The Message Remix (364 page)

My dear child, don’t shrug off God’s discipline,
but don’t be crushed by it either.

It’s the child he loves that he disciplines;
the child he embraces, he also corrects.

May God, who puts all things together,
makes all things whole,

Who made a lasting mark through the sacrifice of Jesus,
the sacrifice of blood that sealed the eternal covenant,

Who led Jesus, our Great Shepherd,
up and alive from the dead,

Now put you together, provide you
with everything you need to please him,

Make us into what gives him most pleasure,
by means of the sacrifice of Jesus, the Messiah.

All glory to Jesus forever and always!
Oh, yes, yes, yes.

INTRODUCTION
JAMES

 

When Christian believers gather in churches, everything that can go wrong sooner or 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 a 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.

 

 

From:
It was customary for the sender of a letter to list his credentials up front. James identified himself simply as “a slave of God and the Master Jesus.” He neglected to mention that he was Jesus’ brother (in an era when family ties counted for a lot) and the leader of the original church in Jerusalem. During Jesus’ lifetime, James and the rest of the family had been embarrassed by their loony brother, the traveling preacher-healer. But when the resurrected Jesus appeared to him in person, James came to grips with how wrong he’d been.

 

To:
They were probably Jewish followers of Jesus outside Palestine. Some may have been among the earliest believers, who were driven out of Jerusalem just a few years after Jesus’ resurrection, and who were thereby forced to take the Message of Jesus wherever they settled.

 

Re:
Between A.D. 45 and 50, or around A.D. 60. The Iceni, a Celtic tribe in eastern Britain, had been trading with the Romans across the English Channel for nearly a century when the Romans invaded Britain in A.D. 43. The Iceni king, Prasutagus, remained a rich client of Rome, but when he died in A.D. 60, Rome’s military governor for Britain tightened the screws on the Iceni. Boudicca, widow of Prasutagus and queen of the Iceni, led a revolt after she and her daughters were violated. Her forces burned the three major Roman towns, killing thousands, before the Romans suppressed and resettled them in a town now called Caistor St. Edmunds.