Thank you so much Raki! May God continue to give you more great revelation in your studies!

That's great!! James is such a rich book with so much to ponder and apply.

Amen!

That's so encouraging to hear. Thank you Katrina!

Thanks Redeemed SOUL!

Blessings!

The message of James still rings loud and clear for us today. Blessings!

Thanks Keisa!

James was an incredible example of a Christ follower, and wrote a wonderfully powerful book. It is also our hope and prayer that God blesses everyone who watches this video, and reads this book. Blessings!

Our pleasure. Blessings!

Thank you Edualdo!

Thank you Jcbbe!

Well said. Thank you for commenting. Blessings!

We do not yet have our resources in Marathi, but we would love to see this happen! If you want to talk further about this, please email us directly. You can find our email address in the About page on our KZfaq channel. Blessings!

¡Viene pronto!

Good question. While James never actually uses this path metaphor, he does often present two different decisions that his readers can make: the wise decision and the foolish decision. In 1:12-16 he does just this, showing that those who endure temptation and tests to their faith will enjoy the crown of life, which in this sense we could call eternal life. Those who do not endure these tests to their faith, and fall away from following Christ will therefore not receive this life inherited only through Christ. The only inheritance that remains for them is sin, which leads to death.

@@TheBibleEffect Thank you so much for your answer! I appreciate it. Our family has been going through the whole bible this year, a book a day (almost done!!) and we have extensively used your resources, along with the college lectures of Dr Randall Smith and The Bible Project. We love the “effect” theme and the historical context. I’ve been in church for 50 years, and a theology geek, and yet have never been so enriched as this past year. Now, back to James - I’m with you on the wise/foolish decision. And on the crown bit, but - I’d like to clarify the foolish choices, sin = death (eternal). At what point do we know that we have sinned enough to cross this point? Wilful sin? I believe that is all of us. Repeated sin? Ditto. Unrepentant sin? We surely forget or - worse - are too lazy to account for and confess every sin of commission AND omission. Plus, the rubric is subjective, one can never know for sure. Assurance rests on our estimation of “works” - are there “enough” to assure ourselves our faith is not dead?? I’m curious to hear your take… again, it’s so fabulous when producers interact with viewers. I’ll never get over that.

@@laurakosch Thank you for your kind words Laura. It's also so great that your family is going through the Bible, and doing a book per day. What a great way to start off 2022!! Your excellent question about sin and forgiveness is not an easy one to answer, and not one that I think anyone other than God can give a definitive answer to. In light of that, I can do my best to give you an answer as I understand it. Let me first say that the grace of God is immense, and goes far beyond anything that we can comprehend, and definitely more than we deserve. Salvation (or justification) comes from two ingredients, God's grace, plus our faith. In faith we seek to live an obedient life, and have a posture that will default towards repentance. This is why James will say that faith produces good works, and that faith without good works is not really faith at all. Of course we recognize that there will be times of sin, and even times of deliberate sin, however even in these times our spirit, which desires harmony with God, will default us towards repentance (we can also call this conviction). Repentance does not necessarily mean apologizing to God for every mistake that we make throughout the day, but it is a posture where we seek to turn away from those choices which go against God's will. This is why God can say in Jeremiah 18:8 that when a nation turns from evil, he will change his mind (literally the Hebrew says 'repent' [nacham]) from the disaster he proclaimed against it. God has nothing to apologize for, and has done nothing wrong, however his repentance is a posture of turning away from that which he had intended to do. In the same way, a follower of Jesus will seek this posture. It is not a smooth process however, as our sinful nature will continue to want to do things our own way, and rebel against God's will. Fortunately this is where God's grace comes in. There is no end to the depth of God's grace for our sins. Without it, we would quickly exhaust any good will toward us, but fortunately that is not the case with God. That said, God is also not to be taken advantage of. We cannot say a sinner's prayer and think that we get on his good side, and then continue to sin expecting his grace to forgive us. Sadly, many people are mistaken to think that they have found a loophole in God's playbook. Paul calls them out in Romans 1:1, "Should we continue in sin in order that grace may abound? By no means!" The author of Hebrews also says, "For if we willfully persist in sin after having received the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins" (Heb 10:26). If our attitude is that we can live by our own rules and expect God to be a pushover and forgive us, then we are mistaken. If we desire to live a life of obedience, but continually fall short, God is there to lift us up and try again no matter how many times we fall.

Thank you for your comment, and expressing your concern. We really do appreciate you mentioning this. Let me try to best answer your concern regarding our choice to use these words in our videos. Yes, Jesus is to be seen as the ultimate Rabbi for all Christians, as He is our ultimate source of teaching and truth. In the verse you mentioned (Matthew 23:8), Jesus is speaking against the way that the scribes and Pharisees had used the position of rabbi at the time. In the preceding verses, Jesus instructs that His followers ‘do not do according to their (scribes & pharisees) works’ (3). He then goes on to give examples of how the scribes and pharisees are using their positions as rabbis to elevate themselves in the eyes of others, and in so doing they demand to be called ‘rabbi’. This is the type of behavior that Jesus condemns in verse 8. At this time, notable rabbis gained a following where people were said to ‘belong’ to a certain rabbi’s teaching, such as Hillel or Shammai. For Christ-followers, this was not to be the case, as their only rabbinic authority was Christ (similar to the issue Paul addresses in 1 Corinthians 1:12ff). The meaning of the Hebrew word ‘rabbi’, is teacher. Matthew 23:8 substitutes the Hebrew word for the Greek in the second part of the sentence (‘But you, do not be called ‘rabbi’; for you have one teacher [Gk: didaskalos], and you are all brothers’). The two terms are also linked as equivalents in John 20:16. Many Christians are referred to as teachers [didaskalos] in other places in the New Testament, and those who serve in this capacity were well regarded in the early church (1 Cor 12:28). James even rebukes some in the church as their behavior is not fitting of being a teacher (James 3:1). Sometimes we use words in our videos (like disciple, or rabbi) as we feel that it best communicates the relationship we are trying to describe. In no way are we suggesting that these people were in a position that would challenge Jesus’ statement in Matthew 23:8. It does not seem like Jesus was forbidding our use of these words, as we would also then have to refrain from the use of words like teacher and even father, as verse 9 goes on to instruct. However, the New Testament authors do not seem concerned with using these two terms to describe people who taught or people who were an earthly father. What is of most importance though is that the New Testament authors do show us the example of people who were seeking to imitate the humility that Christ taught us in these passages. I hope that helps to address your concern. Thank you for commenting, and blessings to you!

While it is often our inclination to shy away from trials, James exhorts us to embrace them and consider them joy, as they produce endurance. For some, the trial is in being 'brought low', and for others it is being 'raised up'. Many times we don't recognize the trial of "success", and yet that can be the biggest trial of all. Thank you for your comment! Blessings!

@TheBibleEffect the book of James happens to be my favorite book. And yes trials are what test us to show us exactly who we are and our entities. And from our short comings we learn that these are our corrner stones.

It is common for scholars to date James as the earliest Christian epistle, and even the earliest Christian written document that we have, however the view that this was written before the Crucifixion is not a belief that is held by the vast majority of New Testament scholars. Most would date this book in the 40's AD. I am personally not aware of any evidence that would lead to a pre-Crucifixion date. Blessings!

@@TheBibleEffect Granted, it's hard to see something when it isn't there. The Crucifixion and Resurrection are not in James, the only Scriptural basis: it hadn't happed yet.

@@richardmclaughlin8345 To be fair, a number of the epistles also don't mention the crucifixion and the resurrection. That in and of itself does not give enough weight to dating the book pre-resurrection. There can be a vast number of reasons why he wouldn't write about those events. However, he does write about the 'coming of the Lord' in 5:7-9, which would make less sense to reference if Jesus was still with them, and at that point they did not yet know that Jesus would physically depart from them. In any case, regardless of the date, the message of the book still rings loudly. Blessings!

@@TheBibleEffect Just one last note, the word 'coming' doesn't actually appear in James.

@@richardmclaughlin8345 The word James uses in both 5:7 & 8 is παρουσίας (parousia). This is usually translated as 'coming' or 'return'. In other NT writings, this is the word commonly used to speak of what we would refer to as Christ's Second Coming (e.g. 1 Cor 15:23; 1 Thess 4:15). I really appreciate how you are approaching the text with an inquisitive mind. Keep it up!