his nuclear family. I think even Mary had to come to terms with the fact that she couldn’t cling to Jesus like a normal mother could cling to her son. Jesus wasn’t just her son; he was her Savior. Jesus was her Messiah. And James had to come to that conclusion too.

Now here’s the question for us. When did James ultimately embrace Jesus as his Messiah? The answer is “I don’t know.” But probably it happened after Jesus’s resurrection. Here’s why I say that. You’ll remember that nobody was with Jesus at his crucifixion except for Mary, John the Apostle, and some of the faithful women in Jesus’s life. His brothers weren’t there, as far as we know. James wasn’t there when his insurrectionist brother was crucified. He probably thought Jesus, his insurrectionist big brother, was an embarrassment to his family. What changed that? 

Well, Paul gives us a clue in 1 Corinthians 15. Paul says, “For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles.” In Galatians 2:9, Paul actually calls James one of the “pillars” of the church, along with Peter and John. 

So how did James become a believer? Well he, not unlike the “twelve,” saw Jesus risen from the dead! That’ll shock your system, won’t it? And we don’t have absolute clarity as to what James’s attitude towards Jesus was before this, but after this, James became a sold-out, Spirit-filled follower of big brother, Jesus. He knew after the resurrection, that Jesus was more than just big brother. And this visitation with Jesus recorded in 1 Corinthians 15 confirms that James wasn’t just Jesus’s kid brother. He was also authorized as an apostle of the church. And that’s important. Because only apostles were authorized and empowered to write Scripture. We don’t have Scripture-writing apostles circulating in our day. That was reserved for those who witnessed Jesus after his resurrection and were authenticators of the gospel (See 1 Cor 9:1; Gal 1:12, 16). 

And James’s faith in Christ is clarified even further in the first verse of this book. Look again at James 1, verse 1. You know, if I was Jesus’s kid brother, I would mention it in the opening of my letter. “Listen up, church. I’m Jesus’s little brother! He’s gone off to heaven for more important stuff, but he left me in charge here. So you have to listen to me.” Is that how James introduces himself? Is that what he tells the church? No. Look how he introduces himself.   

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

Really? A servant of the Lord Jesus Christ? A servant, a δοῦλος in Greek! This word could even be translated “slave.” And he calls Jesus “Lord” (κύριος in Greek which is the word in the LXX used to translate “Yahweh”). Let me ask you out there, those of you who have big brothers… how many of you introduce yourself as a “slave” of your big brother? How many of you call your big brother, “Lord?” I know my little brother would never refer to me that way. He doesn’t even call me “big brother” anymore, because he’s literally bigger than me now. He’s like an inch and a half taller than me!

James doesn’t refer to Jesus as big brother. And he doesn’t leverage his “little brother status” to wield authority over the church. Instead he calls himself a “slave” to his “Lord” Jesus. Why does he do that? The clue is in the statement “Jesus Christ.” Christ means Messiah. He knows now, he believes now that big brother isn’t just big brother; he’s the Messiah. He’s the anointed sent one who came to take away the sins of the world. And James’s faith in Jesus as the Christ has led to his salvation, and now he’s a servant of Christ Jesus. Which prompts this question for us this morning? Are you a servant of Christ Jesus like James? Have you, by faith, embraced Jesus as your Lord and Savior and Messiah?   

And by the way, this last part might blow your mind a little bit so brace yourself. James doesn’t introduce himself as Jesus’s kid brother, but there is a sense in which he is Jesus’s kid brother, and I don’t mean biologically. I mean spiritually. And there is a sense… are y’all ready for this? … There is a sense in which you and I are Jesus’s kid brothers and sisters. Did you know that? According to the Bible, we aren’t just Jesus’s servants. He’s not just our Lord; he’s also our big brother. That should blow your ever-loving mind! 

Hebrews 2:10-12 says it this way. “For it was fitting that he, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering. For he who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one source. That is why he [Jesus] is not ashamed to call them brothers, saying, ‘I will tell of your name to my brothers; in the midst of the congregation I will sing your praise.’” Do you know how amazing that passage is? That Jesus calls us his brothers? That we call Jesus our big brother? 

You know I’ll be honest with you, big brothers get a bad rap in this world. Even in the Bible, there are very few good big brothers. Esau was a lousy big brother. And Jacob was a lousy little brother too, by the way. Joseph’s big brothers were the worst. And remember Jesus’s parable of the prodigal son (Luke 15:11-32). That prodigal son’s big brother was a jerk. He didn’t even care that his lost little brother came home. 

Do you know who is a good big brother, though? This is the easiest question I’m going to give you today. You know who is a good big brother, though? Jesus!  Jesus, our big brother, died so that we might be saved from our sin.   

John Calvin said it this way: “And there is no doubt at all that we are joined to God by means of [Jesus], seeing he is our true brother…because we are bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh (Ephesians 5:29-30)… For just as he is very God, so on the other hand He is akin to us, because he came down…in order that we might be glorified by means of him… And for that reason also he is called our brother.” Can you believe that? That we are actually called the sons of God and can refer to Jesus as our brother? That is phenomenal.

The band “Citizens” has a song called “Kids” and they sing it this way:

There's nothing better than to know we belong

We've been adopted by the Father of love

Our brother suffered on the cross in our place

We are kids of grace

So we’ve talked now about “the who.” Let’s transition now to “the when.” It’s harder to answer this second question. But the best evidence suggests that James was written around AD 45-48. 

2) When did he write this book?

Approximately AD 45-48

You know one of the ways that James is very much like his big bro is in his use of metaphors and analogies. Jesus was a master at that, and James is good at it too. In this book, James speaks of “wind-tossed waves (1:6), withering plants (1:10–11), self-inspection using a mirror (1:23), a dead body (2:26), bridling of a horse (3:3), turning a ship (3:4), forest fire (3:5–6), taming wild beasts (3:7), impossible fountain of fresh and bitter water (3:11), impossible vine of grape and figs (3:12), ephemeral mist (4:14), clothes consumed by moths (5:2), rust behaving like fire (5:3), farmers waiting for rain (5:7), [and] rain watering the earth (5:18).” These are the kinds of images that Jesus used when he taught. And of course for the first century world, these images were incredibly accessible to them. I wish I could come up with analogies as good as James. He’s a master at it. 

So here’s the question. When did James write this book? The real answer is “we don’t know.” But we can come up with a pretty good conjecture. The best NT scholarship concludes that James probably wrote this book shortly before or after his meeting with Paul in Acts 15, between AD 45-48. I think that is correct. 

James died in about AD 62, not long before Peter and Paul died at the hands of Emperor Nero. And James wrote this book initially to “the twelve tribes in the Dispersion.” James was a Jewish Christian leader, pastoring the church in Jerusalem. So his heart was for those Jewish followers of Christ that were scattered abroad in the Roman Empire. We know that persecution and scattering were a regular part of the Jewish experience. We see that several times in the Book of Acts. And so at some time in his life, James sat down in Jerusalem, and inspired by the Holy Spirit, wrote a letter to encourage those Christian Jews that were dispersed throughout the Empire. Best evidence suggests that this took place sometime in the middle to late 40s before Paul wrote any of his letters, and before any of the gospels were written too. If that’s correct, then this book, James, is the first letter written in the NT. And it’s the first Christian writing of any kind that we have access to. 

Here are a few other fast facts about the book of James. James is the NT book that most clearly approximates OT Hebrew wisdom. There are a lot of corollaries between James and the OT Book of Proverbs. James is a letter (i.e. an epistle), but it doesn’t really read like a letter… not like one of Paul’s letters anyways. It reads more like the Book of Proverbs. It reads more like choice pieces of wisdom from a learned sage. You’ll see that as we work through this book.

Also you can see several connections to Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount in this book. Even if little brother didn’t believe Jesus was the Messiah at that time, he was still listening. And in this book, he reinforces much of what Jesus taught in the greatest sermon ever preached, the Sermon on the Mount. 

Also at the end of verse one in the Book, James writes, “greetings.” Do you see that in your Bibles? 

1:1 James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, To the twelve tribes in the Dispersion: Greetings.

That word “greetings” (χαίρω in Greek which is usually translated “rejoice”) is used rarely as a kind of greeting in the Bible. Paul doesn’t use it that way. But one of the only places it’s used that way is in Acts 15:23 which is a letter written to the Gentile churches in Antioch, Syria, and Cilicia. Do you know who wrote that letter? James, the brother of Jesus. James, the leader of the church in Jerusalem. It was written after James and Paul had a pretty spirited discussion about whether or not the gospel was truly being embraced and believed by the heathen Gentiles. Paul won that argument. And James saw, maybe for the first time with clarity, God’s divine plan of salvation for Jews and Gentiles both.   

So finally, let’s talk about “the why?” Why did James write this letter to the Jewish Dispersion throughout the Roman Empire? Why not just let Peter, John, and Paul write all the books in the NT? Why James? Why this book? And also why is this book needed in our day? I think the answer to those questions are related. 

So why was this book written? Let me answer that question in a short statement, which, by the way, is really, really difficult if you’ve ever done that before! It’s easy to be verbose. It’s difficult to be concise. If I had to distill the theme of this book into one short statement, here it is. 

3) Why was this book written?

To motivate sincere believers to live out their faith with visible, God-glorifying actions.   

James wrote this book to show sincere, Christian believers how to act in accordance with their beliefs. This is where that punch to the gut I mentioned earlier comes in. “You say you are a believer,” says James. “Good! Start acting like it.” Ugh! “You say you love Jesus. Good! Stop lashing out at people with your tongue.” Ugh! “You say you are a follower of Christ. Good! Stop being presumptuous about your life. Stop talking and start praying.” Ugh! Ugh! “Stop showing favoritism.” “Stop being ungenerous and materialistic with your money.” “Stop being just a hearer of God’s Word. Be a doer!” “Stop whining about the trials you are going through.” “Stop saying you believe, if your belief doesn’t get activated by real, discernible works.” Ugh! Ugh! Ugh! When you read the Book of James, you start to feel like one of the bad guys getting punched by Adam West’s Batman. POW! ZAP! WHAM! WHACK! It’s like getting into the ring with an MMA fighter who just beats the snot out of you. 

But actually, that’s not the right illustration. It’s like getting into the ring with an MMA fighter who simultaneously pummels you while also training you to be a great MMA fighter yourself. If I could change the metaphor for you, the Book of James is like boot camp. Welcome to boot camp, Christians. We’re going to study the Book of James. Put your big-boy pants on and let’s get after it. 

You know Martin Luther called James an “epistle of straw.” He thought it was a kind of second tier letter of theology compared to Paul’s epistles and the other books of the NT. You guys know I love Martin Luther. I do. But I just can’t agree with him on that. I don’t agree with his assessment of this book. James isn’t an “epistle of straw.” It’s an “epistle of granite.” It’s rock solid. And when you read it, I’ll just warn you, it packs a wallop. 

You know when I was about 13 years old, I started going to youth group with my older sister and her friends. And I was a pretty self-righteous, cocky little Christian kid. And my poor youth pastor had to shepherd me through that. God bless those youth leaders out there. 

And I was cocky because I grew up in the church. I had memorized a lot of Scripture in Awana’s and in other things. So I thought I knew the Bible pretty well. I was like a little Christian Pharisee. And I was pretty impressed with myself. Well my youth pastor challenged me when I started in youth group. He challenged me to read the Bible. Not like in Awana’s where you just memorize select portions or go to church and hear the pastor preach a sermon. He challenged me to read every day, on my own, to develop my own spiritual walk with the LORD. What a thought, huh? 

And you know what the first book he challenged me to read was? It was Proverbs in the OT. And I did it. I read that entire book. And you know what I thought to myself while I was reading that book? I thought to myself, “I don’t know anything about the Bible. This is solid gold, and I’ve never read half of this stuff before.” And I thought to myself too, “I could spend the rest of my life trying to live like this and imitate these truth principles and never accomplish it perfectly.” I had enough sense at 13 years old to know that! My youth pastor was smart, see. He knew I just might have an experience like that. 

So I read Proverbs, and I came back to him, and I said, “I read the whole Book of Proverbs. And I want more. What else should I read? Where should I go now?” You know where he sent me after Proverbs? The Book of James in the NT. And I read that book. And I got into the ring with the MMA fighter James, the kid brother of Jesus, and he beat me to a pulp. And you know what? I liked it. I wanted what he was preaching. I wanted to live my life like what he described. I wanted to be a doer of the word and not just a hearer. 

Here’s where I’m going with this. I want to do something for you similar to what my youth pastor did for me about 30 years ago. I want to challenge you to read and study the Book of James. And when you gather on Wednesdays over the next few months (either live or in person), I want you to receive the truth of God preached to you by others. I’ll be here with you. And I’ll be learning as a fellow follower of Jesus Christ how to be a doer of God’s Word not just a hearer…how to live out my sincere faith in Christ with God-glorifying actions. 

Let’s do this together, church. Are you up for that? If you are ready to study the Book of James, say “Amen!” Pray with me.
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Taught by Tony Caffey

Senior Pastor of Verse By Verse Fellowship

James Series