Maranatha. Come, O Lord! This was a prayer – a cry, really – of the early church. Enduring great persecution and depravation had taught them to store their treasure in heaven rather than on earth. Their hearts had been trained by what they suffered to long for their everlasting home in the Lord’s blessed presence. […]

In this passage James takes up the mantel of the Old Testament prophets proclaiming harsh judgment on “the rich.” This passage is the climax of this letter’s theme on the rich. Throughout the book the rich are never referred to as brothers. We may rightly surmise that the rich are unbelieving landowners who oppress the […]

As we have already seen in the Letter of James, our speech is an index of our heart’s condition. Our Lord taught us, “out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks” (Matthew 12:34). Hateful speech betrays a hateful heart. Deceptive speech betrays a deceptive heart. Prideful speech betrays a prideful heart. James also […]

The book of James is full of admonitions and imperatives, or warnings and commands. In this section James does not hold back on either account. Yet on both accounts the theme of grace is uniquely interwoven throughout. James boldly names and calls out sins of division in the churches. He admonishes them for pursuing friendship […]

The story of Jonah is an enigma. God chose Jonah to be His instrument to take the message of salvation to Nineveh. Instead, Jonah tried to flee from God by boarding a ship going in the opposite direction. But God pursued His petulant prophet through a storm and a really big fish. From the belly […]

We can surmise from the ways Paul writes of and to Timothy that there was no one more important to him in terms of his ministry. Of Timothy, Paul wrote, “I have no one like him,” and, “how as a son with a father he has served with me in the gospel” (Philippians 2:19-24). Timothy […]

Though James presses into fresh territory, he actually has not changed the subject in the second half of chapter two. He is still calling us to embody the faith we profess. And James still appeals to our treatment of the poor as an index of our spiritual condition. He registers shock that professing Christians would […]

In this paragraph James expands on his exhortation that Christians show no partiality. James is not condemning the sort of proper honor shown to those whom honor is due. For example, children are most certainly to honor their parents. Husbands are to love their wives more than themselves and wives are to submit to their […]