Epistle of James - Content

Content

The United Bible Societies' Greek New Testament divides the letter into the following sections:

  • Salutation (1:1)
  • Faith and Wisdom (1:2-8)
  • Poverty and Riches (1:9-11)
  • Trial and Temptation (1:12-18)
  • Hearing and Doing the Word (1:19-27)
  • Warning against Partiality (2:1-13)
  • Faith and Works (2:14-26)
  • The Tongue (3:1-12)
  • The Wisdom from Above (3:13-18)
  • Friendship with the World (4:1-10)
  • Judging a Brother (4:11-12)
  • Warning against Boasting (4:13-17)
  • Warning to the Rich (5:1-6)
  • Patience and Prayer (5:7-20)

Framed within an overall theme of patient perseverance during trials and temptations, the text condemns various sins and calls on Christians to be patient while awaiting the Second Coming. The epistle was addressed to "the twelve tribes scattered abroad" (James 1:1), which is generally taken to mean a Jewish Christian audience.

The object of the writer was to enforce the practical duties of the Christian life. The vices against which he warns them are: formalism, which made the service of God consist in washings and outward ceremonies, whereas he reminds them (1:27) that it consists rather in active love and purity; fanaticism, which, under the cloak of religious zeal, was tearing Jerusalem in pieces (1:20); fatalism, which threw its sins on God (1:13); meanness, which crouched before the rich (2:2); falsehoods, which had made words and oaths play-things (3:2-12); partisanship (3:14); evil speaking (4:11); boasting (4:16); oppression (5:4). The great lesson which he teaches them as Christians is patience, patience in trial (1:2), patience in good works (1:22-25), patience under provocation (3:17), patience under oppression (5:7), patience under persecution (5:10); and the ground of their patience is that the coming of the Lord drawing nigh, which is to right all wrong (5:8).

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