hey everyone thank you so much for
joining us today and being a part of our
study i am pastor ryan quigley i am the
lead pastor at alberta assembly of god
church and we are going to be starting a
new series uh starting today for the
next 10 weeks
we just recently finished going over our
notes on the end our study of the end
times so if you would like that is
wonderful that's in its own playlist
on the app it's found there and also on
youtube and so if you would like to jump
back and see some of our previous
studies please feel welcome to do so
but starting today we're going to be
going into a new uh 10 week series
starting today and then for nine more
weeks we're going to be going through
the book of james we're going to be
taking a look at james and going through
this study and so it is our hope that
you find this a as a wonderful
time together is our hope that you get a
greater understanding of this particular
epistle or book of the bible and that it
impacts our daily living um it is
pointless to read the word uh to read
the bible and not apply it and let it
impact us and so we want to make sure
that as we go through this we're gaining
some very real practical steps on what
does it mean to live out our our faith
and to live out the word of god and so i
hope that you enjoy these next few weeks
that you're able to take from these
things and enjoy them and enjoy this
study together and so it is going to be
really really good rewarding for us
so why the book of james why
finish our topic on the end times and
look at the book of james and so in a
quick answer the first is
it's through much prayer it's what i
felt was the right next step for us um
also uh is an interesting thing um when
you look at the book of james and what
its purpose is which we're going to talk
about today
um
he is writing to a people under pressure
which i'm going to talk about that
audience here in a little bit
and it was to encourage and equip people
for living for a daily walk and so
we can take that understanding on as we
look at james and why
this introduction to the chapter of
james and uh diving into that um
it's gonna be very rewarding for us and
so uh i i wanted to take that and impact
it to our day as you know uh global
christianity you know here in the west
in america and then
abroad and wherever whatever country
you're listening to these recordings um
it's our hope that this uh inspires you
and equips you uh as we
live out our faith in times where there
is much pressure and uh so that is
important here
here's some things about uh james um in
the evangelical bible along with other
texts uh such as the latin vulgate uh
james is located in the new testament
and it is after first and second
thessalonians the second first and
second timothy and the book of hebrews
and so you have the those epistles that
paul had inspired and the author of
hebrews and then you have the book of
james and then following james you have
uh first and second peter first second
and third john jude and revelation
and um so james is nestled right in
there in one of the final um
five six seven eight the final eight
books of the bible you have james
nestled in there very well
uh why is it located in that portion of
the bible and quite simply uh that's
where tradition has put it it's
surrounding the latin vulgate and
many individuals when they were put in
the the scriptures together um they just
felt that it fit right there and some of
the opinions not all but some of the
opinions uh held that um it did not have
the same
uh gospel authority of some of the
others like the actual four gospels
matthew mark luke and john as well as um
some of the paul's epistles as well and
so because of that it uh it's it's
fitted later on in the whole study there
as well and uh that is important for us
pardon me there had to clear my throat
now the authorship so we we talk about
why we're going into james and its
purpose and so today's more of the
introductory uh as we look primarily
at a very short passage of scripture to
really give us the background and the
anchor
for this epistle of james
so if you have your bibles you can open
up to james
chapter one
and obviously we're gonna start with
verse one and where it quite simply says
and i'm using the niv today i may use
another bible version later but today
we're using the niv
where it says james a servant of god
and of the lord jesus christ through the
12 tribes scattered among the nations
greetings
and so we're going to be analyzing that
if we've studied other texts and we've
studied uh other commentaries and and
we're going to dive deep into the that
particular passage
to get a bigger and deeper understanding
of that as we
break the book of james down and and
really talk about it
um and so it was really good now
for its authorship the author uh as
simple as it would seem
there has been lots of debate concerning
who the actual author is and some would
be like well that says james right there
that is very true and very correct the
thing is there's multiple james's in the
bible and so i want to talk about who is
this particular james and why that's
important for us to get get uh
surrounded by and also understand how it
impacts the other james's that show up
in the scriptures
and so
um many people see uh this and they some
people will declare that there's just no
way to determine which james it was if
it was james at all but i'll i'll
explain that here a little bit on what
what uh this
study has shown as well um some people
say that it is james the son of zebedee
which you would think that the way that
was james the son of zebedee was
referred to in the new testament
in the gospels matthew mark luke and
john that he would have declared himself
james the son of zebedee he doesn't he
he avoids that completely and in our
text it's james the sermon of god and of
the lord jesus christ so he does uh
separate all that so it's not james the
son of zebedee and there's other clues
as well
others say that this was the little
james the one of the other uh disciples
there um uh one of the other james and
but again there's no indication
when you look at the rest of the facts
and uh still other people
say that this particular james is not
really a james but rather a pseudonym
so that he would have greater authority
when he writes
uh
and so that's one of the other um
theories that are out there however the
prevailing and traditional uh authorship
is that this james and and this is my
opinion as well and what i've studied
and what i've seen throughout this
letter is that this james that is
writing is actually
james the brother of jesus christ or the
half brother of jesus
and um
and and all of that and uh and so that's
my opinion and there's other books of
the bible and other texts that will i
will reference
so that we can see why this author of
the book of james is james the half
brother of christ
and so we we see here that when we will
look at the date of the writing of this
epistle here in a little bit but it's
important to recognize that james the
son of zebedee
died in 44 a.d and so when we talk about
the dating of this we will see that
james the son of zebedee died too early
for this epistle to be written and so it
cannot be james the son of zebedee
um the other ones the other uh
ones that they tried to attribute the
authorship to lack stature and and
influence
for what the scope of this letter
conveys and so we we see that so again
looking at james 1 1
this
this james is the half brother of christ
uh and
we we say this
um primarily um we see that he
s that james
the brother
saw
christ after the resurrection you can
find that in second corinthians 15
verse 7 so 2nd corinthians 15 verse 7
where james the half brother saw
jesus christ after his resurrection so
he goes from a place where he did not
really fully convince his brother um
some of the gospels his his
half-brothers thought he was had a few
screws loose
until they saw him after the
resurrection and that that's a very
convincing thing to to see someone who
you thought was as a little nutty who
died on a cross for what they believed
um and what they were destined to do to
completely come back to a newness of
life and uh completely
transformed
and encountering that and allowing that
to impact them and so
james sees his brother his half-brother
and is completely
convinced and and
180 and he becomes a cornerstone in the
church
we also see that he had a very unique
relationship with paul paul mentions
that he went to james the half-brother
of christ
numerous times galatians chapter 2 verse
9 is also referenced there
galatians 2 verse 9 where paul reveals
himself that he visits with james the
the the one of the james the
half-brother of christ
and so he is called
by paul paul calls him a pillar
in the church and so that's important as
well to see that
the other thing that's amazing about the
half brother of christ is that james had
a very amazing
relationship with peter
peter the disciple um we see this in
acts chapter 12 verse 17.
um
peter gave reports to james he reports
to james in in many fashions um
he was a key
leader
james was a key leader in those days he
was um
he was the lead counsel he was the
council leader
of leader of the church in jerusalem
okay and that's going to be that's going
to show up later on here when we go
through our study here is
recognize that of the the the
the purpose
uh with james is that he was the leader
of the church of jerusalem like he was
one of the key
council members uh you know one of the
the top-notch individuals that peter
would would give his reports and um and
that accountability with one another
was expressed right there and so
um that's a major part and if you want a
scripture for that one you're looking at
acts chapter 15
verse 13
where you have referenced that james was
a council leader in jerusalem for the
early church
and then also
we have the book of jude and the book of
jude says that he is the half brother of
christ and the ref brother of james and
so jude draws that connection between
james and jesus
to show us that the
leader in the early church jude is the
half-brother
of christ as well as the full blood
brother of james and references james in
such a way where he's indicating james
is
a leader in the church
and the great give greater emphasis on
james being a leader as well and his
importance in history is that the the
historian josephus um recorded
the the
the death of james and he recorded it in
62 a.d and so we do know that the
half-brother of christ
was around at the time that this letter
was written and its importance in that
as well
and uh so that's an amazing thing for us
to recognize and see
that level of influence being exerted
and how james um
what james became after the resurrection
of jesus christ
that is really good now i want to switch
from the authorship it's it's when we
connect all these dots you'll see how
convincing it is that james is the
half-brother of christ who wrote this
letter
but i want to switch our attention now
to the date and when it was written
because uh there this is a distinct clue
here
um within this letter that helps us
determine when it was written in the the
influence
um
knowing when a document was written
helps verify the authorship
um that's an important thing especially
with this document knowing when it was
written it helps eliminate other options
as an author uh some funny example would
probably be
that um
knowing that it was written uh in you
know with the time it was would
eliminate me
as one of the authors praise god um you
know so we want to we want to know those
things we want to know if it's that's a
right option we want to know the date in
which something is written to help
verify
the details within it and to give us a
greater understanding of its history so
knowing when something is written is
very very important um on a side note
you know i love i love books i love
study i love reading and i love history
and so when i get to when i get a book
that just
it smells old and treasured it smells
good and so i get very excited about it
and um
so it is it's an it's a wonderful
exciting thing when you get to get this
wonderful old book you can see
the stiffness of the pages and the smell
and how wonderful it is
and um
it's so it's wonderful so you get to
crack open that book and like okay how
valuable how old is this book where has
its journey been and what has it's done
and what was it for
what was the intent of the author and um
knowing the dayton when it was written
helps fill in those details
and uh and so it is really good now most
historians most theologians when it
comes to the book of james all agree
most of them all agree that it was
written around 50 a.d so if it was
written around 50 a.d or so that does
eliminate this james the son of zebedee
who died in 44 a.d so he died a couple
years too early for when they considered
this book to be to be to this letter to
be written
and um and so you see that it's
important so again 50 a.d and so
you know study the history around that
time period you're going to get an
understanding on what was taking place
and a lot of it what was taking place is
fulfilled in other passages of scripture
primarily in the latter half of the book
of acts
and then some of paul's epistles with
what he references as well and so there
is details
in the scriptures that helped fill in
the this information
and so it is really good
now to help us date this book we look at
um with the original text you would look
at its content the words that is being
used the
the the
stylization of the language and you
would put that together and so what we
see here is that there is a very
distinct jewish nature
in how it is written
um
and how it directs us at that time it
would
the way that it's written in a very
jewish flow
would indicate for us that at that time
that the majority of the church is still
very much jewish so we can surmise that
it's written before a time before the
big uh the gentile expansion that
happened to the church it's still very
much
um
jewish dominated church at that time
when it was written
also it conveys um very very simple
church structure when it talks about
elders and teachers it's very very
simple so it hasn't grown to an
exponential size where there's um
there's deviance and all these other
things there's there's uh
you know the way that structure is built
as things uh get more complicated it's
it's very very simple as far as church
structure goes so we do know that it is
early surrounding the days of the church
um
also we see that there is no reference
to a particular uh convoluted thing in
paul's writings and even in the later
chapter of acts there was a great
controversy that arose
that had to be dealt with by church
leaders
and so the the controversy that was
being surrounded was um
the gentile believers were coming to
christ as gentiles and so the
controversy was if they're coming to
this
uh part of our faith the jewish
believers are if they're coming to this
part of our faith then they need to be
circumcised
sorry man i said that word they need to
be circumcised
and that created a great controversy
because the gentiles at that time did
not uh
uh
they did not circumcise themselves and
so there's controversy surrounding that
and uh fascinating this book does not
address that controversy um and there's
a couple of reasons for that either this
letter was written before the
controversy really came to light or it
happened after the the controversy was
already settled uh and so there there is
that that again that helps dictate for
us a time frame and so uh it's important
there but it's important to note that
when putting this together the
controversy for the gentiles
circumcision is not addressed
we do know that james did address it in
the book of acts we do reference that it
came to the jerusalem council okay when
paul brings it up at the jerusalem
council it's important to note that
james was a member of that council and
and so he addressed it there but it's
not addressed
in this
portion here
so it is very early in the church's age
um
we also see that the
the greek word they still the james
still used the early greek word of
synagogue when it came to describing the
church's meeting place or meeting
when they would gather together
they would use
that
reference as well and so this is a very
earlier version of this very early copy
of this book um
using these form of dating and getting
the idea and the many studies i've gone
to really place this book in its time
frame
um
you know they're able to use other books
to
to compare and see
what is the age of this particular
letter and what's fascinating about it
is that outside of the book of galatians
okay so outside so after the book of
elation galatians the next oldest book
of the bible that we see is actually
james
james is quite possibly
very very close with the galatians that
being the first book of the new
testament being written
before the gospels before um all the
other epistles you have galatians and
james um vying for that place is one of
the earliest uh earliest manuscripts
earliest books being written there
that gives you an idea of the date in
which this book was put together
and um and so i you know it's it's a
fascinating thing
now to have another deeper understanding
of this book we see that it was written
by james the the servant
um that's the thing i want to talk about
here really quick as well he goes from
being the half brother um and and having
a very humanistic view of jesus
who you know he grew up alongside
uh to a point where in in verse 1 he
says he's the servant and he calls jesus
christ as lord so it's what's beautiful
about that is he goes from this
individual
who
[Music]
really thinking his brother was kind of
nutty to a position that
he considered himself now the servant
and that jesus is his lord and savior
and i love that transgress i love that
that that transition that transformation
that occurs um because it really does
show his heart it really does show this
um
this amazing thing that just makes this
individual completely new
and uh and so it's really really good
so again the authorship and the date um
you know written around 50 a.d uh
confirming more and more that james
wrote this and then we see his audience
and he he gives his audience right there
in the the the middle portion of this
passage where he says to the 12 tribes
scattered among the nations
this is a very interesting now some may
think
some people will take this and they will
assume that he is referring to
christians
of all nations and so
all the christians in the world get to
to see this
um
this amazing thing
and
others even still will take that they
that they mean this to um
because of the jewish nature that this
book contains the jewish nature that
surrounds this whole text
that is actually more naturally
indicating jewish believers we're
talking to
jewish christians
which is my you know the the intended
audience and that makes sense in my mind
considering it's jewish nature of the
writing it's um the fact that he was the
leader of the jewish church
um on the council there and uh and just
the influence and uh the time it was
written so um it makes very much sense
here
and we also see from other parts of
james
uh namely chapters 2 and to chapter 5
that he's writing to
the group of believers
who part of the jerusalem church that
were scattered because of persecution
okay
and so
this what do i mean by this in when
stephen the apollon when the the the
disciple stephen was martyred okay we're
going all the way back to acts
um in the early chapters of acts we see
that stephen gets martyred okay so
persecution is now ramped up so it's no
longer just jesus who was crucified um
for what he taught but now his followers
are being targeted as well
and they see stephen lose his life
because of that and so what happens is
the the early church sees this
this
pressing this difficulty and so they
scatter they they go all over the world
they go
known world their time we're talking
they go to phoenicia
cyprus syria antioch they
scatter
this jerusalem church does and so
this is the recipients i mean this is an
individual this is the audience where
james the brother of jesus is
writing a pastoral letter he is the key
leader of the jerusalem church he's the
he's their minister he's he's their
pastor and so he he he goes and he
writes a letter to them
and
as their pastor he's writing to instruct
to encourage to equip them
in the face of countless countless
difficulties
um
which i find really amazing really
fascinating here's this leader who says
okay my church just got scattered
because of the pressures i i need to
remind them what we're about i need to
equip them i need to make sure that
we're going in the right direction and
so that's what james does and he
addresses this letter to help equip that
church and
um to to really
do something mighty with them this is
the pressures that they are dealing with
and
um which i think is really amazing you
know he
and this is one of those reasons why
i am inclined to go through a study of
the book of james
whether you're in a nation that you are
hard-pressed to listen to something like
this or
here in america and cultural pressures
family pressures you're being preston on
all sides difficulty on all sides
how what do you need you need to be
encouraged you need to be strengthened
to walk your walk of faith and to do it
in a way that points to jesus and and
glorifies him and at the same time
equips you
and gives you greater boldness to do
what what uh what god is asking of us
and so james is a very clear and
wonderful letter to to begin that
journey on
and we just find that just very plainly
in uh in this uh text um just in this
opening passages as we discussed these
things and so it's really really good
as we get going through
this study as we begin in in depth
really to really look at the
the content of this letter today is more
of an introductory looking at verse one
but we're going to start breaking down
the passages each week we're going to
take a chunk of this pa of this book
and and digest it and discuss it
together and as we do that it's
important for us to remember who wrote
this book and who was the original
audience intended for and that's part of
our interpretation is understanding
who wrote it why they wrote it who they
wrote it to
and then at the same time understanding
that we also need to apply it to
ourselves because he
and like i said he wrote it to a people
who were scattered who were hard-pressed
who were going through a season of
difficulty
now how many of us can apply that same
uh
indication um you're going through a
hard-pressed time what do you need
you're going through a season of
difficulty what do you need
and um and going forward in that
so we can take these principles that
he's telling his listeners in that day
and if it's good enough for them it's
good enough for them to hear it's good
enough for them to understand
uh then
for sure it's it's important for us to
get and for order for us to grasp as
well and uh and to really grow and lean
for them we we're not exempt from this
content just because we live in a
different day and age we can apply it to
ourselves now and we can glean from this
knowledge the worst thing we can do is
have that knowledge and then deny it and
say it's not worth it um we gotta blaze
our own trail when really the trail's
been blazed we just gotta walk on it and
uh so that's the beauty of going through
this together
and so
starting today and then over the course
of the next nine weeks we're going to be
breaking this up and looking at in
greater detail and so starting next week
um we're going to be introducing trials
and temptations and so next week we're
going to look at further into chapter
one and we're going to
dive into that and
look in greater detail so
it'll be very rewarding i hope that you
are excited to be ready as we move on
into trials and temptations
and that you're ready to
to consume and eat the word of god not
literally but emotionally and
spiritually just make it take it in
digest it read it apply it and uh and
enjoy the studies we go through it
together so i hope it's been really good
this might get a little bit more
interactive as we go forward in this and
but for the most part thank you so much
for sticking around as we've
looked at this introductory into the
book of james
and i hope that you are excited and
looking forward to next week so again
just with the details very very short
very good maybe half an hour or so but i
hope you really enjoyed this discussion
so thank you so much for joining with us
as we begin a new series looking at the
letter from james so thank you so much
god bless you have a wonderful day if
you are in the area we invite you to
join us we have our worship at 10 a.m
sunday mornings here in albert lee
minnesota and then our midweek service
is on wednesday nights at uh 5 30 for
the fundraiser dinner 6 30 p.m for the
classes we got something for everybody
kids adults teens we would love for you
to be a part of uh with us if you're not
able to be with us or if you're not in
the area and you're enjoying this from
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that wonderful material
and thank you so much and then of course
online midweeks are usually released
thursday morning so be looking for more
content be looking for more of this
study
thank you for joining us have a
wonderful day god bless you thank you so
much for being with us