Many of you know that James ranks right up there as one of my favorite books of the Bible. It seems that every single verse just resonates deep in my soul. I've been a bit slacking on the Quiet Time of late, so I thought there was no better way to jump back in than to do an in-depth study of James. I'm using a book called James - Living a Life of Faith: A Bible Study for Women by Angie K. Smith.
Angie has a way of breaking down things I never thought of before - for example, in day one, we only covered the first three verses of the first chapter.
James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ: To the twelve tribes dispersed abroad - Greetings. Consider it great joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face various trials, because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance.
James 1:1-3
Let's start at the beginning.
James. Who is he? While the next line tells us that he is a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, the backstory is that he is the brother of Jesus. Angie goes on in her explanation and says that many of his family members (to include James) thought Jesus was crazy to claim to be the Messiah. Could you imagine being the brother of the person that claimed to be the Savior of the world? I mean, what would that even look like? I wonder if James and any of Jesus' other siblings were ridiculed or bullied for that.
But then. (Isn't it great that there is always a "but then?" It just means the story isn't over!)
Jesus dies. Jesus raises from the dead. Jesus appears to James. And, suddenly, James believes with pure abandon.
So James writes this letter to some folks - namely, the "twelve tribes dispersed abroad." Now, if you recall anything from Old Testament history, you know that there were twelve tribes of Judah. Pretty neat how the Bible ties it all in together, huh? But, one thing I never put together was this...the twelve tribes that were dispersed abroad were the very same people he calls his "brothers and sisters" in verse two! So, what does that mean? It means he [James] is talking to the Jewish Christians (and yes, even if you're not Jewish the book still applies to you, but more on that later).
Perhaps one of my most favorite verses in all of Scripture is verses two and three. You know we think we have persecutions as Christians, here in America. For the most part, we don't. Not really. These Jewish Christians in James' day were being tortured, murdered, homeless, starving, persecuted, ostracized - the list goes on. We get our feathers in a ruffle if someone looks at us weird because we do something a little differently. That's not persecution folks. Persecution is what goes on - like imprisonment, death, torture. Perspective. (Hang on to that word, you'll see it again soon.)
"Consider it great joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face various trials, because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance."
Consider it. When you think of the word "Consider" - what do you come up with? In my opinion (and my good friend Webster's opinion as well), consider means to "think about carefully." So let's substitute that out in this verse.
"Think about it with great joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face various trials, because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance."
James is telling the Jewish Christians (and us) to change our perspective on trials. Wow. I was blown away when I read this and began to fully develop this thought in my soul. Change my perspective? I mean, I trust that God will work everything to His glory, but change my perspective? You see, our knee jerk reaction to a trial is usually not to think about it with great joy. For me, it's usually depression, anger, anxiety, stress or some combination of those. But if I change my perspective and look at a trial as a way to challenge and strengthen the integrity of my faith, well, now we're on to something.
I know this has been a long post and I'll leave you with this little tidbit (which is where I left off in my study, so there will be another update when I go through the next section):
"How we see things outwardly fully affects how we receive them inwardly."
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