As I have argued in my commentary, reading the epistle of James as one of the earliest Christian documents written only a few years after Pentecost to the infant church in the throes of a severe crisis provides surprisingly productive insights into some otherwise opaque passages.[1] James writes to the “twelve tribes in the Dispersion (diaspora).” There are convincing reasons to believe that he is writing to an early group of Jewish converts to the Christian faith who have been banished from Jerusalem and are experiencing brutal persecution for their new allegiance to Jesus.
The Greek word diaspora occurs also in Acts 8:1,4 and 11:19, each time referring to the group of Jewish Christians driven out of Jerusalem because of the violent Jewish persecution following the murder of Stephen. This Christian diaspora is not merely a “spiritual” dispersion, but those who have experienced a specific event in the early history of the church. Because of the persecution that followed the martyrdom of Stephen, the Jerusalem church became a dispersed church. James’s audience would, in the nature of the case, be a predominantly Jewish audience because the early Christian converts from Judaism in Jerusalem were the disciples driven out of that city by the leaders of the Jews. But James addresses them as the “twelve tribes of the diaspora” not because they are exiled Jews but because they are members of the new Israel who have been driven from their city.
James refers to his audience as being “a kind of firstfruits” in 1:18. The Greek word aparkea is also used in Rom 16:5 and 1 Cor 16:15 to refer to the first converts in a region. Its use here most likely indicates that James addresses his letter to some of the first converts of Christ’s church from among the Jews. As the firstfruits of a coming harvest, their behavior at this early stage of the Christian history will set the pattern for the future of the church. The way they behave in these difficult times will either set the whole future church on the path to maturity and victory as followers of the crucified and risen Christ or their failure to endure patiently their present trials will take them off the narrow path blazed first by their Lord and Savior Jesus. The stakes were extremely high.
The many references to trials and sufferings throughout James’s epistle point to a context of severe persecution (1:2, 1:12; 2:6b-7; 5:4, 6, 10, 14). The best explanation for that persecution is the early opposition of the Jews instead of a later period of local or Roman persecution.
Furthermore, the way James addresses the question of faith and works in 2:14-26 makes more sense in a context other than that which Paul addresses in his epistles. It is also much different than the way James the Just resolves the conflict when he presides over the Jerusalem counsel recorded in Acts 15. If James was written and distributed before the Jerusalem council and before Paul’s clarification of the freedom of Christians from the specific Old Covenant legal requirements (“works of the law” such as circumcision, food laws, sabbaths, etc.), this would account for James’s use of the language of “justification by works” (2:21, 25). The later controversy dealt with by Paul had to do with the place of distinctively Jewish “works of the law” and their place in the new order established by Jesus. In James 2, however, the “works” are not “works of the law” but rather common Christian acts of love and service required of all believers—works that evidence a genuine “faith that saves” (2:14). Those who claim to have “faith” without following Jesus’ way of life are shown to be fools that cherish a useless and dead “faith” (James 2:20-22). James is addressing a completely different problem than Paul.
Though there is much more that might be said on this issue of author, audience, and setting for James’s epistle (see the introduction and the appendix in the commentary for more detailed arguments), it is most likely that in these first verses of his epistle James the son of Zebedee, the presiding elder in Jerusalem, greets the early church, acknowledging their dispersion and persecution but also asserting his pastoral authority to address their situation. James wrote to the scattered members of his church to warn them that, during their geographic diaspora, they had to take care not to wander from the way marked out by Jesus himself. James’s letter performs the kind of restorative act he commends at the close of his letter: He is attempting to turn wandering “brothers” from the errors of their ways (James 5:19-20).
It may be helpful at this point to pause and imagine the kinds of people that James is addressing, the place in life they found themselves in. We may assume that at least the very great majority of his audience were converted Jews. Born into the world of first-century Judaism, these men and women grew up steeped in the stories of the Hebrew Scriptures and the ritual life and worship of Israel. They felt the tension of the glorious promises of the prophets and the reality of their lives under the oppression of their faithless Jewish leaders. They lived in a community that longed for redemption, and vindication before the nations by their God. And they had every reason to hope that the new Lord of heaven and earth (Matt. 28:18-20) would shortly begin to set things right in the world.
At some point, through different circumstances, each of them began to believe that Jesus of Nazareth was the one through whom that redemption and vindication had come. In his death, and especially his resurrection, they saw the righteousness of God enacted in history and believed that the latter days which the prophets had spoken of were coming to pass in their own times. Throughout the literature of the New Testament there are numerous references to “the last days” (Acts 2:17; Heb. 1:2), “the end time(s)” (1 Peter 1:20; 1 John 2:18; Jude 18), “the last hour” (1 John 2:18), “the latter days (or times)” (1 Tim. 4:1), and “the end of the world” (1 Cor. 10:11; Heb. 9:26). They did not expect the end of the physical world and human history, but the end of the old age. The apostolic leaders of the Christian church believed that they were living in an era that would see the end of the entire Old World. Jesus had taught them to expect this in their generation (Matt. 23:36; 24:34; Mark 13:30; Luke 21:32). The kingdom of God was at hand, as Jesus had proclaimed repeatedly in his three-year ministry (Matt. 3:2; 4:17; 10:7; etc.).
On the day of Pentecost, when it is likely that at least some of the audience of this letter first bowed the knee to their new Lord, they saw the power of God demonstrated in their own lives and before their very eyes. Surely it would not be unsurprising if the hearts of these men and women, who now tasted what they and their fathers and mothers had waited so patiently for, as promised by the prophets, soon began to swell with expectation for the new age that the resurrection and ascension of Jesus and the pouring out of the Holy Spirit on all flesh would surely bring. At the very least, it would be a time of repentance for Israel. But even more than that, Israel’s repentance and acceptance of the Gospel would result in the world-wide victory of Jesus’ kingdom (Dan. 7:13-24; Matt. 28:18-20). The true God, the Father of Jesus the Messiah, who had vindicated Jesus so decisively in his victory over death, would also vindicate his church. To understand the admonitions of the New Testament writers, especially James, we must appreciate the heightened expectations of these early believers.
But in those early days after Pentecost, when the last words of Jesus were still ringing in the ears of his followers (“All authority has been given to me…therefore go and make disciples of all nations…”), things did not happen the way many of them expected. Instead of repentance and trust from the Jewish leaders and people, after an initial period of growth and conversions, the followers of Jesus, beginning with Stephen in Acts 7, were oppressed, abused, and murdered by leaders of the religion and culture in which they had grown up. Before long, the Jewish persecution in Jerusalem dispersed these young disciples of Jesus across Israel and even as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus and Antioch (Acts 11:19), forcing them to leave their families, homes, synagogues, culture and livelihoods. It is this confused, angry, and refugee people that James greets in this letter, huddled in small communities across the ancient world.
Where is Jesus’ Righteous Kingdom?
James is a letter written to early Christian leaders who wanted to change the world. It is addressed to influential disciples of Jesus that believed they were called to change the world. These “brothers” (1:2) were “teachers” (3:1) who had a passion for justice. Or to be even more precise: the letter is addressed to Christian leaders who believed that God had promised that he would change the world through them now that he had installed his Son as Lord. They were actively engaged in working for the promised “the righteousness of God” (1:20). This “righteousness” or “justice of God” was the “harvest of righteousness” (3:17) that these Jewish Christian brothers expected to be implemented now that the kingdom of God had come and Jesus had been installed as Messianic Lord over all.
But not everyone was singing on the same sheet of music at first. Truth be told, everything might have been easily sidetracked if the disciples followed the wrong sorts of brothers, zealots who mimicked their enemies in their zeal to see the righteous kingdom their Lord had promised.
James knew that the way these leading men in the Christian community spoke and acted would be critical in the transformation of their world. If the kingdom of Jesus was to grow and expand as the Lord had promised, these Christian community leaders would have to carry on what Jesus began in his training of the twelve. Jesus had called and trained twelve gifted men as his disciples, whom he groomed to write and speak in ways that would change the world. These were not illiterate, uneducated fishermen. They were not, of course, trained in the schools run by the elites in first-century Judaism. But that doesn’t mean they were uniformed or illiterate. Jesus saw potential in them all and chose them to be his official, authorized spokesmen, to be in effect his educated scribes. But the apostles alone could not be the instruments of the growth of Jesus’ kingdom. They, too, trained men—bishops, elders, pastors, deacons, etc.—to lead local Christian communities. A faithful “brotherhood” of Christian leaders was critical for the expansion of the new kingdom, God’s new way of organizing humanity under the Lordship of the risen, ascended Messiah.
But for many, that righteous kingdom project did not appear to be going very well. The world was not changing as quickly as some thought it might, as they thought it should. In fact, it appeared to be worse for them when this letter is written than it was before Jesus ascended into heaven. James is writing his epistle to an exiled community of Messiah-believing Jews who have been literally driven out of Jerusalem (Acts 8:1; 11:19). They have been harassed and pursued by over-zealous Jewish authorities (Acts 8:1; 9:1-2). These “twelve tribes” in the recent “dispersion” of Christians from Jerusalem left their homes, their work, and their communities as exiles. More than that, they were hounded by a new cadre of Jewish inquisitors intent on bring them back to Judaism using torture and violence. The Apostle Paul will later testify:
I persecuted this Way to the death, binding and delivering to prison both men and women, as the high priest and the whole council of elders can bear me witness. From them I received letters to the brothers . . . (Acts 22:4, 5).
We know from the unfolding story in the book of Acts that the Pharisee Saul was just one of many such inquisitors who secured authorization from the Sanhedrin to search out, imprison, torture, and even execute the disciples of Jesus. Later Saul (Paul) himself became one of their most wanted defectors and was viciously pursued in city after city. When Paul finally appeared in Jerusalem they believed they finally had him. A riot was incited, Paul was surrounded, but was rescued by the Romans in the nick of time. Even so, the Jews were intent on killing him (Acts 22:22).
“ . . . the Jews made a plot and bound themselves by an oath neither to eat nor drink till they had killed Paul. There were more than forty who made this conspiracy. They went to the chief priests and elders and said, ‘We have strictly bound ourselves by and oath to taste no food till we have killed Paul. (Acts 23:12-14).
Paul’s arrest, imprisonment, and the rage of the Jews against him happened many years after the letter of James was written. Even so, these events illustrate not only the zealous, fanatical wrath of the unbelieving Jewish leaders, but also the horrible predicament that the Christians were enmeshed in during this time. Everything was topsy-turvy. The authorities whom they formerly trusted had become their enemies. The envy and resulting violence had escalated since the time of Jesus death and resurrection. To understand James’s letter, we have to put ourselves in their shoes and appreciate how disorienting all this was to these new Jewish believers.
To these frustrated Christians James does not say something like, “You are not called to change the world. That’s never going to happen. Concern yourself with spiritual’ things.” He does not say: “Be content to proclaim the message of individual salvation and the promise of heaven. Don’t worry about social and political issues.” Rather, he tells the distressed Christian community, especially the brotherhood of leaders, about how they should go about being Jesus’ agents of change and chiefly warns them against the dangerous temptations that dog people that want to change the world. James counsels patience and “maturity” (1:4; 3:13-18) in the face of their childish, petulant anger and violent aggression (1:20; 4:1-4).
Heated speeches (3:1-12) and acts of violence motivated by anger (1:20; 4:1-3) will not produce the righteous kingdom that Jesus has promised. And neither will another tactic these believers were prone to—sucking up to their oppressors with the hope of appeasing them. That also is a perilous temptation motivated by anger at their perceived impotence compared to the riches and power of their enemies (2:1-13).
What stands out in this letter is the passionate anger of these persecuted Christians, an anger that has led to supremely foolish talk and action. They are being “lured” by their unrestrained “desire” to sinful exploits that “brings forth death” (1:14). They are full of “rampant malice” (1:21). Their actions reveal that they have become “judges with evil thoughts” (2:4). The public talk of their leaders encourages exasperated members of the body to “curse people” (3:1-9). They are harboring “hateful zeal and political ambition in their hearts” (3:14). Their fervent desire for justice is leading to “wars among their members” (4:1). What they “covet” drives them to “fight and engage in violent aggression” (4:2), and such behavior is motivated by their unrestrained “passions” (4:3). In short, they have become Christian zealots. They are “proud” and therefore “double-minded” (1:8; 4:8; 1:8). They even “boast” about the “business” of violent resistance in which they are engaged (4:16).
A Better Way
Drawing on the teaching of Jesus, especially in Matthew’s Gospel, and centered on the Sermon on the Mount, James counsels “patience” in the experience of these severe trails, a “steadfastness under trial” that leads to “maturity” (1:2-4) as well as the royal “crown” that Jesus promised to his disciples (1:12). He commends to them the “mature instruction, the instruction that brings freedom” (2:25). They should not follow the worldly “religion” of their persecutors, but practice “pure and undefiled” piety, especially as it manifests itself in caring for the marginalized and needy, “the afflicted orphans and widows” (1:26-27). This is the “royal law, according to the Scripture” to love and show mercy (2:8-13). Genuine faith will always behave this way. It is not their fiery speeches and talk of the strength of their faith that evidences true trust, but how their actions manifest obedience (2:14-18). The vindication they long for will be theirs if they have a living, active faith that accepts the sacrifices that need to be made and works to help and protect those in danger from their enemies (2:18-26).
The brothers who are leading the community need to “tame” their tongues and stop encouraging “cursing” (3:9, 10) and the ensuing “unspiritual, demonic” behavior it necessarily encourages (3:15). The “harvest of justice” and “the peace” they so long for comes when disciples of Jesus “make peace” (3:1-18). They must resist the devil’s temptation to stimulate the growth of the kingdom by force and responding in kind to the apostate Jewish oppressors. Stop boasting about these insurgent forays against the enemies of the church. They are not called to be Christian “zealots” and to engage in aggressive violent behavior (4:1-12). Do the right thing (4:13-17). Be patient and trust in the prophecies of our Lord, knowing that the theocratically rich Jewish rulers, who trust in the gold and silver of the temple and their glorious priestly garments, will be judged in due time (1:9-11; 5:1-9).
This is another key to understanding the letter. The “rich” referenced by James (1:9-10, 2:1-7; 5:1-6) are not simply generically wealthy people. They are the ones who “oppress” these Jewish believers and “drag them into court” (2:6). They have robes and rings signifying their authority (2:2). They “blaspheme the honorable name which was invoked” over them at their baptism (2:7). They are the theocratically rich, possessing the gold and silver in the treasuries of the Temple (5:3) and living gloriously in the promised land (5:5). They are the Jerusalem leaders who have refused to acknowledge the worth of the apostolic “harvesters” sent out by Jesus (5:4; Matt. 9:35-38).
Therefore, James reminds them that “the Lord of Hosts” will not long endure those who have selfishly lived “gloriously on the land” and have refused to honor the apostolic harvesters that Jesus has sent into the fields as his servants (5:3-5; cf. Matt. 9:37-38, 13:30). Your oppressors have not repented of murdering “the righteous one” that did not resist them (5:1-6). Just like in days of prophets, know that the righteous Lord is at hand and he will judge his enemies. Be patient and stop swearing oaths that bind you to unrighteous, conspiratorial retaliation (5:7-12). Instead, take care of your wounded and sick, forgive those who have allowed their passions to get the better of themselves, and above all, like Elijah of old, pray for deliverance and heavenly rain to bring about the harvest you desire (5:13-16). Finally, do your best, brothers, to heed my advice in this letter and turn back those who have sinned in these matters (5:19-20).
A little Background
Having laid out the basic context and themes of the book, I want to back up for a moment and summarize how I came to this perspective. Over twenty years ago I began a sermon series on the epistle of James. I initially approached the book with the relatively popular idea that James is a general epistle and so has some sort of generalized message to everyone at all times.
Approaching the book this way means that the message and the details of the letter are de-contextualized, and verses and paragraphs are made to stand alone as nuggets of Christian wisdom for the ages. And, of course, as we shall see, there is a great deal of wisdom in James for all ages. I’m not denying that. But the letter was not written to twenty-first-century American Christians. Not directly anyway. As all of Scripture, this book is for us and the Spirit obviously intends for us to read and apply it. Even so, this circular letter was written to a very specific group of people—those disciples of Jesus exiled from Jerusalem by the apostate Jewish rulers (1:1, “the twelve tribes in the dispersion”). And therefore, James deals with a set of very concrete temptations that presented themselves to that generation of early Christian disciples that had been “dispersed” from Jerusalem after the martyrdom of Stephen (Acts 8:1; 11:19).
Here is a huge challenge for us modern Christians in reading and appropriating the New Testament. We are prone to forget the historical context and turn all these New Testament letters into free-floating expositions of Christine doctrine and ethical instruction. It is all too easy to do this with the New Testament epistles because they seem like they are written directly to us. When, however, we deal with the Hebrew Scriptures we understand that there is a two-step process necessary to apply them faithfully to our own contemporary situations. But when we come to the New Testament it seems directly applicable to us. There is obviously some truth to this. The ritual and legal constraints of the old covenant have been lifted with the coming of Jesus and that makes drawing applications to us from the Hebrew Scriptures a little more difficult. But the New Testament Scriptures must also be appropriated by us not directly, but indirectly once we have determined the original context and message of the letter.
Well, in my preparation to preach on James the more I read the letter and various commentators, the more uncomfortable I became with the way it was often treated—as I have said, as if it was a loose collection of nuggets of wisdom for the ages, a jumble of aphoristic sayings. For too long academic commentators have assumed that James was a somewhat disjointed compilation of wise sayings with no really unifying argument.
I had originally been attracted to James after a sermon series on Ecclesiastes because I had assumed it would be the New Testament equivalent of Solomon’s wisdom in Ecclesiastes. But the more I read and reflected on the book, and when I began to read some older commentaries, I became convinced that we have missed out on getting the full force of James’s wisdom because we have neglected taking seriously the actual language James used and ignored the powerfully persuasive temptations to violence and political insurgency that were so attractive to these early Jewish disciples of Jesus.
For example, I came across an older commentator that took James’s statement in chapter 4:1-3 at face value.
What causes wars and what causes battles among you? Is it not this: that your passions are at war in your members? You desire something and you don’t have it, so you kill. You are zealous and you cannot obtain, so you fight and engage in violent aggression.
Could the recipients of this letter have actually engaged in physical violence, even killing? Were they being rebuked by James for violent behavior? I wondered how that could be? How could members of a Christian community be led to violent aggression, including deadly force? What would inspire them to do such things? Most modern commentators suggest that James is just using very strong language to refer to the everyday spiritual struggles of believers, maybe strife and division within the Christian community that arises from envy and jealousy. James may say that they have “killed” but they assure us that is surely metaphorical exaggeration. After all, didn’t Jesus in his sermon on the mount say that one proper interpretation of the sixth commandment implied that anger with one’s brother was a kind of “murder” (Matt. 5:21, 23)? Some of that is definitely in view here, of course.
But that doesn’t do justice to the very explicit, concrete language of James 4, where “violent aggression” and “battles” are repeated twice in two verses. Nor does it do justice to the severe condemnation that their behavior calls forth from James. It becomes evident when you read on in chapter 4 that James is talking about more than just common church arguments and quarrels. In fact, chapter 3 should have set us up for just this kind of rebuke. Should it surprise anyone that “cursing” one’s enemies would lead to dangerous physical conflict (3:1-12). The men in his audience are denounced as “an adulterous people” (4:4). They are in serious trouble and in danger of God’s judgment (4:6-10). I suppose that someone might think that arguments over the color of the carpeting in the church sanctuary or the salary of the pastor could call for such severe language. Surely there is some application to such modern, contentious ecclesiastical debates. But is that all that is going on in these exiled communities?
It turns out that there’s another, more consistent way to read this, an interpretation that better fits the context of the very early church and how she was tempted and tried. James’s language indicates something much graver and more dangerous than the kind of disputes that typically plague modern American churches. The seductive lure of revolutionary zealotry as a means of rectifying the injustice that their oppressors had made them suffer would have been a live option. It would be too easy for them to mimic the zealot-infested culture of contemporary first-century Judaism.
When we get the details of the story right, I believe the meaning and application for us becomes crystal clear, especially for so many Christians suffering extreme persecution outside of the United States, but also for faithful Christians experiencing cultural exile in the West as unbelieving and apostate Christian leaders become more and more hostile to authentic disciples of Jesus. If my reading is correct, then we have in this letter some very relevant ancient wisdom for today’s Christian dissidents.
[1] Jeffrey J. Meyers, Wisdom for Dissidents: The Epistle of James Through New Eyes (West Monroe, LA: Athanasius Press, 2022).
As I have argued in my commentary, reading the epistle of James as one of the earliest Christian documents written only a few years after Pentecost to the infant church in the throes of a severe crisis provides surprisingly productive insights into some otherwise opaque passages.[1] James writes to the “twelve tribes in the Dispersion (diaspora).” There are convincing reasons to believe that he is writing to an early group of Jewish converts to the Christian faith who have been banished from Jerusalem and are experiencing brutal persecution for their new allegiance to Jesus.
The Greek word diaspora occurs also in Acts 8:1,4 and 11:19, each time referring to the group of Jewish Christians driven out of Jerusalem because of the violent Jewish persecution following the murder of Stephen. This Christian diaspora is not merely a "spiritual" dispersion, but those who have experienced a specific event in the early history of the church. Because of the persecution that followed the martyrdom of Stephen, the Jerusalem church became a dispersed church. James's audience would, in the nature of the case, be a predominantly Jewish audience because the early Christian converts from Judaism in Jerusalem were the disciples driven out of that city by the leaders of the Jews. But James addresses them as the "twelve tribes of the diaspora" not because they are exiled Jews but because they are members of the new Israel who have been driven from their city.
James refers to his audience as being “a kind of firstfruits” in 1:18. The Greek word aparkea is also used in Rom 16:5 and 1 Cor 16:15 to refer to the first converts in a region. Its use here most likely indicates that James addresses his letter to some of the first converts of Christ’s church from among the Jews. As the firstfruits of a coming harvest, their behavior at this early stage of the Christian history will set the pattern for the future of the church. The way they behave in these difficult times will either set the whole future church on the path to maturity and victory as followers of the crucified and risen Christ or their failure to endure patiently their present trials will take them off the narrow path blazed first by their Lord and Savior Jesus. The stakes were extremely high.
The many references to trials and sufferings throughout James’s epistle point to a context of severe persecution (1:2, 1:12; 2:6b-7; 5:4, 6, 10, 14). The best explanation for that persecution is the early opposition of the Jews instead of a later period of local or Roman persecution.
Furthermore, the way James addresses the question of faith and works in 2:14-26 makes more sense in a context other than that which Paul addresses in his epistles. It is also much different than the way James the Just resolves the conflict when he presides over the Jerusalem counsel recorded in Acts 15. If James was written and distributed before the Jerusalem council and before Paul's clarification of the freedom of Christians from the specific Old Covenant legal requirements ("works of the law" such as circumcision, food laws, sabbaths, etc.), this would account for James's use of the language of "justification by works" (2:21, 25). The later controversy dealt with by Paul had to do with the place of distinctively Jewish "works of the law" and their place in the new order established by Jesus. In James 2, however, the "works" are not "works of the law" but rather common Christian acts of love and service required of all believers—works that evidence a genuine “faith that saves” (2:14). Those who claim to have "faith" without following Jesus' way of life are shown to be fools that cherish a useless and dead "faith" (James 2:20-22). James is addressing a completely different problem than Paul.
Though there is much more that might be said on this issue of author, audience, and setting for James’s epistle (see the introduction and the appendix in the commentary for more detailed arguments), it is most likely that in these first verses of his epistle James the son of Zebedee, the presiding elder in Jerusalem, greets the early church, acknowledging their dispersion and persecution but also asserting his pastoral authority to address their situation. James wrote to the scattered members of his church to warn them that, during their geographic diaspora, they had to take care not to wander from the way marked out by Jesus himself. James's letter performs the kind of restorative act he commends at the close of his letter: He is attempting to turn wandering “brothers” from the errors of their ways (James 5:19-20).
It may be helpful at this point to pause and imagine the kinds of people that James is addressing, the place in life they found themselves in. We may assume that at least the very great majority of his audience were converted Jews. Born into the world of first-century Judaism, these men and women grew up steeped in the stories of the Hebrew Scriptures and the ritual life and worship of Israel. They felt the tension of the glorious promises of the prophets and the reality of their lives under the oppression of their faithless Jewish leaders. They lived in a community that longed for redemption, and vindication before the nations by their God. And they had every reason to hope that the new Lord of heaven and earth (Matt. 28:18-20) would shortly begin to set things right in the world.
At some point, through different circumstances, each of them began to believe that Jesus of Nazareth was the one through whom that redemption and vindication had come. In his death, and especially his resurrection, they saw the righteousness of God enacted in history and believed that the latter days which the prophets had spoken of were coming to pass in their own times. Throughout the literature of the New Testament there are numerous references to "the last days" (Acts 2:17; Heb. 1:2), "the end time(s)" (1 Peter 1:20; 1 John 2:18; Jude 18), "the last hour" (1 John 2:18), "the latter days (or times)" (1 Tim. 4:1), and "the end of the world" (1 Cor. 10:11; Heb. 9:26). They did not expect the end of the physical world and human history, but the end of the old age. The apostolic leaders of the Christian church believed that they were living in an era that would see the end of the entire Old World. Jesus had taught them to expect this in their generation (Matt. 23:36; 24:34; Mark 13:30; Luke 21:32). The kingdom of God was at hand, as Jesus had proclaimed repeatedly in his three-year ministry (Matt. 3:2; 4:17; 10:7; etc.).
On the day of Pentecost, when it is likely that at least some of the audience of this letter first bowed the knee to their new Lord, they saw the power of God demonstrated in their own lives and before their very eyes. Surely it would not be unsurprising if the hearts of these men and women, who now tasted what they and their fathers and mothers had waited so patiently for, as promised by the prophets, soon began to swell with expectation for the new age that the resurrection and ascension of Jesus and the pouring out of the Holy Spirit on all flesh would surely bring. At the very least, it would be a time of repentance for Israel. But even more than that, Israel's repentance and acceptance of the Gospel would result in the world-wide victory of Jesus’ kingdom (Dan. 7:13-24; Matt. 28:18-20). The true God, the Father of Jesus the Messiah, who had vindicated Jesus so decisively in his victory over death, would also vindicate his church. To understand the admonitions of the New Testament writers, especially James, we must appreciate the heightened expectations of these early believers.
But in those early days after Pentecost, when the last words of Jesus were still ringing in the ears of his followers (“All authority has been given to me…therefore go and make disciples of all nations…”), things did not happen the way many of them expected. Instead of repentance and trust from the Jewish leaders and people, after an initial period of growth and conversions, the followers of Jesus, beginning with Stephen in Acts 7, were oppressed, abused, and murdered by leaders of the religion and culture in which they had grown up. Before long, the Jewish persecution in Jerusalem dispersed these young disciples of Jesus across Israel and even as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus and Antioch (Acts 11:19), forcing them to leave their families, homes, synagogues, culture and livelihoods. It is this confused, angry, and refugee people that James greets in this letter, huddled in small communities across the ancient world.
Where is Jesus’ Righteous Kingdom?
James is a letter written to early Christian leaders who wanted to change the world. It is addressed to influential disciples of Jesus that believed they were called to change the world. These “brothers” (1:2) were “teachers” (3:1) who had a passion for justice. Or to be even more precise: the letter is addressed to Christian leaders who believed that God had promised that he would change the world through them now that he had installed his Son as Lord. They were actively engaged in working for the promised “the righteousness of God” (1:20). This “righteousness” or “justice of God” was the “harvest of righteousness” (3:17) that these Jewish Christian brothers expected to be implemented now that the kingdom of God had come and Jesus had been installed as Messianic Lord over all.
But not everyone was singing on the same sheet of music at first. Truth be told, everything might have been easily sidetracked if the disciples followed the wrong sorts of brothers, zealots who mimicked their enemies in their zeal to see the righteous kingdom their Lord had promised.
James knew that the way these leading men in the Christian community spoke and acted would be critical in the transformation of their world. If the kingdom of Jesus was to grow and expand as the Lord had promised, these Christian community leaders would have to carry on what Jesus began in his training of the twelve. Jesus had called and trained twelve gifted men as his disciples, whom he groomed to write and speak in ways that would change the world. These were not illiterate, uneducated fishermen. They were not, of course, trained in the schools run by the elites in first-century Judaism. But that doesn’t mean they were uniformed or illiterate. Jesus saw potential in them all and chose them to be his official, authorized spokesmen, to be in effect his educated scribes. But the apostles alone could not be the instruments of the growth of Jesus’ kingdom. They, too, trained men—bishops, elders, pastors, deacons, etc.—to lead local Christian communities. A faithful “brotherhood” of Christian leaders was critical for the expansion of the new kingdom, God’s new way of organizing humanity under the Lordship of the risen, ascended Messiah.
But for many, that righteous kingdom project did not appear to be going very well. The world was not changing as quickly as some thought it might, as they thought it should. In fact, it appeared to be worse for them when this letter is written than it was before Jesus ascended into heaven. James is writing his epistle to an exiled community of Messiah-believing Jews who have been literally driven out of Jerusalem (Acts 8:1; 11:19). They have been harassed and pursued by over-zealous Jewish authorities (Acts 8:1; 9:1-2). These “twelve tribes” in the recent “dispersion” of Christians from Jerusalem left their homes, their work, and their communities as exiles. More than that, they were hounded by a new cadre of Jewish inquisitors intent on bring them back to Judaism using torture and violence. The Apostle Paul will later testify:
I persecuted this Way to the death, binding and delivering to prison both men and women, as the high priest and the whole council of elders can bear me witness. From them I received letters to the brothers . . . (Acts 22:4, 5).
We know from the unfolding story in the book of Acts that the Pharisee Saul was just one of many such inquisitors who secured authorization from the Sanhedrin to search out, imprison, torture, and even execute the disciples of Jesus. Later Saul (Paul) himself became one of their most wanted defectors and was viciously pursued in city after city. When Paul finally appeared in Jerusalem they believed they finally had him. A riot was incited, Paul was surrounded, but was rescued by the Romans in the nick of time. Even so, the Jews were intent on killing him (Acts 22:22).
“ . . . the Jews made a plot and bound themselves by an oath neither to eat nor drink till they had killed Paul. There were more than forty who made this conspiracy. They went to the chief priests and elders and said, ‘We have strictly bound ourselves by and oath to taste no food till we have killed Paul. (Acts 23:12-14).
Paul’s arrest, imprisonment, and the rage of the Jews against him happened many years after the letter of James was written. Even so, these events illustrate not only the zealous, fanatical wrath of the unbelieving Jewish leaders, but also the horrible predicament that the Christians were enmeshed in during this time. Everything was topsy-turvy. The authorities whom they formerly trusted had become their enemies. The envy and resulting violence had escalated since the time of Jesus death and resurrection. To understand James’s letter, we have to put ourselves in their shoes and appreciate how disorienting all this was to these new Jewish believers.
To these frustrated Christians James does not say something like, "You are not called to change the world. That’s never going to happen. Concern yourself with spiritual’ things.” He does not say: “Be content to proclaim the message of individual salvation and the promise of heaven. Don’t worry about social and political issues.” Rather, he tells the distressed Christian community, especially the brotherhood of leaders, about how they should go about being Jesus’ agents of change and chiefly warns them against the dangerous temptations that dog people that want to change the world. James counsels patience and “maturity” (1:4; 3:13-18) in the face of their childish, petulant anger and violent aggression (1:20; 4:1-4).
Heated speeches (3:1-12) and acts of violence motivated by anger (1:20; 4:1-3) will not produce the righteous kingdom that Jesus has promised. And neither will another tactic these believers were prone to—sucking up to their oppressors with the hope of appeasing them. That also is a perilous temptation motivated by anger at their perceived impotence compared to the riches and power of their enemies (2:1-13).
What stands out in this letter is the passionate anger of these persecuted Christians, an anger that has led to supremely foolish talk and action. They are being “lured” by their unrestrained “desire” to sinful exploits that “brings forth death” (1:14). They are full of “rampant malice” (1:21). Their actions reveal that they have become “judges with evil thoughts” (2:4). The public talk of their leaders encourages exasperated members of the body to “curse people” (3:1-9). They are harboring “hateful zeal and political ambition in their hearts” (3:14). Their fervent desire for justice is leading to “wars among their members” (4:1). What they “covet” drives them to “fight and engage in violent aggression” (4:2), and such behavior is motivated by their unrestrained “passions” (4:3). In short, they have become Christian zealots. They are “proud” and therefore “double-minded” (1:8; 4:8; 1:8). They even “boast” about the “business” of violent resistance in which they are engaged (4:16).
A Better Way
Drawing on the teaching of Jesus, especially in Matthew’s Gospel, and centered on the Sermon on the Mount, James counsels “patience” in the experience of these severe trails, a “steadfastness under trial” that leads to “maturity” (1:2-4) as well as the royal “crown” that Jesus promised to his disciples (1:12). He commends to them the “mature instruction, the instruction that brings freedom” (2:25). They should not follow the worldly “religion” of their persecutors, but practice “pure and undefiled” piety, especially as it manifests itself in caring for the marginalized and needy, “the afflicted orphans and widows” (1:26-27). This is the “royal law, according to the Scripture” to love and show mercy (2:8-13). Genuine faith will always behave this way. It is not their fiery speeches and talk of the strength of their faith that evidences true trust, but how their actions manifest obedience (2:14-18). The vindication they long for will be theirs if they have a living, active faith that accepts the sacrifices that need to be made and works to help and protect those in danger from their enemies (2:18-26).
The brothers who are leading the community need to “tame” their tongues and stop encouraging “cursing” (3:9, 10) and the ensuing “unspiritual, demonic” behavior it necessarily encourages (3:15). The “harvest of justice” and “the peace” they so long for comes when disciples of Jesus “make peace” (3:1-18). They must resist the devil’s temptation to stimulate the growth of the kingdom by force and responding in kind to the apostate Jewish oppressors. Stop boasting about these insurgent forays against the enemies of the church. They are not called to be Christian “zealots” and to engage in aggressive violent behavior (4:1-12). Do the right thing (4:13-17). Be patient and trust in the prophecies of our Lord, knowing that the theocratically rich Jewish rulers, who trust in the gold and silver of the temple and their glorious priestly garments, will be judged in due time (1:9-11; 5:1-9).
This is another key to understanding the letter. The “rich” referenced by James (1:9-10, 2:1-7; 5:1-6) are not simply generically wealthy people. They are the ones who “oppress” these Jewish believers and “drag them into court” (2:6). They have robes and rings signifying their authority (2:2). They “blaspheme the honorable name which was invoked” over them at their baptism (2:7). They are the theocratically rich, possessing the gold and silver in the treasuries of the Temple (5:3) and living gloriously in the promised land (5:5). They are the Jerusalem leaders who have refused to acknowledge the worth of the apostolic “harvesters” sent out by Jesus (5:4; Matt. 9:35-38).
Therefore, James reminds them that “the Lord of Hosts” will not long endure those who have selfishly lived “gloriously on the land” and have refused to honor the apostolic harvesters that Jesus has sent into the fields as his servants (5:3-5; cf. Matt. 9:37-38, 13:30). Your oppressors have not repented of murdering “the righteous one” that did not resist them (5:1-6). Just like in days of prophets, know that the righteous Lord is at hand and he will judge his enemies. Be patient and stop swearing oaths that bind you to unrighteous, conspiratorial retaliation (5:7-12). Instead, take care of your wounded and sick, forgive those who have allowed their passions to get the better of themselves, and above all, like Elijah of old, pray for deliverance and heavenly rain to bring about the harvest you desire (5:13-16). Finally, do your best, brothers, to heed my advice in this letter and turn back those who have sinned in these matters (5:19-20).
A little Background
Having laid out the basic context and themes of the book, I want to back up for a moment and summarize how I came to this perspective. Over twenty years ago I began a sermon series on the epistle of James. I initially approached the book with the relatively popular idea that James is a general epistle and so has some sort of generalized message to everyone at all times.
Approaching the book this way means that the message and the details of the letter are de-contextualized, and verses and paragraphs are made to stand alone as nuggets of Christian wisdom for the ages. And, of course, as we shall see, there is a great deal of wisdom in James for all ages. I’m not denying that. But the letter was not written to twenty-first-century American Christians. Not directly anyway. As all of Scripture, this book is for us and the Spirit obviously intends for us to read and apply it. Even so, this circular letter was written to a very specific group of people—those disciples of Jesus exiled from Jerusalem by the apostate Jewish rulers (1:1, “the twelve tribes in the dispersion”). And therefore, James deals with a set of very concrete temptations that presented themselves to that generation of early Christian disciples that had been “dispersed” from Jerusalem after the martyrdom of Stephen (Acts 8:1; 11:19).
Here is a huge challenge for us modern Christians in reading and appropriating the New Testament. We are prone to forget the historical context and turn all these New Testament letters into free-floating expositions of Christine doctrine and ethical instruction. It is all too easy to do this with the New Testament epistles because they seem like they are written directly to us. When, however, we deal with the Hebrew Scriptures we understand that there is a two-step process necessary to apply them faithfully to our own contemporary situations. But when we come to the New Testament it seems directly applicable to us. There is obviously some truth to this. The ritual and legal constraints of the old covenant have been lifted with the coming of Jesus and that makes drawing applications to us from the Hebrew Scriptures a little more difficult. But the New Testament Scriptures must also be appropriated by us not directly, but indirectly once we have determined the original context and message of the letter.
Well, in my preparation to preach on James the more I read the letter and various commentators, the more uncomfortable I became with the way it was often treated—as I have said, as if it was a loose collection of nuggets of wisdom for the ages, a jumble of aphoristic sayings. For too long academic commentators have assumed that James was a somewhat disjointed compilation of wise sayings with no really unifying argument.
I had originally been attracted to James after a sermon series on Ecclesiastes because I had assumed it would be the New Testament equivalent of Solomon’s wisdom in Ecclesiastes. But the more I read and reflected on the book, and when I began to read some older commentaries, I became convinced that we have missed out on getting the full force of James’s wisdom because we have neglected taking seriously the actual language James used and ignored the powerfully persuasive temptations to violence and political insurgency that were so attractive to these early Jewish disciples of Jesus.
For example, I came across an older commentator that took James’s statement in chapter 4:1-3 at face value.
What causes wars and what causes battles among you? Is it not this: that your passions are at war in your members? You desire something and you don’t have it, so you kill. You are zealous and you cannot obtain, so you fight and engage in violent aggression.
Could the recipients of this letter have actually engaged in physical violence, even killing? Were they being rebuked by James for violent behavior? I wondered how that could be? How could members of a Christian community be led to violent aggression, including deadly force? What would inspire them to do such things? Most modern commentators suggest that James is just using very strong language to refer to the everyday spiritual struggles of believers, maybe strife and division within the Christian community that arises from envy and jealousy. James may say that they have “killed” but they assure us that is surely metaphorical exaggeration. After all, didn’t Jesus in his sermon on the mount say that one proper interpretation of the sixth commandment implied that anger with one’s brother was a kind of “murder” (Matt. 5:21, 23)? Some of that is definitely in view here, of course.
But that doesn’t do justice to the very explicit, concrete language of James 4, where “violent aggression” and “battles” are repeated twice in two verses. Nor does it do justice to the severe condemnation that their behavior calls forth from James. It becomes evident when you read on in chapter 4 that James is talking about more than just common church arguments and quarrels. In fact, chapter 3 should have set us up for just this kind of rebuke. Should it surprise anyone that “cursing” one’s enemies would lead to dangerous physical conflict (3:1-12). The men in his audience are denounced as “an adulterous people” (4:4). They are in serious trouble and in danger of God’s judgment (4:6-10). I suppose that someone might think that arguments over the color of the carpeting in the church sanctuary or the salary of the pastor could call for such severe language. Surely there is some application to such modern, contentious ecclesiastical debates. But is that all that is going on in these exiled communities?
It turns out that there’s another, more consistent way to read this, an interpretation that better fits the context of the very early church and how she was tempted and tried. James’s language indicates something much graver and more dangerous than the kind of disputes that typically plague modern American churches. The seductive lure of revolutionary zealotry as a means of rectifying the injustice that their oppressors had made them suffer would have been a live option. It would be too easy for them to mimic the zealot-infested culture of contemporary first-century Judaism.
When we get the details of the story right, I believe the meaning and application for us becomes crystal clear, especially for so many Christians suffering extreme persecution outside of the United States, but also for faithful Christians experiencing cultural exile in the West as unbelieving and apostate Christian leaders become more and more hostile to authentic disciples of Jesus. If my reading is correct, then we have in this letter some very relevant ancient wisdom for today’s Christian dissidents.
[1] Jeffrey J. Meyers, Wisdom for Dissidents: The Epistle of James Through New Eyes (West Monroe, LA: Athanasius Press, 2022).
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