James

Before I read the book of James today in The Message, I read Eugene Peterson’s (author of The Message) introduction to the book. I’d like to share it with you because I think it speaks to our faith community today.

"When Christians believers gather in churches, everything that can go wrong sooner of later does. Outsiders, on observing this, conclude that there is nothing to the religion business except, perhaps business – and dishonest business at that. Insiders see it differently. Just as a hospital collects the sick under one roof and labels them as such, the church collects sinners. Many of the people outside the hospital are every bit as sick as the ones inside, but their illnesses are either undiagnosed or disguised. It’s similar with sinners outside the church.

So Christian churches are not, as a rule, model communities of good behavior. They are, rather, places where human misbehavior is brought out in the open, faced, and dealt with.

The letter of James shows one of the church’s early pastors skillfully going about his work of confronting, diagnosing, and dealing with areas of misbelief and misbehavior that had turned up in congregations committed to his care. Deep and living wisdom is on display here, wisdom both rare and essential. Wisdom is not primarily knowing the truth, although it certainly includes that, it is skill in living. For, what good is truth if we don’t know how to live it? What good is an intention if we can’t sustain it?

According to church traditions, James carried the nickname “Old Camel Knees” because of thick calluses built up on his knees from many years of determined prayer. The prayer is foundational to the wisdom. Prayer is always foundational to wisdom."

Over the next few days I am going to post some of my favorite passages from the book of James. Some of them bring me comfort, some bring tears and some just convict me. I tend to like the comforting passages the best yet the entire book speaks freshly to me each time I read it. I pray it will speak to you as well.