In yesterday’s post, I dealt with what “Scripture” James has in mind in Jas 4:5.[1] In my judgment, it points ahead to Prov 3:34, which is quoted in Jas 4:6b. Everything in between is James’s paraphrase of Prov 3:34, which is given beforehand so that the significance of the biblical proverb will be tailored to …
James 4:5 is a most confusing verse.[1] If you happen to have the newer New International Version (translated in 2011) in hand, you will read, Or do you think Scripture says without reason that he [God] jealously longs for the spirit he has caused to dwell in us? Turn to the older NIV (1984), though, …
James writes his epistle with style.[1] Some of this is obvious in any English translation of the New Testament. For instance, he employs images to present his ethics vividly, as when he mocks the duplicity of the human tongue by asking, “Can a fig tree, my brothers, bear olives, or a grapevine produce figs?” (3:12). …
Was the Epistle of James among the first New Testament books to be written, or among the last? James has this odd legacy: it is perhaps the easiest New Testament book to apply directly to our lives today, and it is perhaps the hardest New Testament book to locate historically. Scholars will date it as …
God is not redundant. For most of my life, “false god” and “idol” were interchangeable terms, whether I meant them literally, in speaking of biblical history, or metaphorically, of anything that might usurp the supremacy of God in my life. From several years of teaching experience, I can add that my undergraduate students also hear …
If you are like me, you are eager to return to in-person worship services. And if your church is like my church, you are weighing when, and how, your community can resume face-to-face meetings. Yet we do not want to rush the process and put our congregants, and wider society, at risk. That could overturn …