The Bible Study Podcast, episode 69. Today, the Bible Study podcast starts into a study on the book of James.

Welcome to the Bible study podcast. I'm your host, Chris Christensen.

Today we start studying the book of James, and I wanted to do James as a great counterbalance to Romans.

Romans will talk about being saved by grace, and James will talk about so what. So you have faith, let's see some works.

And so I find both of the books being a great balance to each other. Let's jump right in.

James I. James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the 12 tribes scattered among

the nations, greetings. Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds,

because you know that the testing of your faith

develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete,

not lacking anything. If any of you lacks wisdoms, he should ask God, who gives generously

to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him. But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt,

because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That man should

not think he will receive anything from the Lord. He is a double-minded man, unstable in all he does.

First thing we should talk about is which James we're talking about. This is not the James that is commonly featured in the Gospels, James the brother of John's son of Zebedee.

That James dies as the first of the apostles to be martyred, executed in Jerusalem, and that is recorded in the book of Acts.

So this is James the brother of our Lord. This is James

a son of Mary and Joseph, who becomes a leader in the early church. As Peter, for instance,

goes off on missionary journeys, Paul certainly, and the other apostles are spread as far as

India for Thomas. James is the one who becomes the head of the church in

Jerusalem. And the church has traditionally held that that's the author of this book. So he jumps

right in here and he says, you're going to have troubles, you're going to have trials. And the church in

Jerusalem, because the first wave of persecution was coming from the Jews, was the first to suffer persecution.

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