Day 326 (James 1-5) - Year 6
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Hey, bible readers, i'm trolly couple and i'm your host for the bible recap.

If you're doing our new testament plan, you've finished your fifth book today. And if you're doing the whole bible, you've finished your forty fourth 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 mark 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 sus Christ, from mugging him to serving him.

But spoiler, er, this book isn't actually by James ha IT seems the real name of this James and every other James in the bible is Jacob s or Jacobs, or Jacobs 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 figures encounter this issue. Will linked to more info on this in the shower 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, that 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 tester, 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 lands we use for interpreting scripture. And if we remember the authors original audience in context, then all those things help us understand this book rightly.

In chapter one, jaco addresses trials, the early searching counters, but he tells them dead business is developed in those trials, and stead business is part of being whole. Holiness, or completion is the idea behind the word perfect that we see so much in this, but only god can bring that kind of holness to our lives. This talk about trials.

Instead, baths hits his readers where they live, because outside israel, they're enduring not only religious persecution, but also a famine. And Jacob and jerusalem has first hand experience of this. He's leading the church in jerusalem as they enter the same things, but probably even more severely, not long after this, he will die as a matter.

So he not only knows what he's talking about, but he also lives what he's talking about. He opens his letter with a call to ask god for wisdom. He says, this is a prayer.

We can always get a yes to what a promise god gives wisdom to. Anyone who asks, I literally ask, got for this every day, and i'm never stopping. True wisdom is the knowledge of god, and it's one of the tools he uses to shape and restore our fractured lives into holness.

It's how we persevere through trials, and it's how we resist mpt, and it's how we handle rides and blessings, and it's how we walk in humidity and faith through IT. All in this book, Jacob repeatedly talks about taming the tongue and how chAllenging that can be. Knows a bit about this himself.

Since he once used his tongue to amount jesus, he gets IT. But he had a change part, and he knows the heart change shows up in the way we talk. We start to live out what we believe.

That's what true holness is about. He knows it's easy to lie to our self about our motives. He says that in one twenty two and one twenty six.

But our actions reveal what's in our hearts. And if our hearts really trust and believe jesus, then will walk in obedience to his teachings. Listen, if you're feeling like a total failure right about now, take hard.

This kind of thing is often a painfully slow process. None of us are where we wanted be, but god adopted us in the midst of our sin. He knew what he was getting into, and he's not letting anyone or anything snack you out of his hand.

Okay, moving on. One of the more perplexing verses in the book is in two twenty four, when Jacobs says, you see that a person is justified by works and not by day alone. So what? Okay, here's what's happening.

The words justified here means to prove or demonstrate. So this first is essentially saying a person's works demonstrate or prove what's happening in their heart. This is about what other people see, not what god sees.

Because as we've seen repeatedly, god sees the heart. Humans are the ones who have to have IT demonstrated to them. This is especially important to the church at a time when they're living under oppressions in experiencing lots of new conversions.

And a problem that they're experiencing at this time is that lots of people are just claiming to believe, but aren't showing any evidence of having a new heart. So Jacobs sets out to address this directly. Remember how people were skeptical of sales conversion initially because they thought he was trying to sink his way into the church so he could persecute them all.

The more they have good reason to need evidence of true conversion. I've mentioned this before, but IT bears repeating the first century history, and Joseph says that at some point, the early church even waited three years to affirm the faith of new converts. They needed to see that there was an actual heart transformation when the holy spirit isn't bowling in major, in obvious ways.

They're only evidence that someone is a true labour is if they prove IT by their actions, if their actions justify them to others, they demonstrate a holness that doesn't exist. Apart from knowing god jackets, keeping talking about wisdom in chapter three. And he even gives us a picture of what IT looks like.

Inverse seventeen IT is pure, peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy, full of good fruits. In partial and sincere chapters three and four are connected with the idea of being a peacemaker, someone who enters into the chaos and brings the piece of Christ. The world in the church are full of fights in division, and IT takes a lot of wisdom to know how to end IT chapter four tells us that we can bring peace to those situations by being contented, humble and by prioritizing the things of god in our lives.

And along those lines, first seventeen rose us all when IT says, whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do IT for him, IT is thin. We are accountable for what we know. Chapter five gives us more examples of how to live out this homeless in the wisdom of god.

And that connects us, again, to prioritising the things of god in our lives. If we do, we'll handle our wealth in a way that on our god. We'll handle our suffering in a way that on our god.

And we'll even handle our sins in a way that honnor got. And that's where my god chat comes in today. No one leaves this book feeling like they're nAiling IT IT, points out our blind spotts in our weak spots and maybe even makes us think about other people's weak spots.

Then we realized were being arrogant and suddenly we're back at square one. But remember, it's good for us to be square one. Not so we can feel like a failure, but so we can take our eyes of ourselves and put them back on him, because that's where Grace and mercy are bound.

And that's how Jacobs in this book, the final paragraph, says, hey, you're a singer. Don't try to hide IT, throw some light on IT and ask for help. Tell other people where you struggle.

They are strugglers and signers too. Together you can ask to help you because he will. You're not a in this. He even points to a larger, a human, just like us, as an example of what's possible when sinner seat god.

I love that this rich, dense, chAllenging book ends by reminding us that god loves to draw near to people who know their signers. So come on, let's draw here. He's where the joy is.

Hey, bible readers, I get asked a lot about my favorite bible resources. And because i'm an auditory learner, I love tools that help me with listening. One of the very best tools I found is the dull bibo APP.

You don't have to sit down and read with your eyes to really learn god's work. In fact, for thousands of years, people have learn scripture by hearing IT. That's how most people do.

Our history have engaged with the bible. So whether i'm in the car, out for a walk, getting ready for the day or cleaning house, I can listen two guys word with the dual bible up, plus the applets. You choose different voices and background music.

So if you want to make IT easier to engage with the bible, especially when you're on the go, I highly recommend the doll bible lab is IT dwel bible dot com forward flash tb r, or click the link in the showing. S if you're like me, you have a lots of questions when you're reading in the word, and maybe you just have a lot of questions about the bible recap in general. If that's you, we'd like to direct you to the FAQ page on our website.

In a lot of cases, you'll get a faster answer than if you email us or D M, S. On social media. And yes, even specifics about what happens when your podcast doesn't load what version of the bible we quote in the recaps, how to fix some technical issues with your reading plan or why I think rations are superior to most other animals.

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