Understanding James' Letter

The letter written by James addresses a group of Christians who were formerly Jews. Understanding the letter can be a challenge when we don’t understand the basis for it. It’s an awful lot like reading someone else’s mail. However, there are some clues in the letter that guide us to understanding the basis of the letter and as such help us in interpreting it. Here are my thoughts.

First of all there are a lot of references to wealthy and poor Christians in the congregation (1:9-10 and 5:1-9). In fact, the letter opens up addressing the poor Christians who are facing temptation by instructing them to embrace the temptation and to be made stronger by it (1:2).

So what was the temptation? The temptation to murmur and verbalize discontent (5:9) against their fellow Christians who were wealthy. An awful lot of instruction is given in the letter to controlling their speech (tongue).

So how were the wealthy Christians abusing their poorer brethren? First of all by discriminating against their poorer brethren and showing preferential treatment to Christians who were wealthier (2:1-4).

In addition, apparently some of the poorer Christians were employed by their wealthier brethren who had held back their wages fraudulently (5:1-4).

A lot of encouragement is given to these poorer Christians to endure the temptation and not respond in a negative way to their mistreatment. In addition, a lot of words are used condemning the actions of the wealthy Christians.

Finally, the last part of the letter is dedicated to enjoining these poor Christian not to dwell on their mistreatment but to pray and sing about all sorts of things (5:13-20). In other words, don’t dwell on your mistreatment but get about the business of God and place your cares upon him.

In todays congregations there are occasional problems among Christians. The lesson from James is clear… don’t make the problems worse by slandering each other but endure the mistreatment and get busy about the business of God placing all your cares upon him. Amen!