Welcome to 10 minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life in the time it takes to get to work.

I'm Patrick Miller. Today we're beginning to go through the book of James. Now a

quick background on who James was. He was the half brother of Jesus, but what makes

him really interesting is we don't really hear much about him in the Gospels.

We really begin to hear about James in the Book of Acts.

You see in the book of Acts, we begin to realize that he's become a leader in the church,

especially the church in Jerusalem.

In Acts 15, he's the one who makes the final decision for the church about how Jews and

Gentiles are going to worship alongside one another.

But what makes James really interesting was he was incredibly

devoted to his half brother Jesus. According to church tradition he was often

called Camelneys which kind of sounds like an insult but I think it was actually a compliment because the idea was he spent so much time praying to his brother Jesus that he got calluses on his knees like a camel, so camel knees. Now that dedication to Jesus, it quite literally cost him everything.

Eventually, James was brought to the top of the temple and told to recant his faith and his brother

Jesus and he refused and so he was pushed off the top of the temple and that's how he died in a wave of persecution.

In a strange way his death recalls Satan's temptation to his brother.

You might remember that Satan told Jesus,

let me bring you to the top of the temple,

but when you jump down, have the angels catch you,

and Satan was trying to test him,

but Jesus refuses.

James didn't get that choice. He was brought to the top, he was

thrown down and the angels didn't catch him. He laid down his life to proclaim the good news of his

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