I'm pumped about studying James.
I have been telling nearly everyone that part of the reason I'm excited about James is that I was mad at him for a long time. He seemed too eager to compromise. Was he even a Christian? Maybe he still was stuck in the Legal System. I do have a bad habit of thinking I know things that I don't, and clearly this was a good example of that.
As we were studying Acts last year, I was forced to really look at those passages where James had offended me, Acts 15, known as the Jerusalem Council, and Acts 21, Paul's last visit to Jerusalem. With the help of my new favorite scholar, F. F. Bruce, I was able to actually look at James in those passages. I didn't understand why James made the compromises he did, but I was ready to give him the benefit of the doubt.
When our ladies group decided to study James this year, I set out to really find who James was. And he is mentioned in the Bible more than you might think.
Lest I lead you to believe I am an scholar extraordinaire, I have a list from Jensen's Survey of the New Testament. Ten references: three in the gospels that clearly show James and all of Jesus' brothers did not believe in him.
Then in Acts 1:14, as the disciples are gathered in Jerusalem after the ascension, waiting for the Holy Spirit to come, who is there but Mary, Jesus' Mother, and his brothers. Did Mary drag them there? It seems a little odd.
I think a more obscure reference in one of Paul's letters sheds significant light on the subject. I Corinthians 15 is about the resurrection. Paul is making a list of people who saw Christ in those days between Easter and Pentecost. He appeared to Peter, then the disciples. We have those stories in the gospels. After that the passage says he appeared to more than 500. Wow. Wish I knew that story. Paul was making a point: if you don't believe in the resurrection, ask them! Many are still alive!
Verse 7 says, "then to James". Probably I've read that a hundred times and not thought anything of it. How intriguing is that? James didn't even believe in Jesus the last time we heard of him in the gospels. Why did Jesus appear to him?
It is not surprising that Jesus loved James. He appeared to him. It seems James was called, maybe as miraculously as Paul being knocked down on the Damascus Road. Jesus went specifically to his brother and said, "Told you."
My thoughts about James were changed drastically by this information. I was ready to see why, by Acts 12, when Peter was saved from being martyred the same way as the Apostle James had been, when an angel let him out of jail, Peter told those who had been gathered [or hiding], praying for his release, "I'm leaving! Tell James..... "
James was clearly rising to leadership in Jerusalem, and as we work our way through Acts, people leave. The persecuted leave. The Apostles leave. Paul leaves. James stays. Apparently that was his calling; he stayed in Jerusalem. He shepherded the flock of those who stayed.
And who were they? They were often poor. I've heard the reason given that as Christians they were out of a job if they had been part of the temple worship, or maybe they were disowned by family and friend. One of the first formal actions the church takes in the book of Acts is the distribution of food. People evidently didn't have enough.....
As Paul traveled around the Middle East, Europe and Asia he collected an offering for the poor. He delivered that offering to Jerusalem. During one of his trials Paul notes [Acts 24:14} After an absence of many years, I came to Jerusalem to bring my people gifts for the poor and to present offerings."
There was another characteristic of the church in Jerusalem, the one that always was annoying to me. In Acts 21 the church leaders [it doesn't actually say that it was James, I see. It may have been a group acting independently, much like the group in chapter 14 who were from Jerusalem, but hadn't been sent by the church. They caused a lot of trouble when they said the gentiles needed to be circumcised.] Returning to 21: 20, this group said to Paul, "You see, brother, how many thousands of Jews have believed and all of them are zealous for the law."
This was a serious problem in the church. Little ole' black and white me would say, deal with it. James was smarter than I am. I'm sure he did deal with it and teach about it and pray about it... [did you read that he prayed so much he was called 'camel knees'?] but here was the situation he was in, the one he was apparently called to. He had a huge church of people who had believed, but not left Judaism.
I began to see what drove James to his apparent compromises. And I had to remember that Paul agreed to exactly the same deals. He agreed with the results of the Jerusalem Council and delivered a letter from them to all the churches he had started. One point of that letter was not to eat meat offered to idols, though later on he wrote to the Corinthians, there isn't such a thing as an idol anyway. They're just blocks of wood and stone. Don't ask, don't tell, when someone served you meat at their house.
Paul compromised in Acts 21, also, agreeing to go through purification rituals at the temple and pay the fees of the men with him. Why would Paul do that? Well, Paul actually answers that question in his writings. As long as it didn't conflict with the gospel, he would take any means to have an opportunity to share the gospel. He became all things to all men, on the chance it might be the means to saving some of them.
James did not write about it, that I've seen. But he was doing exactly the same thing. He is majoring on the majors in his church in Jerusalem. He is being all things to all men.
There is one final thing that proves beyond the shadow of a doubt he was not the wishy-washy leader I had accused him of being. Annanias, the high priest, ordered his death. James didn't make any compromise. He died a martyrs' death, surely because he stood for Christ in the midst of the center of Judaism.
Hmmmm. It doesn't seem like it would be that hard to post a comment.
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