Ep. 350. James 1-3 | Fresh and Salt Water
EPISODE 350
FRESH AND SALTWATER: JAMES 1-3
James is one of those books/letters that has so many great quotes, we are often taught tiny pieces of it from very early on. Chapter One alone gives us three or four mainline verses we probably learned in middle school or high school. The problem with learning just a few random verses from the book of James, or really any biblical book for that matter, is that we usually don't comprehend the overall context. So then, when we memorize three different verses from James Chapter One, and we are taught to view those three verses in three separate contexts, we end up not understanding the book as a single unit. Let's look at three quotes from this opening chapter.
"Consider it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work, making you mature and complete, lacking nothing." (vs 2-4)
"Every Good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights." (vs 17)
"Be doers of the word; and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves." (vs 22)
I had these verses down, if not in high school, by the time I was a freshman in college. They are, after all, very popular verses. If we take each one of these short texts on their own we may end up with three different lessons completely. Consider the first one: this text was taught to me that no matter what trial I went through, God was using it to develop and mature my faith. It is a fair point and could absolutely be applied that way, but I was never taught to consider the immediate context.
Consider the second text: I was taught over and over that if I had anything good in my life it came from God. Again, that's a fair point, but I wasn't taught to see how this verse fit in with the point James was making to the dispersed Jewish believers.
Finally, consider the third quote: I was taught that this one meant we should follow the Bible. That is not a bad idea, but as I've already shown when we see the word "word," it usually talks about the message of Jesus and not the Bible. James's readers didn't have the Bible, but they did have "the message of the gospel of Jesus." Still, again, I was not taught how to see this verse in light of the context of the whole letter.
Not only was I never taught to consider the context, I did not teach others to consider the context. I used these verses on their own without any regard how James may have intended them.
All three of these passages are in the first chapter of James. We acknowledge that James certainly had a point (or points) in this letter he was trying to make. Shouldn't we ask ourselves how these three texts are intertwined? Shouldn't we investigate how these three statements work together to accomplish James's purpose? Indeed we should. If we don't know how these three verses relate to one another, how could we ever rightly apply them to our own lives.
As we draw to the end of our journey together, I hope that you have been struck by how important context is.
ADDITIONAL READING: Romans 5:1-5; Isaiah 40:6; Ephesians 4:25,26; Psalm 4:4; Romans 8:1-2; Leviticus 19:18; Genesis 15:6
