Today we started our Tuesday morning men's group. We run this group in the Fall, Winter, and Spring. This year we'll be doing the non-Pauline epistles in roughly-chronological order.
.
.
Today we got cranked up with the Epistle of James. James was the first NT text to be written, dated approximately 40-50 AD, which places it about 10-15 years post-crucifixion and 10-15 years before the first Gospel account. This means that James was the first inspired text in hundreds of years, and was one of the only good texts available to folks in the middle of the first century when people were still trying to figure out what Christianity was all about and how to be Christian.
.
James is a highly pragmatic text, having been called "the Proverbs of the New Testament." Some of the Reformers, most notably Luther, contended that James was not inspired or apostolic. He cited several reasons, but they primarily boil down to the apparent contradictions between James and Pauline theology - the faith vs. works dilemma.
James is a highly pragmatic text, having been called "the Proverbs of the New Testament." Some of the Reformers, most notably Luther, contended that James was not inspired or apostolic. He cited several reasons, but they primarily boil down to the apparent contradictions between James and Pauline theology - the faith vs. works dilemma.
.
Despite the objections of these reformers, James was retained in the New Testament and was confessed to be inspired and inerrant at Westminster. As such, it doesn't do us any good to moan about the tension in James. Rather, it does us much good to take ourselves through the material that led to the apparent James-Paul tension. As Adler points out in How to Read a Book
...
Despite the objections of these reformers, James was retained in the New Testament and was confessed to be inspired and inerrant at Westminster. As such, it doesn't do us any good to moan about the tension in James. Rather, it does us much good to take ourselves through the material that led to the apparent James-Paul tension. As Adler points out in How to Read a Book
...The faithful reader of a canonical book is obliged to make sense of it and to find it true in one or another sense of "true." ... In any case, he is obliged to accept the resolution of the problem that is offered him. He reads essentially without freedom; but in return for this, he receives a kind of satisfaction that is possibly never attained when reading other books.
In other words, we know (or we have declared) both James and Paul to be true. Now we have to figure out in what sense they are both true. It is spiritually enriching to go through the process instead of resolving the tension by diminishing the importance of one or the other.
____________
Patrick Parker, is a Christian, husband, father, judo and aikido teacher, Program Director for a Cardiac Rehab, and a Ph.D. Contact: mokurendojo@gmail.com or phone 601.248.7282
____________
Subscribe to free updates from the Self-Education of Pat
