Hey Bible readers, I'm Tara Lee Cobble, and I'm your host for the Bible Recap.

If you're doing our New Testament plan, you finished your fifth book today, and if you're

doing the whole Bible, you finished your 44th book. This book has a lot going on, so we'll only have

time to hit the major points. Let's get into it. This book was written by the half-brother of Jesus,

which is incredible given that his brothers used to mock him. But this book shows what an

incredible change of heart James went through, because it opens with the author calling himself

a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, from mocking

him to serving him. But spoiler alert, this book isn't actually by James. Huh? It seems the real name

of this James and every other James in the Bible is Jacobus or Jacobus or Jacob in English,

so that's what we'll call him. It turns out that there was a

problem a few hundred years ago when they translated this book to English, so only English speakers

encounter this issue. We'll link to more info on this in the show notes in case you're interested.

This letter is written to the church outside of Israel, and that's important. It's written to believers.

If we take it out of that context, it sounds like this book is listing things we have to do in order

to earn God's approval, instead of them being things that serve as markers of knowing him.

Over the centuries, this book has caused quite a stir because it seems to be advocating

salvation by works, which is contrary to everything

else in Scripture. But if we remember the rules of Bible interpretation, the first of which is

that Scripture is the lens we use for interpreting Scripture, and if we remember the author's

original audience and context, then all those things help us understand this book rightly.

In Chapter 1, Jacob addresses trials the early church encounters,

but he tells them steadfastness is developed in those trials, and steadfastness is part of being

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