The Early Church · Not dated
Chapter 42
Faith and Works
Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom can be no variation nor turning shadow.
For parents
James names wrongs plainly: adultery and murder (James 2:11; 4:2, 4), and Rahab, whom he calls “the prostitute” (2:25). He warns the rich of the miseries coming on them: they held back their workers’ pay and murdered “the righteous one” (5:1–6). He also writes that the tongue is set on fire by Gehenna (3:6).
This is how begins his letter: “James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus , to the twelve tribes which are in the : Greetings.”
“My brothers and sisters, count it nothing but joy when you fall into all sorts of temptations. The testing of your faith, as you know, brings about endurance. Let endurance do its work perfectly, so that you may be perfect and complete, with nothing missing.
“If any of you is short of wisdom, he should ask God, who gives to everyone freely and without scolding, and it will be given to him. But he must ask in faith, without any doubting, because someone who doubts is like a wave on the sea, driven by the wind and tossed about. That man shouldn’t think he will receive anything from the Lord. He is a man of two minds, and nothing he does is steady.
“The brother with a humble place in life should boast of how high he stands. The rich man should boast of being made low, because he will pass away like a flower in the grass. The sun comes up with the scorching wind and dries out the grass. Its flower falls, and all its loveliness is gone. So the rich man, too, will fade away while he is busy with his affairs.
“Blessed is the person who endures temptation, because once he has been proven true, he will be given the crown of life, which the Lord promised to those who love him.
“When someone is tempted, he must not say, ‘I am tempted by God,’ because God can’t be tempted by evil, and he himself tempts no one. But each one is tempted when his own desire pulls him away and lures him. Then the desire becomes pregnant and gives birth to sin. When the sin has grown up, it produces death.
“Don’t be fooled, my dear brothers and sisters. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above. It comes down from the Father of lights. With him there can be no change, and no shadow cast by turning. He chose to give birth to us by the word of truth, so we would be a kind of of the creatures he made.”
James goes on, “So, my dear brothers and sisters, every one of you should be swift to hear, slow to speak, and slow to anger, because a man’s anger doesn’t bring about the of God. So put away everything filthy and all the wickedness that overflows. Humbly receive the word that was planted in you. It is able to save your souls.
“Be doers of the word, and not only hearers, or you are fooling yourselves. Anyone who hears the word and doesn’t do it is like a man looking in a mirror at the face he was born with. He sees himself, goes away, and right away forgets what sort of man he was.
“But whoever looks into the perfect law of freedom and stays with it, not hearing and forgetting but doing the work, will be blessed in what he does.
“If anyone among you thinks he is religious but doesn’t rein in his tongue, he is deceiving his own heart, and his religion is worth nothing. Here is pure, spotless religion in the eyes of our God and Father: to visit fatherless children and widows in their trouble, and to keep the world from staining you.”
Then James writes, “My brothers and sisters, don’t hold the faith of our glorious Lord Jesus Christ while playing favorites. Say a man comes into your with a gold ring and fine clothing, and a poor man in filthy clothing comes in too. You pay special attention to the one in the fine clothing and say, ‘Sit here, in a good place.’ But you tell the poor man, ‘Stand there,’ or, ‘Sit down by my footstool.’ Haven’t you played favorites among yourselves, and become judges with evil thoughts?
“My dear brothers and sisters, listen. Didn’t God choose those who are poor in this world to be rich in faith, and of the Kingdom which he promised to those who love him? But you have dishonored the poor man. Don’t the rich oppress you, and haul you into court themselves? Don’t they the honorable name you are called by?
“If you carry out the royal law that the Scripture gives, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself,’ you do well. But if you play favorites, you are sinning, and the law proves you guilty of breaking it. Anyone who keeps the whole law but trips on a single point has become guilty of the whole law. The one who said, ‘Do not commit ,’ is the same one who said, ‘Do not commit murder.’ Now say you don’t commit adultery, but you commit murder: you have broken the law.
“So speak and act like people who are to be judged by the law of freedom, because judgment has no mercy for a person who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment.”
Then James asks, “What good is it, my brothers, if a man says he has faith, but has no works? Can faith save him? And if a brother or sister is naked and in lack of daily food, and one of you tells them, ‘Go in peace. Be warmed and filled;’ yet you didn’t give them the things the body needs, what good is it? Even so faith, if it has no works, is dead in itself.
“Yes, a man will say, ‘You have faith, and I have works.’ Show me your faith without works, and I will show you my faith by my works. You believe that God is one. You do well. The demons also believe—and shudder. But do you want to know, vain man, that faith apart from works is dead?
“Wasn’t Abraham our father justified by works, in that he offered up Isaac his son on the altar? You see that faith worked with his works, and by works faith was perfected. So the Scripture was fulfilled which says, ‘Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him as righteousness,’ and he was called the friend of God. You see then that by works a man is justified, and not only by faith.
“In the same way, wasn’t Rahab the prostitute also justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out another way? For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, even so faith apart from works is dead.”
James goes on, “Only a few of you should be teachers, my brothers and sisters, since, as you know, we will be judged more heavily. Every one of us stumbles in many things. Anyone who never stumbles in his words is a perfect person, able to rein in his whole body too.
“We put bits into horses’ mouths to get them to obey us, and so we steer their whole body. Look at ships too. They are so big, and fierce winds drive them, yet a very small rudder steers them wherever the pilot wishes. So the tongue, too, is a little part of the body, and it boasts of great things. Think how a small fire can spread to a large forest!
“And the tongue is a fire. Among the parts of our body, the tongue is the world of wickedness. It pollutes the whole body, it sets the course of nature on fire, and it is set on fire by .
“People tame every kind of animal, bird, crawling thing, and sea creature, and they have tamed them. But nobody can tame the tongue. It is an evil that never rests, full of deadly poison.
“With it we bless our God and Father, and with it we curse men and women who are made in the image of God. Blessing and cursing both come out of one mouth. My brothers and sisters, it shouldn’t be like this. Does a spring send out fresh and bitter water from one opening? My brothers and sisters, could a fig tree grow olives, or a vine grow figs? So no spring can give both salt water and fresh.”
James asks, “Who is wise and understanding among you? He should show it by the good way he lives, doing his deeds with the gentleness of wisdom. But if your heart holds bitter jealousy and selfish ambition, don’t brag, and don’t lie against the truth. That wisdom is not the kind that comes down from above. It is of the earth, of the senses, and of demons. Where there are jealousy and selfish ambition, there is confusion, and every evil deed.
“But the wisdom that is from above is pure before anything else, and then peaceful, gentle, reasonable, full of mercy and good fruits, without favoritism, and without . Those who make peace sow the fruit of righteousness in peace.
“Where do the wars and the fighting among you come from? Don’t they come from your pleasures, which fight in the parts of your body? You crave, and you don’t have. You murder and you , and you can’t get what you want. You fight and make war. You don’t have, because you don’t ask. You ask and don’t receive, because you ask for the wrong reasons, to use it up on your pleasures.
“You adulterers, men and women alike! Don’t you know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? That means whoever wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you think it is for nothing that the Scripture says, ‘The Spirit who lives in us yearns jealously’? But he gives more . That is why it says, ‘God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.’
“So put yourselves under God. Resist the , and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Clean your hands, you sinners, and make your hearts pure, you who are of two minds. Wail, mourn, and weep. Let your laughter turn to mourning, and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves in the Lord’s sight, and he will lift you high.
“Don’t speak against one another, brothers and sisters. The person who speaks against a brother and judges him speaks against the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not doing what the law says. You are its judge. There is only one lawgiver, and he is able to save and to destroy. But who are you to judge another?”
James writes, “Listen now, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow let’s go into this city, spend a year there, trade, and make a profit.’ You don’t know what your life will be like tomorrow. What is your life? You are a vapor, seen for a short time and then gone. This is what you ought to say: ‘If the Lord wills, we’ll live, and we’ll do this or that.’
“But now you take pride in your bragging. All bragging like that is evil. So if someone knows he should do good and doesn’t do it, that is sin for him.
“Listen now, you rich. Weep and howl over the miseries coming on you. Your riches have gone rotten. Your clothes are full of moth holes. Your gold and your silver have rusted. Their rust will speak against you and will eat your flesh like fire. You have saved up your treasure in the last days.
“Look! The workers who cut the grain in your fields were cheated: you kept back their pay, and it cries out. The cries of those who brought in your harvest have entered the ears of the Lord of Armies. You have lived in luxury on the earth and had your pleasure. You have fed your hearts full, as on a day of slaughter. You have condemned the righteous one, and you have murdered him. He doesn’t resist you.”
James writes, “So, brothers and sisters, be patient until the Lord comes. Look at the farmer. He waits for the precious crop of the earth, and he is patient over it until it has had the early and the late rain. You must be patient too. Make your hearts strong, because the coming of the Lord is close.
“Brothers and sisters, don’t complain against one another, so that you won’t be judged. Look, the judge stands at the door. As an example of suffering and of patience, brothers and sisters, think of the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. Look, we call those who endured blessed. You have heard how held on, and you have seen the Lord in how it ended, and how the Lord is full of compassion and mercy.
“But above all things, my brothers and sisters, don’t swear an oath, not by heaven, not by the earth, and not with any other oath. Let your ‘yes’ be ‘yes,’ and your ‘no,’ ‘no,’ so that you don’t fall into hypocrisy.
“Is one of you suffering? Let him pray. Is one of you cheerful? Let him sing praises.
“Is any among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the assembly, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord; and the prayer of faith will heal him who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up. If he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. Confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The insistent prayer of a righteous person is powerfully effective.
“ was a man just like us. He prayed with all his heart that it would not rain, and no rain fell on the earth for three years and six months. He prayed again, and the sky gave rain, and the earth grew its crops.
“Brothers and sisters, if any of you wanders from the truth and someone turns him back, let him know this: whoever turns a sinner from his wrong way will save a soul from death, and will cover a great many sins.”