James, a bondservant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ. Often times, the best place to look for answers is right at the beginning of the book. It looks at cultural issues like what were the common practices and beliefs of people in that time and place that this book was written to? Let’s answer some of these questions. It asks historical questions like what challenges were they facing and what questions were they asking. This asks who wrote the book, who it was written to. Let’s look at the historical/cultural context first.

We need to get the complete historical, cultural and grammatical context of the passage in order to understand it. But James 2:14-26 requires much more than just the 20 verses on either side. Look at the 20 verses before and the 20 verses after. Some call it studying the Bible with 20/20 vision. Have you heard the three rules of proper Bible interpretation? Number 1, context. We will see that with a careful and contextual study of this passage, there is no problem in reconciling what James writes with what Paul and Jesus taught. He was so insistent on justification by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone, that he had trouble reconciling these truths with the teachings of James. Martin Luther, for example, that great reformer who battled the Catholic church over the issue of how to receive eternal life, called the book of James, “a right strawy epistle” meaning that there was nothing in it but wood, hay and stubble. This passage has caused so much confusion and controversy over the years, that some have even tried to remove it from Scripture. We have said that we are justified by faith alone, but James 2 clearly says that a man is justified by works, and not by faith alone.

We have said that faith without works gives eternal life, but James 2 says that faith without works is dead. In this message, we come to a passage in James 2 that on first glance, seems to say exactly the opposite.

We all know that the Bible teaches that God gives eternal life to anyone who simply and only believes in Jesus Christ for it (John 3:16 5:24 6:47 etc). Note: I have also written a summary post of this sermon on James 2:14-26.

Francis chan book of james