Theology in the Raw - Understanding the Book of James: Wisdom, Prayer, Wealth & Poverty: Dr. Mariam Kovalishyn

Episode Date: July 29, 2024

Dr. Mariam Kovalishyn is Associate Professor of New Testament Studies at Regent College (Vancouver, BC). She has an M.A. from Denver Seminary and a Ph.D. from the University of St. Andrews (Scotland). The majority of Mariam’s research has centered on the epistle of James, Jewish literature of the Intertestamental period, and classical Graeco-Roman literature. Additionally, since coming to Regent, she has expanded to researching and writing across the epistles, Pauline and General. Mariam has co-authored a commentary on James (Zondervan), has published a number of articles in books and journals, and is currently working on another commentary on James for the Story of God series and a biblical theology of social justice for Zondervan, as well as a commentary on 1 and 2 Peter. In this podcast conversation, Mariam leads us through the book of James in a raw study of this interesting book. Register for the Austin conference on sexualtiy (Sept 17-18) here: https://www.centerforfaith.com/programs/leadership-forums/faith-sexuality-and-gender-conference-live-in-austin-or-stream-online Register for the Exiles 2 day conference in Denver (Oct 4-5) here: https://theologyintheraw.com/exiles-denver/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Benefits vary by card, other conditions apply. Hey friends, welcome back to another episode of Theology in the Raw. I am going to be at Austin, Texas, September 17th to 18th, hosting a two-day conference on sex, faith, sexuality, and gender at Life Family Church. If you wanna register, you can go to centerforfaith.com.

All the information is under the events tab. Also, we have our two-day exiles conference coming up in Denver, Colorado, October 4th to 5th. That's gonna be a awesome two-day experience. So if you're interested in attending that, you can go to theologyintheraw.com and register there. Okay, my guest today is Dr. Mariam Kovalicin. She is an associate professor of New Testament studies

at Regent College in Vancouver, BC. She has a PhD from University of St. Andrews and has been a expert on the book of James. She studied James during her doctoral research. She's co-written a commentary on James. She's working on another commentary on James. She's been studying James longer than many of you have been a Christian.

So I brought Miriam on the show to help walk us through James. So crack open your Bibles, dust off your book of James, get ready for a deep dive Bible study, the all-general style. Please welcome to the show for the first time, the one and only Dr. Miriam Obulishy. Thanks so much for being on The All-General. I'm really looking forward to this conversation. Yeah, my pleasure. You co-wrote a commentary with Craig, right? Craig, yeah. On James and then another commentary on, do you have two commentaries on James?

I'm working on. I interrupted my academic life with a few too many kids in the way, so I'm still working on the process. Okay, and you did your doctoral studies on James. What was your particular thesis? So there I was trying to work on basically, you know, as a Pauline person, you'll be empathetic. If we take Paul out of the conversation and put him in conversation with Old Testament instead, does James read a little differently in terms of faith and works and salvation and how that all works? So I was specifically looking more with wisdom literature, but now I've kind of broadened to a more Old Testament perspective on James. Just trying to say, who is he talking with if we put him in a different conversation?

Does he sound so weird? And basically, I don't think he sounds weird anymore, but he just sounds very covenantal. Interesting, okay, cool. Well, I want this just to be kind of a, on a one level overview of what is James all about. And then we'd love to go as deep as you wanna go as well. So let's just start with the background. What do we need to know about the background of the letter? Who is James? Why did he write this letter? What was the context that he

was writing it? Yeah, that's great questions that there's a lot of debate about because all we have is James, the servant of the Lord. So we don't have a lot to go on, and so people will debate it quite broadly. I land with this thinking the simplest answer is that it is James, the leader of the Jerusalem church, who he was the kind of person that you could just say James and everyone in the early church would know because he's the one in the apostolic council who answers last. He's the one that Paul alludes to meeting with several times in Jerusalem. So he's the kind of character with James being a common name,

he's the kind of character that would be recognizable. So Eileen with it being James, the brother of Jesus, which opens interesting possibilities in terms of his teaching, is very clearly dependent on Jesus's teaching or very clearly related to. So people often will note the relationship between the Epistle of James and the Sermon on the Mount or other things of that sort. So having it be the brother of Jesus puts it into an interesting conversation with that. And it also, I like the thought too of putting it in conversation with Mary's Magnificat

and the overturning that she announces in her praise of God. The vision of the kingdom that she announces is very similar to what we see in the vision of how the church should be in the Epistle of James. So it fits to me with the brother of James. And he's executed in mid-60s, so about 63, I think it is. So that kind of puts an end date if you take that. If you don't, if you take it as kind of, there's another way of reading it that it's his sermons compiled by a later editor or someone writing in his tone, essentially, as that kind of Jewish Christian leader. So they can go quite late

depending on the debate. But I tend to put it fairly early before a lot of the debates take off about Gentile inclusion and whatnot. But as the head of the Jerusalem Church, he's writing to Jewish Christians. So a lot of the, you know, should you be circumcised would not be a relevant question. You just don't need, you know, should you be circumcised would not be a relevant question. You don't, you just don't need to answer those questions if, if you're writing to Ordie Jewish, but now Christian believers in Jesus. I seem to remember 44 AD. Is that, is that the suggested date for the book? Why do I think that?

Forty-four is when James the brother of John is executed. So if you put it to James the brother of John, which I've recently heard someone pause it, then you have to have it by 44. 48 by the Apostolic Council is kind of the early standard date. So before that debate really is of relevance to this, James. He's writing to 12 tribes scattered or dispersed abroad, scattered among the nations. Are you saying, yeah, who's his audience then? Is it the Jerusalem church? I do take it as the Jerusalem, like after the execution of James the brother, John, the church is kind of scattered out of Jerusalem because of the persecution that happens there. So he's using the diaspora language metaphorically, but also semi-seriously of, we've been scattered out of Jerusalem, but you're my kind of the ones that I'm overseeing,

the Jewish Christians that are around the Palestinian area, probably. So, Christians that were part of the Jerusalem church that now are fleeing persecution. Fleeing the persecution. And are living outside of Jerusalem, but still in Palestine. And then may well have been communities that developed in the early church era in these other places, and he's writing to them. But I do take the 12 tribes to mean he's keeping his kind of focus on the Jewish Christians, that earliest core church. So the nice thing with that, if you do take that track, you have some of the very earliest

Christian teaching to some of the earliest Christian communities. What does it mean to be this Christian community? Who are we meant to be? What's the significance behind that label, the 12 tribes dispersed abroad? What's he trying to get at there? Well, that's an interesting question. So if you take it like I do that he's writing to Jewish Christians, then he is meaning still the 12 tribes reconstituted in the disciples, the church around Jesus.

It's the reconstituted 12 tribes, perhaps you could say, but it's still Jewish in its way versus 1 Peter, where it's very clearly he's using diaspora language and similar kind of introduction in his opening, but it's very clearly to Gentile Christians. So I do take James as saying 12 tribes, I'm alluding to my heritage, this Old Testament link. Okay. Okay. Tell us about, just give us the bird's eye view, five chapters. I guess, and this might lead into the debates about the structure, the structure is always kind of throwing me

off. It seems like he, I feel like I'm kind of reading proverbs, or it's like, you know, work hard and your house will be filled with wealth. Spare not the rod. You know, like, well, a little alphorism is coming at you and you're like, yeah, there seems to be little or maybe a difficult logical connection between kind of these chunks of wisdom that James is getting. But how do we, how should we understand the overarching flow and connection? You're picking up or have noticed what most do notice. One thing

you mentioned, James is full of imperatives. So one of the first churches I preached at when I came to Vancouver, someone said, Oh, I don't like James. He's so bossy. It is full of imperatives. And he's very much direct. So it has that wisdom proverbs feel of like, do this and this, and this is the consequence and here's how it works. So it is often seen as in kind of the wisdom genre. There's some debates of exactly what the genre looks like by this point in time, but that sense of this is how you should live your life and these are the kinds of outcomes you can expect. But in terms of structure, the epistle is very, you might almost call it cyclical. He raises themes and then he raises another theme and then he raises another theme and then he

intertwines them this way and then he brings this one back in and it's almost like a, you can use a musical analogy of like themes coming through that then are in a different key maybe but not but it's the same theme again it's recognizable but it's now added a new element so it's very hard to structure there's very little agreement on what the exact structure is he uses a lot of hinge verses so do you put this verse with that section or this section well both so and then has a little pithy sayings that he kind of unpacked later. So it very much weaves through. So we often kind of point to key themes and then show where they show up rather

than like a building structure. It's not like a good Pauline argument. So there's key themes that kind of keep showing up in different chapters through different angles. What are some of those? I've fallen into thinking kind of the thesis, if you will, of the letter, if there is one. It comes up in 1-4 that you might become mature and complete, lacking in nothing.

So this goal of this letter is to teach the audience how to become fully human, fully what we're made to be, fully image-bearers, as he'll allude to in chapter two. He talks about how we're made in the image of God, this idea of becoming Christ-like character, mature, complete, lacking in nothing. And then through the book, this language of perfection, maturity comes up repeatedly. And he keeps pointing at what are we lacking and what do we need to do to not be lacking that control of your tongue well you need to control your tongue no one can you know like so some of the big themes are of course wealth and poverty how do we interact across

those gaps how do we think about our status financially on this world? Another one is what is faith? What does faith look like? And of course it has to be an enacted faith that has to be actually lived. But he looks at that in a variety of different ways, be a doer of the law, be someone, you know, does faith without works, is it able to save? You know, he pokes at it in a few different ways. And then of course, speech and wisdom, how do we use our time, how do we interact in community?

So these things just keep kind of showing back up, but it's all, I think, in a goal towards getting us to become what we're supposed to be. Do you think we should be, and this is something John Barkley wrote on many years ago, but do you think we should be mirror reading, mirror reading the epistle, meaning if he's addressing wealth and poverty

that there were issues between the wealthy and the poor in James's context or issues with the tongue? I mean, presumably there's some reason for saying these particular threads of things because he talks, you know, the wealthy are the ones who are cursing you basically, you know, they're blessing the name called over you, they're blessing Christ. And he talks about why are there fights in your community? What's going on? So there does seem to be some directly relevant points, but then I feel like James then takes those as leap spots for us to be able to then say, okay, so bigger picture, who are you supposed to be? Bigger picture, what does this mean? What is the impact of the

word of God in your life? So I do take, there's definitely reasons he's saying the things he's focused on, but then I think he uses them to get to a bigger, whole picture. Pete And the wealth and poverty, is it like this tension between what I'm going to assume are a small minority of wealthy people and the majority who are not that, just given the makeup of Pete The ancient world. wealthy people and the majority who are not that just given the makeup of the Empire. Is this happening within the church or are these wealthy? Like in chapter five, it doesn't sound like these wealthy people are Christians or at least they're not acting like it. Like are they talking to poor Christians with like wealthy landowners that they're working for or something?

Yeah. I mean, that's a definitely debated period. So chapter five, I do think you're right, that this has kind of meant more to comfort the poor people that God sees, God hears, the wages are crying out that have been withheld, which is a fascinating line. Like it's not the poor people that are crying out, it's the wages themselves. So it's the sense that people that are crying out, it's the wages themselves. So it's the sense

that God is working for justice, whether or not it's just, quote unquote, his people, just for Christians. He in general wants fair wages for all people. He in general wants justice for all people. But I do think 5-1-6 is, you know, apostrophe, it's meant to comfort the one's suffering that God sees, God knows, the Lord's subo is going to come and work justice. But the bigger picture through the epistle, I think he has this theme that everyone needs to be humble before God. And he says in chapter four, he talks about submit yourself to the Lord, humble yourself before the Lord and he will exalt you.

And then in chapter five, he's talking about, God's basically gonna bring down the wealthy. And in chapter one, he talks about the one who is high boasts in your downfall basically. So I've developed a thing thinking that James basically has a theology, everyone needs to be humble before God. You have the choice to humble yourself or God will humble you. And so the rich, when he uses the word for rich, these are people who identify as rich. This is their primary identification. They have money, they are independent,

they don't need God. And as a result, they are prideful, they are selfish, they're doing all these things. Whereas in chapter four, you have the business people who clearly have some money to be able to be making plans quite far out for doing business. So I don't think having money is the problem. I think it's whether you're humble before God

or whether you identify in some other way than as humble before God. Okay, yeah, yeah. So it's basically, I think the contrast is the rich and the humble. Like you can be wealthy but humble yourself before the Lord and then you won't be doing the things in chapter five. If you're humble before the Lord, you won't be doing the things in chapter five. If you're humble before the Lord,

you won't withhold wages, you won't persecute those who are below you, you won't, you know, you'll be using your wealth for the community. Whereas if you view yourself as rich, then your money is yours, and you want your comfort. Going back to chapter five, one to six, where he really lays into these rich people, he does address them directly though. Listen now, you rich people, weep and wail. So there are people who would have read this letter, presumably, but they're acting like you fatten yourself for the day of slaughter.

Like you condemned and murdered the innocent one who was not opposing you. Their actions seem extremely pagan, but he's addressing them. So, are they inside the church? It's possible. Some of them might be hearing this, and it's very prophetic. So, this is where I think his Old Testament language comes in. I mean, chapter four, he starts with adulteresses, don't you know that friendship with the world is enmity with God. So he's using very prophetic languages

throughout chapters four and five, that your relationship with God is either all in or not. There's no middle ground. And so to echo the Old Testament prophetic tirades against the oppressors in Israel, Isaiah is adamantly furious at people who are Israelite and yet oppressing other Israelites. So I think he's just working within the prophetic tradition very strongly and echoing that language. And so if the rich people overhear and repent, wonderful. But

if they don't, then they need to be warned that this is the path that they've put themselves on. Well, and like you said, even though he's addressing the rich there in chapter 5, it could be an encouragement for the ones being oppressed. Kind of like how the prophets might address Assyria, but it's not like Assyria is necessarily going to read, but that's comforting to those being oppressed by Assyria. So I think he very much, so this is why, like, so you asked earlier about genre questions. I think it is wisdom in so far as that's a genre, but I think he's a lot more heavily

influenced by the prophetic literature and the covenantals, the Deuteronomy, the blessings and curses, that kind of scheme that then the prophets are so heavily invested in. And I think James fits within that trajectory very strongly. This episode is sponsored by the Pore Over Podcast. Oh my word, I love the Pore Over Podcast. It is a trustworthy news resource guiding people toward eternal hope. It's not Republican, it's not Democrat, it's not conservative, it's not liberal. Instead, it is a Christ-centered summary of the major events going on in politics and in culture. Like most of you, I am so tired of news outlets that are so clearly biased toward the right or to the left. I want to stay informed with what's going on, but I hate how traditional

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away from loving people who might vote differently than you. Instead, check out and subscribe to the Pour Over podcast in your favorite podcast app. Okay, I've got another question. So like whenever I used to teach Old Testament survey, we got the Proverbs. I would say that the way we should read Proverbs and wisdom literature as a whole is not as giving a bunch of absolute moral mandates, but sort of time-conditioned situational pieces of wisdom.

I forgot how I worded it, but like these, these aren't like absolute, thou shalt not. It is more general pieces of wisdom that need to be applied in certain circumstances. The classic example is probably where it was 26, four and five. Answer not a fool. According to his folly, let's see if you like him. Right. Answer a fool. According to his folly, let's see does something.

I forget for us. It's like, well, which one does something. I forget for a second. Yeah. It's like, well, which one is something else? It's like, well, it depends on the situation, right? Yeah. Yeah. Should we read James since he has a similar genre in a similar way?

Like these sort of seemingly moral commands, are they not necessarily moral absolutes or are they? In your opinion? That's a really good question. In your educated opinion? In my educated opinion. Like I think he's a little more in the Jesus tradition sermon on the mount prophetic literature than just proverbs.

But nonetheless, he has proverbial things. Let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger. Fear anger does not produce the righteousness of God. Well, you need to know when you're supposed to speak, slow to speak, slow to anger, for your anger does not produce the righteousness of God. Well, you need to know when you're supposed to speak, when you're not supposed to. You know, like there's an applicational side to this that you need to figure out what that looks like. But situational, you know, sometimes you should actually speak. But the principle remains of how you should approach speaking

is not just to jump in all the time, but to be quick to listen instead. And so I think there is something to it, like with Proverbs, it's not always a promise that you're going to get this outcome to something, but he is, he's a little more eschatological, a little more, you know, the, the, he will receive the crown of life. Well, I think that is actually true. If you endure all the way through, you know, the, the, you will receive the crown of life. Well, I think that is actually true. If you endure all the way through, you know, I do think that's a good promise that you don't have to worry about. And that sort of thing. So, and the, the, the one who, you know, 125, those who look in the perfect law, the law of liberty and persevere being that here's who forget the doers act, they will be blessed in their doing." That's both proverbial in its cast, you know, what does it mean to look

into the perfect law and do it? You would have to be discerning to know what aspect of the law you're doing at any given time. It's not a, here's a thing to do. But the idea that you'll be blessed in your doing is a it's a attitude kind of statement. I don't think he'll say you'll have an easy life, but there is a blessing in doing the law. Okay, so the kinds of promises we take out of James, I think, you know, need nuance need need thoughtfulness. Do you have the book memorize?

Pretty much. So if I said a verse, would you be able to quote it? I don't always have the references to it I like sections So does he ride off a few I was like, oh dang In this book for some 20 years like I keep leaving it but I keep coming back to it So it's kind of it's home turf. So for my audience that that might sound crazy. It's a five chapter book I'd even studied it for 20 years people

I'd like what what more is there. People I'd be like, what, what more is there to know? Like read it a few times. You read the commentary or two, maybe write a commentary or two. What else? I don't know. That's a big question, but I mean, just to give a window into kind of biblical scholarship that there's just, there is kind of endless sometimes. Yeah. What I've really loved about studying James is it's so immediately practical. You can read it and there are things to take away and immediately, okay, I got to start watching my tongue. Oh, I got to, you know, I got to watch my view of the world and how friendly I am with

it. Or, you know, there's different things that are immediately practical. And then it has rewarded 20 odd years of study, like, because that sense of what I talked about, the symphonic overtones, you start to realize connections that you might not have seen before, or connections to the Old Testament or to Jesus' teaching or, you know, other early church teaching, and you start hearing these echoes with 1 John. Or, you know, the more I study, a lot of it has been a process of becoming more canonical in my reading of James. So I started with just the practical reading James and enjoying

it. But the more canonical I've gotten, the more fruit I feel like it's born for how it can be read. Which fits with, if this is by James, you know, leader of the early church and who was known for his prayer life, like he was steeped in the scriptures, known for spending his time at the temple. He is someone that the scripture shaped imagination. I mean, same with Paul, like that scripture shaped imagination. The more you dig into the world of the texts that they were drawing from, the more fruit you can kind of discern,

I think. I'm going to ask, you might get upset at this question. Well, there's going to be a couple things you might get upset at. How come James doesn't seem very interested in Jesus? Yeah. I mean, there's only what, two references to Jesus? Yep. What's going on? One and two have references to Jesus. And then there's one quote from Jesus's teaching in chapter five, let your yes be yes and your no, no.

So that's the only quote from Jesus out of the whole book. Yeah. And so that's a lot of people, because if you take away the references to Jesus, it does sound fairly like a Jewish text. So some have argued it's actually a Jewish text that early Christians liked and just added in Jesus's name. There's no textual evidence of that. There's zero manuscripts that don't have the references to Jesus. That's a choice people can make, I guess. But what's

interesting, and this I follow Richard Bachaman. He calls James, he says it's the wisdom of James the disciple of Jesus the sage. And what Richard does is show how in teaching, in Jewish teaching, you didn't always quote your source, but you reset it. And so you would take your source and say, okay, well, let me reset it. So Sirach in the Deuteran canonical book, Sirach, is very heavily dependent on proverbs, but it doesn't quote it, It resets a lot of the proverbs, kind of re-saying it for your context, your audience, or whatever. And I think I mentioned

already that the Epistle of James bears a lot of resemblance to the Sermon on the Mount, so much so that someone's argued it's a sermon on the Sermon on the Mount. So if you're looking at Jesus' teaching, someone's argued it's a sermon on the Sermon on the Mount. So if you're looking at Jesus' teaching, there's hints to parables, there's hints to sermons he's given, hints to a saying, he talks about the kingdom law, which, and then he cites love your neighbor as yourself,

which Jesus says if you love God and love your neighbor, you've fulfilled the whole law. And so there's hints that he's drawing on but resetting Jesus' teachings. So if you're not looking for specific quotes, there's a lot of Jesus's fingerprints all over the book. It would be like if I gave a talk, maybe, maybe let's say notice, maybe I wrote an email encouraging somebody and I didn't quote that in quote directly from the Bible. I didn't even mention. Maybe I mentioned Jesus a couple of times.

But the content of what I'm saying is clearly drawing on specific passages, biblical themes. Maybe even there's some allusions or echoes here. You're saying that James is kind of like that with the teachings of Jesus to some of them out. Yeah, that makes sense. The more I've done more canonical stuff, I think he's just weaving scripture all through everything and then heavily showing how Jesus' teaching is this. And then just making it practical.

He's trying to help his community understand, okay, we've come to believe in Jesus. We're the first fruits of his creation. What in the world does that mean? How do we live this?" And he's concerned with the, now what do we do? You're in this new community. So what? Let's get into some specific passages. Okay, the first one, and there's no rhyme or reason. Some of these are going to be just passages I had questions about chapter one, verse six. When you, you know, he just says, pray. I got it for wisdom. God will give you wisdom. But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt. The one who doubts is like the wave of the seed bloated and tossed by

the wind. That person shouldn't expect anything. The Lord comes out pretty hard on doubting. And yet I don't know., I'm sympathetic with doubters because I are one. Exactly. And I read the Ecclesiastes or the Psalms and Lamentations, you know, what's he saying here? Should we have 100% certainty in everything God says, or are we allowed to say, man, this is tough, I don't know about this?

I think this is where I've come to on this verse. I think it all comes down to doubting God's character. So I think the faith isn't how much faith you have, it's who you have faith in. And so, because he just talked about ask God, and the language in there is ask the giving God. Like it's actually, this is God's character. He's the God who gives, and he gives generously, ungrudgingly, freely. With no, he doesn't blame you. Like the language in there is how freely

and uncomplicatedly God gives. And that's, I think, what we're supposed to have faith in. Not, I don't think it's about our amount of faith. I mean, if you want to be a good Protestant, faith is a gift from God. How am I supposed to have enough faith to make, like, there's a circular problem here now. I don't have enough faith,

but it's supposed to be a gift from God. And so, I think the doubter is one who prays for wisdom or prays to God, but then also has their own backup plan. They don't really think God's going to give them what they need. And so, they've got their wealth to fall back on. Or they you know, they've got their plans in place and they're just praying kind of as a, I'm supposed to do this. So I think the problem is they're not trusting that God will give them what they need

for the situation they're in. But instead, my faith actually ends up being faith in me. And in my ability to get through this situation, whatever it is. So the doubting is like a wave in the sea, like I trust God, but I don't really trust God, but I trust God, but I don't really trust God. And instead, James is saying, you need to just set your eyes on God. Ask him in faith, don't put your faith in yourself. Don't put your faith in the world around you,

in your company, in your work, you know, in anything else to get you through life, what you need is faith in God. And then that will, you know, increase your faith. The more you rely on God, the more your faith grows and that sort of thing. But it's, it's the need to keep your, yeah. So I take it as it's about who, who you have faith in, not how much faith you have. Or so I guess, let me give you a pretty sharp tracker with you. That's really helpful, actually. Doubt the character of God, not question the, well, let me give an example.

So I'm deaf in my left ear, and I was raised under John MacArthur's, you know, whatever. And so I never prayed for healing. Right, right, right. But more recently, well, last couple of decades, I've been mildly charismatic in the sense that I'm not a cessationist. So I believe God can heal my ear. And I've gone to at least one, two, when the preacher was asking, come forward if you want prayer for healing. I said, all right, do I believe God can heal my ear? I believe 100%.

He can. Do I think he will? And I remember sitting there last time I went for prayer, and I was like, if I'm honest, I don't think this is going to work. I just don't. Right. And I had thought that, okay, I don't think this is going to work. I just don't. Like, that's not that I said, okay, I need to change my mindset then.

Like I need to actually believe he can and possibly will. Is that enough? Do I need to say he will? How do you know? Like, I'm just really wrestling. Or maybe wisdom to say, this isn't God's plan. Like he can, and I firmly believe he can. He's doing other things. And he like, so is there a point where your wisdom is saying, this isn't the prayer

request I need to be focused on anymore? So not to say that, but the question is, do you actually believe he is the healing God who can do this? Okay, okay. Yes, I do believe 100%. But I'm a skeptical Yeah, the guy he stuck his finger in my ear and and you know, he's like well do you hear anything? And I said no, then he started like whispering in my good ear and like do you think now? I'm like, well, that's the one that works. Are you trying to confuse me? And then he's like well, you know, sometimes people walk away They they'll they'll start to hear like a ringing, you know, I'm like wait. I don't want to bring you to my ear It's like worse. That's a step down actually.

Just really, yeah. Was I violating James 1-6 because I was like not- Again, I think it's the, so that's where I think this verse and then the verse at the end of James where he starts talking about prayer for healing can get misused, I think, to lead Christians to doubt their faith

and to question, you know, because my father was ill for most of my life too. And so we definitely heard the like, well, you must not have enough faith because you're not getting prayer. You know, like the prayer of the righteous person is powerful and effective and you weren't healed. So what's wrong with your righteousness

and start questioning if you have sins. And like, there's an ongoing way in which not healing can become a way of blaming the person instead of a way of building faith. So again, the question is, who is our faith in? We trust the person to the Lord when we pray for healing, and we trust that He is the one that will save the sick and raise them up. But interestingly, in that verse in 515, when he says the Lord will raise them up, it's the word for resurrect as well. So it's a polyvalent term there. It's not the normal word for healing. So how much do we trust the person of the Lord knowing that he may heal them here or He may heal them in eternity, but He will

raise them up. And so we trust the person to the Lord and then it adds the, and if anyone has committed sins, they will be forgiven. But that's like almost an afterthought, which I think is intentional. It's not start with a committing sin, scour your conscience and whatnot. But if you have committed sins and therefore confess your sins and pray for one another. And I think that follows the Davidic, you know, Psalms of while I hid my sins, my bones melted, I was, you know, like, sin can cause illness too. And be a serious problem for us. So that can be something we need to check, essentially. And confession is a powerful tool that I think sometimes we don't take seriously enough. But that's not the cause of all illnesses. He starts with the illnesses. They're just a reality of the broken world, essentially.

And we trust that God will raise them up. Yeah, so we trust it to God and that He is the one who responds to the righteous people's prayer. And righteous there, I think, again, is the person who trusts God, who has been walking in faithfulness, not, I'm more righteous than you, because my prayer is going to answer. Again, I think he's pointing us constantly towards relationship with God. But the overall point is, do we trust people to God? And then Elijah is a human like us is a fascinating example he gives there, because by this point in Second Temple literature, Elijah is nothing like us. Like, Serak talks about him as, you're a man of fire, you know, and like blazing everywhere.

It's all this dramatic language. Like he is not a man like us. But James points us back to his humaneness and that he struggled along the way, too. And Elijah himself goes into the desert and doubts God after his grand moment on Mount Carmel. So to bring an example like that and then a little bit earlier, he'd use the example of Job for endurance too. And I think those are two key examples of people who, in the biblical text, wrestled with God quite profoundly. Neither of them chose to curse God though. And so, how we respond to the hardships, Job gives us a model of being like, God, I am

not happy. I don't like this. And you can rant at God, yell at, you know, like all of that, but you still need to be turning to God. And in the end, concluding that he is just, and so he, you know, Job always reaffirms God's justice. He just wants to see it in his own life. Right, right.

You know, and Elijah, you know, calls all the people of Israel back to worship of Yahweh in his grand moment on Mount Carmel and then goes in the desert and is like, so was that worth it? Was that good? You know, who are you, God? I need to meet with you. And God's gracious to him in that time. But that reminder of, you know, what is the righteous person? It's not the person who never questions.

It's not the person who doesn't wrestle. It's the person who just turns to god though in those moments Can you give us a your best translation of 5 16? A lot of translations differ here the prayer i'm reading. This is the niv Uh, the prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective What's your and that I don't know, the Greek word, iscue, I guess are typical words for. One, you know, very powerful is the prayer of the, you know, it's not an easy word, an easy one to translate at all.

The working, I mean, what's interesting is it's one last use of the ergo language in this epistle. So all through the epistle, he's had this language of works, faith that works, faith that works, you know, like, you know, let it endurance have its perfect work. And now it's the work of the righteous person's prayer. So all through this epistle, this language of work and the doing of things. But here it's the effective, I guess, is what they're trying to say. So just to be just some people in case you're not following. So the same Greek word translated effective at the very end of 516 is an ergoumenes, the occurrence, an ergo.

What's the root? the route? And I go and I get the same word. The the the root of it is the language, which is for works and that sort of thing. So he's played like all through this epistle is played with language of perfection and works and how they're tied together. Our maturity, our growth, our growth. All through this epistle, he's played with language of perfection and works and how they're tied together. Our maturity, our growth comes through the doing of these things. So the doing of this righteous person's prayer is because they're the people who are the

doers already of following the law, following God's ways, and that's what makes them righteous. And it's again because they that's what makes them righteous. And it's, again, because they are people who turn to God. But I do think he holds within that this openness to letting God do what he will do in the healing by that resurrected language, not using just healing language. I've often gone to James 5, 16 in particular, and Hezekiah and Sennacherib and 2 Kings 18-20, to say that, well, that prayer actually does something. Like some people say prayer is really God's way of teaching this dependence on Him. I'm like, God does that.

But if we take what the Bible says about prayer seriously, and I say this as somebody who deeply struggles and always have, it actually does move the universe. It actually moves the heart of God. It causes things to happen. And people say, what about God's sovereignty? I'm like, I firmly believe in God's sovereignty. I don't know how to put that together. God knows the end for the beginning and prayer also does something and I don't know how to pull those two together. That's been my kind of textbook explanation. Do you have any thoughts on that? I mean, I don't have a way to put it together better for you other than we are called to pray. And James Fourheek also talks like, so prayer threads is another big thread through this epistle, because he, you know, pray in faith, ask in faith, that opening. And then chapter 4 begins with,

you know, you do not have because you do not ask, and this is the classic prayer of Jebe's misuse. So just ask and you'll get it. To which he asks, you ask and you don't receive because you ask wrongly in order to spend on your pleasures. And so, the selfish asking is not the kind of prayer that God wants. He may respond, he may give you the jet. That's not really the kind of prayer he's looking to respond to. He's looking for, you know, then the prayers that James goes into are repentance and turning to God and humbling yourself before God. But I don't think I think you're right that it's, you know, you do not have

because you do not ask you ask and you don't receive because you ask wrong. Like, I don't think those are comments you make if it's all about just changing your heart. And then, you know, Chapter five, when he's talking about prayer for healing, like, it is powerful or effective. And the example of Elijah, like in 1 Kings 17 to 18, Elijah raises a boy from the dead. There's the miracle of the ongoing oil and flour for the widow he's living with. Like, there's multiple miracles happening in that chapter that all then culminate in the prayer at Mount Carmel, God show them that you are God, at which point fire comes down from heaven and lights the altar on fire. So if Elijah had not prayed that, could

God have still done that? I mean, God can do whatever God will do. But Elijah was there speaking to God and speaking, you know, turn these people's hearts back, show them that you're God. So I do think there's an effectiveness to prayer that we maybe sometimes minimize because we're so busy saying, if the Lord wills, if the Lord wills, if the Lord wills, and we don't ever actually pray. And yes, we need to pray as the Lord wills. Like he says that in chapter four. Right, right, right. If the Lord wills. So caveat our prayers with if the Lord wills, but I think sometimes we use that as an out to not pray. I mean, back to the doubting, that might be

an example where we're actually doubting. We're so busy saying if the Lord wills, because we don't really think He's going to do anything. Instead of saying, I am throwing myself on you because I believe you can do miracles. I believe myself on you because I believe you can do miracles. I believe you can heal. I believe you can change the situation. I believe this can be different. And we caveat it out so that if God doesn't act, we don't have to blame. There's no concerns there. Prayer has real agency, real cosmic agency. I think so too. I think we're called to pray. And then we're called to trust God, that God is God and will do

what is best for us, but we are called to pray. All right, let's get the chop too. I think there is a fairly easy solution here. So, one that easy, but okay, so there's an angel for those who don't know, I'll just set it up in case it doesn't doubt, um, classic, uh, issue with the apparent contradiction between James chapter two versus 14 to 26 and several passages in Paul specifically specifically Romans three, I think 28 might be, let me do it. Yeah. Romans three, 28 and James two 24. Let's just read those. Do you want to get to 20? I'll do three. I'll do Romans. You do James. How's that? So Romans three, 28 pulses for, we maintain that a person is justified by fate apart from the works of the law. Is that the best

translation? Oh yeah. That's fine. Coerce without apart from, yeah. So person is justified by faith apart from the works of the law. All right. You read two 24, James two 24. You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone. You put those two side by side, like, all right, in of itself, that looks pretty, pretty rough. So pretty bad. Talk to us. Why this? I'm going to assume you don't think it's a contradiction. I don't, I actually don't. I do think, and this may be where you were thinking there's a bit of a solution, I think, well, twofold. Paul explicitly is talking about works of the law, and so he's very specifically dealing with issues of circumcision and that kind of, I don't know if we use the word boundary marker still, but like the things that mark you as righteous according to the law. So he's dealing

with the legal obedience on that side and how we come to faith in Christ. And I think James is on the other side saying, you're already in, but now how do you make it kind of to the final, you know, how do you carry this life out? And it's a faith that's alive essentially in terms of obedience and in terms of doing the works. And so it's interesting to me that the only place faith alone shows up in scripture is

in James and he says not by faith alone. Right, right, right. But for James, the faith here is kind of an, I guess you could say an empty faith. It's the faith that just says the words. So his example is, you believe God is one, which is referring back to Deuteronomy 6, 4, hero Israel, the Lord our God is one. Great, you got good theology. So do the demons. Yeah, yeah. You know, so his point is, you can have great theology. And if it doesn't transform your life, then it's not actually the enlivening faith

your life, then it's not actually the enlivening faith that's true faith that is transformative. So, I guess, what is it? Paul is talking about Christian faith and Jewish works, and James is talking about Jewish faith and Christian works. Wow, that's great. That's great to say. That's great. That's really good. And when James says faith alone, he's talking in that context, he's talking about a kind of confessing faith that doesn't issue in obedience, which is no genuine faith at all. Which Paul agrees with. That's not the kind of... Yeah, exactly. I mean, Paul threw his letters. I'm always struck when I am teaching in Pauline's section. He's

frantic about these people who have come to faith supposedly and are showing no fruit. And he's like, no, you can't keep doing what you were doing. You need to be doing this. Right, right. He's got his bossy moments too, Paul. He definitely has his bossy moments. I think he'd be a funner hang though than James. I don't know. Yeah, possibly. I do think sometimes we miss, like, James is actually pretty sarcastic. So like, you know, that quote I just gave you, he believe God has won. Good job. So to the demon. Oh, what a put down. He's got some good singers every now and then you're like, I didn't see that one coming. Okay. So he might he might have had that sly sense of humor that you know, you're not paying attention to and then it gets you. But what is fascinating with this section too, in picturing the kind of faith, the wholeness, so I started with saying my thesis on James is the wholeness picture of who we're to be.

The illustrations he gives, Rahab's, I mean, I'm a little intrigued by his use of Rahab. So you got Abraham, who's your standard illustration for everybody. Paul uses Abraham, everybody loves Abraham because he's the head of it all. But then he pulls in, next to Abraham, he pulls in Rahab, which I think is an interesting echo of 219 when he says, you believe that God is one, you do well, even the demons believe in Shudder. And Rahab was also justified by works. Because when you go back to Joshua, I think it's Joshua 6, she says, we all know that your God is the God of gods and he has given you our city, like he's given you this land and you are going to conquer essentially.

And we're terrified. And so everyone in Jericho essentially has the same kind of faith that James alludes to in 219. We believe this, we know this, but only Rahab did anything about it. And so Rahab and her family were justified, were saved, were brought into the people of God because she recognized what God was doing, who God was, and then threw her lot in with Israel. And so she did something, and so it transformed her whole future. And I think that's a little bit what James is getting on. Like you can know all the right

things to do, believe, say everything, but if you don't throw your lot in with it, and actually start doing it, it doesn't get you anywhere. And so I'm just always fascinated by the way that in Jericho, they all all got it but they didn't do anything. Do you think James is like responding to Pauline like a misappropriation of Paul's teaching? Do you think there is an actual connection between James too and the wake of Paul's or not? Is that a theory? I think he would have done it better. Like they just put in a flat contradiction. better. Just put in a flat contradiction. I would like to think he'd be more nuanced if he was actually responding. And he might have been responding to a mangled view of Paul that was coming back through, that was letting people just, oh, it's all by faith. And okay, so I just, I believed and so I'm good. So he might he might have been, I, you

know, I can't rule that out because it is similar analogy, similar illustration, similar everything, and a mangled view of Paul because again, I don't think Paul actually teaches just like some empty faith that you sit back and you're good to go. But but so I don't want to rule it out. But I would like I would like to have more confidence that he would have done it more clearly if he was actually responding to Paul, if it was a direct response. It's just interesting that he even uses Abraham as an example, so does Paul, similarly. I mean, even, I mean, Romans is written, what, 10 plus years after James. I mean, Galatians might have been written before. Might have been written around the same time or a little after. So, you know, Paul's teaching was known by now. He'd been to Jerusalem a few times, checked

his glasses. You know, like, so there'd been some conversation. So, he could have been like, I know this is going out there, so let me just put my... Yeah, yeah, yeah. There is some potential between him and the Church of James a little bit. We have the people from James, Galatians 1 or 2 came in to spy out our liberties, whatever. We're not sure exactly what those people were. People of the circumcision or something. Right. It's such a weird line in Galatians that, you know, because Paul throughout Galatians 1 and 2 keeps saying how much James gave him the green light. So these people from James, are they just claiming, are they like, we're from Jerusalem,

therefore, what exactly is going on there? I don't know, but it's an interesting way in which Paul keeps saying, James approved my message. So what these people from James were doing, there's something not in line between them. I used to know the answer to all this. Yeah. I mean, I read a lot of answers and I just tend to take them from the Jerusalem church. And so like they're claiming that authority basically.

Before we go, can you besides your commentary, I'll put the link in the show notes. Can you recommend some of your favorite resources on James? If somebody wanted to dig deeper to James, who should they be? If you want to dive into the deep, deep, deep, deep end, the commentary that Delison put out, I don't agree with his situation for, he puts James super late, but Daniel Allison has the big old ICC commentary. But what I really like with it, so it's expensive, you get it from a library, don't buy it. But what I really like with it is he has a pastoral thread through this very academic commentary and he's constantly pointing out where this has shown up in church history,

or shown up in, and been enact, you know, the sub-history has shaped some up in church history or shown up in an act, you know, this epistle has shaped some bits of church history or life, such as AA. I didn't realize this until I read his commentary, but AA was almost called the James Club because it was so heavily influenced by the Epistle of James in their structuring of the 12 steps. So he has got a lot of very practical things

in with a very dense commentary. So it's very dense. Another one I love is I think it's Gowler, and Blakey Anna's first name has James through the centuries. And so it's an interesting look again at where James, where the Epistle of James has shown up in artwork, in music, in theology, of course, but also in social activism and different areas. So if you're interested in how people have

received this epistle, that's a fascinating one. And then of course, you know, some of the standard commentaries are wonderful. Scott McKnight did a great job in Yes, in one of the series, Scott McKnight's is great. And yeah, no, the Baker one is very good and I'm blanking on names. This is the cost of four kids in the last seven years is my brain has lost names completely. The last two or three years, my name, I forget names of people I know. I used to be like, oh yeah, that one. Now I'm like, it's the purple one. I know.

Baccham, everything he touches is gold. So he's written it. It was mainly just scholarly articles on James. So any of his scholarly articles are wonderful. It's a little book, James, I can't remember, The Wisdom of James, The Disciple of Jesus, The Sage. It's a little book. It's actually quite readable. And he interspersed as Kierkegaard in there as well because Kierkegaard was heavily influenced by the epistle of James. But he's the one that really shows how James and Jesus, the teachings of Jesus are very prominently in there and it's beautifully written. It's not super dense.

So that one I would definitely recommend. I make my students read it every time. Richardaca, he's got to be my party. If I could pick a saver and call me my favorite New Testament scholar, that's it. I can't just, he's again, everything he, he will, he'll show up. Like I remember I was doing a study and during my PhD on pseudo phylo, some first century Jewish work, it's not that popular. And I have a whole chapter of my dissertation. Turns out Richard Bacow just shows up out of nowhere. It happens that I've written the most important book or scholarly article on pseudo-filos use of scripture that back in like

78 or something. Where is this guy? He's just everywhere. And it's all, he always writes like game-changing pieces on whatever he touches his screen. I mean, I had him in a seminar and you could watch him and then, you know, someone raised a question and you just see him pause for a moment. It's like, I don't recollect any instances in the Mishnah. You're like, nobody knows the Mishnah like that. Maybe a Jewish rabbi. The breadth of his reading.

So he makes it worthwhile. But he's also very much interested in the simplest solution. So like, there's times when we as scholars get ourselves all wrapped up in big theories. And he says, well, this theory is, you know, here's the plus and minus, but actually, if you just cut through all of that, and that's what makes him so powerful is he's not he's looking for like, what just makes the most sense of the data, and not some grandiose theory. Thanks so much for coming up the OJN RAW. I really appreciate it. Thanks for opening up, James, to us. Yeah, well, happy to have them back on. Sounds good. This show is part of the Converge Podcast Network.