One of my college roommates memorized the Epistle of James
for a small scholarship. I listened to
her quote the entire thing for practice, and came away disturbed; the epistle
didn’t make sense to me. It seemed like
James couldn’t concentrate for any length of time, or was simply unconcerned
with writing down a coherent chain of ideas.
The letter came off as a random collection of alarming moralizing
statements. What’s up with that guy?
But I decided to make this summer The Summer of Not Being
Afraid of James. (It’s the first step
toward Not Being Afraid of Anyone Who Isn’t Paul.) And over the past few months as I’ve read the
epistle over and over, listening to James speak on his own terms, I found
that he actually does make sense. His
style isn’t the Lego-stacking logic of Paul, but it is tightly coherent. And his
practical admonitions are woven into a rich fabric of theology that’s every bit
as Calvinist as Paul’s.
[Yeah. I just said
that.]
~Jo
