Read with Me
James 1:1
James, a slave of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ: To the 12 tribes in the Dispersion. Greetings.
Listen with Me
James identifies himself as a slave of God and of the Lord Jesus, the Christ (literally “Messiah”). James was actually the brother of Jesus, along with Joseph, Simon, and Judah (Matthew 13:55-56). And he hadn’t believed in Jesus’ true identity and calling during His earthly ministry (John 7:3-5).
But all that changed after Jesus’ resurrection. Confronted with that powerful evidence, even Jesus’ brothers who used to believe that they knew Him so well, had to admit that they really hadn’t known Him at all. All of them were present in the upper room in the days leading up to Pentecost (Acts 1:13-14). And in later days, James became one of the key leaders of the Church in Jerusalem (Acts 15:12-21; Galatians 1:18-19, 28-10).
James was a devout Jew who had believed that circumcision was vital for any Christian (Galatians 2:11-13). But after the Jerusalem Council, swayed by Peter’s arguments and by the Holy Spirit, he argued that circumcision should not be required of gentile believers, and he oversaw the writing of the letter to the gentile believers telling them so (Acts 15:22-29).
James addressed his letter specifically to Jewish Christians, a group with which he felt most closely connected. He calls them “the 12 tribes in the Dispersion” a recognition that by the time of his writing, most of the Jewish people in the world did not live in Israel, but they lived scattered all across the Roman Empire and beyond (Acts 2:5-11).
But as scattered as they were, these men and women shared a common heritage in the law and the prophets, and a shared cultural heritage in the rituals and observances of the Jewish faith. And now they shared a common Savior in Jesus, the Messiah.
Pray with Me
Father, it seems a bit jarring that Jesus’ own brothers didn’t believe He was really the Messiah despite the things that they could see Him doing, and the even more amazing things that they heard that He was doing across the country. But at least they repented and believed when confronted with the solid evidence of the resurrection. That’s why it is so vital that we keep the reality of the resurrection front and center in our gospel presentations, just like those in the early Church did. Very few people will be swayed by theological arguments, or even by logic. But our eyewitness testimony of the reality of our risen Savior living and working in our hearts is powerful evidence. It can open doors for discussion, exploration and even faith that theology simply can’t. Help me, Lord, to live in the reality of Jesus resurrection, so that I can share that reality with others, so that I can help grow Your kingdom. Amen.