This letter or manuscript from the New Testament is pretty well accepted as being written by James, the brother (or half-brother) of Jesus.  Interestingly, the name James is really a little bit of a stretch as his name in Greek is Iakōbos, or in Hebrew Ya’akov, or more appropriately Jacob...our name James is apparently of more of an Italian version of the name.

Jacob, or James, was the first leader of the first church - the church there in Jerusalem as the disciples went out to begin spreading the gospel after Jesus’ death.  This church went through some hard times in the roughly 20 years after his death and as much of what we know from Acts was taking place...there was a famine and there was rampant poverty and persecution of the church.  But James was known as a true pillar in the church.  His writing is loaded with references to Proverbs and Jesus’ teaching from the Sermon on the Mount...and that brings me to the main idea I want to focus on for a moment; think about this...we are reading a letter from a guy who is teaching us based on Proverbs and from the Sermon on the Mount, from a guy who literally grew up with Jesus.  This letter was likely penned in the mid-40s, 12-15 years after Jesus’ death, and probably before many (or all) of Paul’s letters.  This is as probably as close as we can get to Jesus.

So, here is the question...what would your brother/sister have to do in order to convince you that he/she is the Son/Daughter of God?  Think about that, seriously, for second.  I heard this question posed by a pastor named Andy Stanley years ago and have thought about it often since.  This is a big question.  James is perhaps one of the best pieces of evidence as to the identity of Jesus.  Think about all of those moments growing up where your sibling does something to pick at you, or to annoy you, or to set you up for something you didn’t do...think about all the little moments of weakness and vulnerability, when you got in trouble and your sibling got to see you being punished...in all of that, after all of that, and after years of living in close proximity to Jesus, James is convinced that He is actually God’s Son...the Messiah.  James is either certifiably insane or he is just who he says he is...and it seems most likely to me that the latter is true rather than the former.

In terms of the letter, it is really more of a collection of wisdom thoughts and ideas organized around an introductory section.  We have these marked as ‘chapters’, with 2-5 being the broader sections of ideas and with chapter 1 setting things up.  There is a lot of density to this book - there are few wasted words.  So, even though it is just 5 chapters, it will take a bit to work through it if we are going to allow passages to work on us and to challenge us.

Today, I pray that God would continue to show me opportunities to love those around me, and in a similar fashion, I pray that He would begin to open me up to challenge and to self-exploration...James is sure to lead us in that direction and I don’t want my pride and my own agenda to get in the way of that!