Reading James rightly (Part 1)

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ, based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the

Apostle Paul said, But we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.

In short, if you like smooth, watered -down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn't for you.

By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we're called by the divine trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her

King. Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth. Welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry.

My name is Mike Abendroth, and it has been quite a while since I've been back in the studio. But, Steve and I have done a few shows.

Beginning September 1st, I think, we had some new shows, and now we're continuing to record shows that are hopefully biblical, provocative, and in that order.

I try to think about this show as just a man studying the

Bible, trying to teach people directly what the Bible says. I never want people to say, well, what did he really mean by that?

I'm not sure. I'm really... he's not really exact.

He's not really... I never know where he stands. Where does that guy stand? So, I try to teach in a way that is just kind of direct.

I don't know. Maybe I'm wrong, but my guess is we probably have more male listeners than female, probably because I'm a guy and talk like a guy.

I'm happy for my lady listeners, probably some ladies from the church know that I'm known for direct speaking.

Or I could be all wrong. I have no idea. Anyway, if you are interested in going to the

Israel trip, I think we're still going to try to go right now. I think November 4th will tell the tale. And so I think we've got,

I don't know, 10, 15 slots open. And Pat Abendroth, Omaha Bible Church, and Mike Abendroth, No Compromise Radio slash

Bethlehem Bible Church, we will try to still go. I'm planning to go teach a preaching class in Germany in January.

We'll see if that's all on. I think I'll be in Ohio in October, John A. Tucker, for a conference.

So I think things are kind of opening up a little bit. Okay. So here's what we're going to do today. I would like to talk about the book of James.

Now it's fascinating to me when you go to the epistle of James, because five chapters,

I think if you count them, 108 verses and 54 imperatives.

There's some debate, 54 to 58, some kind of implied, let's just say 54 imperatives, most say that.

108 verses, that's an imperative, every other verse. So if we are going to think about things with law gospel distinctions, law, do, gospel, done, this is a lot of law in this book, the book of James.

And James has been maligned because of that.

It's been attacked because of that. You know, in chapter two, not only do we have a lot of law in this book, but there's some discussion about justification by works.

What does that mean? But in addition, where's the gospel in the book of James? If I had to ask you the question, can you reconstruct the gospel in the book of James?

How long would it take you? I think that you could look at Jesus is the judge.

God is compassionate. Chapter two, the glory of Christ, talking about when you're looking at other people and judging them, if you judge yourself compared to Jesus, that will take care of the issue.

But you cannot find the death, burial, resurrection, or ascension of the

Lord Jesus. So is it a right straw epistle? Of course, Luther did say some negative things about it, but in the same preface in James, he said some positive things about it as well.

What about the book of James? Now when I first got to Bethlehem Bible Church, I'm in the church building now, 23 years ago,

I did a five -part series on the attributes of God because I wanted people to understand who God was, and I was always intrigued by A .W.

Pink's attributes of God, and I had read Tozer's attributes of God, and then throughout the years, different attributes of God books,

I actually started writing one for kids. I don't write much anymore, but that'd still be a good book. I was going to do 26 letters of the alphabet, every alphabet letter, the beginning letter of an attribute, almighty, for instance, you know,

C, compassionate. What do you do when you get to Z? Not just Z, but when you get to X.

Anyway, the attributes of God. Then I preached the book of James. So 23 years ago, we had the book of James preached here, and I essentially preached

James to A, drive out the unbelievers, and hopefully drive them to the cross, not just out the building, and also just kind of challenge this lethargic faith that people have, and I taught it like some would teach it back in the days, and maybe even today, and I think they got it from Hebert.

I appreciate a lot of D. Edmund Hebert's stuff, his commentaries, including

James, and for him, it was kind of like tests of saving faith, you know, do you see this in your life?

But is that really the way we want to talk about the book of James? Lot of law, no real, no specific gospel.

There's some good news about the work of God, monogistic regeneration in chapter one, etc. So what do we do?

I know you probably like the book of James, maybe you call it the book of Proverbs. Is it really a book of Proverbs?

One man said to use the biblical metaphor, the letter of James is quick and powerful, it is indeed sharper than any two -edged sword.

I like that. So it is punchy, it's direct, and maybe that's why

I like it, is because sometimes I'm that way. I think I'm getting nicer as I'm getting older, 60 years old.

And by the way, when you're older, how many days a week do I have to go to the doctor?

I mean, it's eye doctor, cancer doctor, blood doctor, esophagus doctor, colonoscopy doctor, what else?

Filling the other day, dentist doctor, are they doctors? Knee doctor, my knee surgery is doing pretty well.

Well, the knee surgery went well, but the recovery is fine. Back doctor, chiropractic, you know, they say, when you come in now, you know, my age, please bring a list of all the medicines you're taking because you can't remember them.

I think I pretty much only take one thing, some kind of antacid type of thing. That's the only prescription thing

I take at the moment. The other day, I had kind of chest pains and I had to go into the heart doctor.

I still have them. So the book of James. So here's what we're going to do right now that if only the one person's watching right now, so that's, you know, we're doing it for the one, we're doing it for you.

If you remember this, you'll get the book of James. James was the first book written in the

New Testament. So there's 27 books and now we have the first book written.

You can study when you think it was written, early forties. Okay. We don't have to be exact or precise.

Maybe you'll argue that Galatians is the first book, but James is most likely the first book written.

Okay. And it's law. If you're just going to try to extrapolate a few things and think through this so you can make sure you're just not reading moralism or legalism or something law apart from the lawgiver, a law apart from the good news that enables and the good news that we have assurance before God so that we can obey the good news that we have a father because of the work of the son.

How do we process this? So here's your money's worth right now. The events of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, the gospel of Jesus, according to Matthew, the gospel of Jesus, according to Mark, the gospel of Jesus, according to Luke, and the gospel of Jesus, according to John, those events have occurred.

And while they might have been written in between 50 and let's say the last book, uh, the gospel written 90

AD, excuse me, those events have happened. Okay. So Jesus was born.

He lived, he was crucified, he was buried. He rose again from the dead.

That's all happened. And let's just say his life ended in 30 AD, 33

AD. We don't really know the exact numbers, but right around there. So about 12 years later, you get another book.

You get the first book in the new Testament. There hasn't been a book since Malachi, but the events have happened.

That's my point. So the gospel incarnate, grace incarnate, to use the language of Titus chapter two has happened.

Jesus has arrived. The eternal second person of the Trinity at the behest of the father and by the power of the spirit has arrived on earth.

He has lived, he slept, he's raised Lazarus. He's been crucified, not for his sins, but for ours.

He has been raised from the dead. That's all happened. The gospel has happened. Jesus has been on earth mission accomplished.

It is finished gospel. Why do we call them the gospels? So we've got a lot of gospel and of course there's some imperatives in the gospels and the

Beatitudes and the great commission. I understand that. But generally speaking, the gospels of the

Lord Jesus Christ, they have occurred. There's no books written yet. Jesus has occurred.

Lots of stories, lots of true stories about Jesus. Now I'd like to know how to live my

Christian life. I'm trusting in this Jesus. I've been saved by this Jesus.

I'm like the thief on the cross. I'm like the centurion. I'm like the woman at the well. I'm like Nicodemus.

I believe in all of his words and his actions and how he has conquered death and I'm trusting in Jesus.

How do I live my life? Answer, here's a bunch of imperatives. So the key, and here's the first thing on No Compromise Radio that I want you to get with the book of James, read

James canonically. Read James canonically.

How does this fit in the canon? It is a Christian book and while it doesn't talk about substitutionary atonement, easier for me to say, it does fit in the

Christian canon and James, the half brother of Jesus, wants you to know how a

Christian lives by faith. There are things to do. There are not things to do to get saved.

There are not things to do to stay saved. They're not tests to see how well you do them.

Are you really a Christian or not? No. When my three children,

I have four children, but three of them went to Los Angeles. Haley went to Florida for school, but the other three went to Los Angeles and I would say to my kids, pretty much the same thing.

This is the church I want you to go to and no dating as a freshman.

Besides that, you know, righteously speaking, have fun, enjoy life. These are going to be some years you're going to meet friends and you'll have friends for the rest of your life.

Maybe you'll even meet a spouse. But these are my laws. These are my commands, but they come from a dad who loves them and he wants their best.

So when we come to the book of James, the first command, I believe, is count it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testimony of your faith produces endurance, et cetera.

James 1 .2, James is not saying, if you don't do this, you're not a

Christian. I think it's fair to say if you've never done it, if you don't want to do it, if you don't feel bad about it when you don't do it, there are questions like that we could ask.

But it's a father giving his children. This is going to bless you.

Later on, Luke told me in particular, he said, those were good rules, dad. Those were good rules, especially, he said, the dating one, because then he didn't have to do this kind of, there's this tension, you know, this tension between sexes and all that.

It just kind of went away because he couldn't ask him out anyway. So in the book of James, while it's all law, at least every other verse, it's written in the context of Jesus, gospel incarnate, as it were.

Maybe you don't like that word, those two words together. How about grace incarnate, to use Titus 2.

That's how you figure out the book of James. As a matter of fact, broadly speaking, that's how you could think about Proverbs.

These are wise sayings. Are they in the Christian canon? Yes, because every book is in the

Christian canon. And Song of Solomon, is this a Christian book? Yes. As a matter of fact, you ought to listen to a

Glory Cloud podcast, the latest one with Myles van Pelt on Song of Solomon.

I listened to it today, Glory Cloud podcast, episode 185 or something.

It's the latest one. Might be the last one. Excellent on Song of Solomon. Really good.

I thought I need to go rethink Song of Solomon. Anyway, my name is Mike Abenroth, this is

No Compromise Radio. Glad to see people again. I guess I can't see you. It just says live, two eyes.

That's all it says, two people listening. What I try to do sometimes is just record some shows and then do some live recording as well.

Ben Mercedes, the man that does all the video production for the NoCo videos, even the one that was included on the

American Gospel part two. It's been fun. My kids will regularly call me and say, dad, somebody else came up to me and said, we saw your dad in the

American Gospel. I always want to say, well, now

I'm in the international movie database. If you could look it up and see that I've made it.

No Compromise Radio, so you go to the YouTube if you'd like to see more of those videos. Some have no production quality.

Hopefully all of them kind of make you think. You can also go to the No Compromise Radio website where you can pull up,

I don't know, 3 ,000 shows. This is year number, I think we're going into year 11 now. I think

I want to change up a few things, but not at the particular moment. Just trying to catch up. I think that's about all

I have to say. We have, I think, 12 Patreon supporters now. If you'd like to support on Patreon, that'd be great.

Maybe some live stream stuff we could work on. Who knows what. So the book of James. We're looking at the book of James, and James is a

Christian epistle. It's called a general epistle or a Catholic epistle. It's not a Pauline epistle. And the half -brother of Jesus, James, writes this, written by the inspiration of the

Holy Spirit, because he, the Holy Spirit, wants Christians to know how to live.

These are scattered Christians. They're dispersed, going through all kinds of issues and trials, but the

Lord Jesus has lived and died and sent his spirit to dwell in those who trust in him.

So this is what faith looks like, lived out. I don't mean living out the gospel, excuse me, but living by faith.

Everybody says, oh, Luther criticized the book. Listen to what else Luther said, I praise

James and hold it a good book because it sets up no doctrine of men and lays great stress upon God's law.

When do you ever hear that? You never hear that, see, except on No Compromise radio.

So we've got 54 imperatives, 108 verses. So lots of calls for action and James being the leader of the key church,

Jerusalem church, that probably fits with his style.

You say, well, I'd like to know what the outline is. Super hard to outline the book of James.

Sometimes if you go to narrative or wisdom literature or apocalyptic literature, you say, it's just kind of hard to outline.

When you go to epistles, you tend to think, well, this is so much easier and that's why we have new preachers preach from epistles because the outlines are in the text and easily seen for the most part.

Here this is written with a very Jewish style and of course, James being Jewish. One of the

Hebrew words for preaching is C -H -A -R -A -Z or Z, like a harez,

I don't know if I'm pronouncing it right, but I wanted to spit in some way, shape or form.

And it means a string of beads. So think about a fake pearl necklace and all the different beads on there,

I guess you could think about the rosary beads. I have some rosary bead instructions here somewhere.

I just had them. I never knew what the three things were. I thought the three things were the Trinity. I think they're,

I have to say, three Hail Marys, but like a string of beads. And so you go from one bead to the next, one pearl to the next, a one idea to the next, one sentence to the next, therefore the outline becomes very difficult because he just strings things together.

And by the way, if you have an NIV Bible, if you look at chapter one, you won't see many particles at the beginning of sentences, if, then, because, for, and, you won't see those things connecting them together, but they're there in the original because it's like a string of beads.

That's an ocean. How do you make your hands do the string of beads?

And he is teaching a lot of ideas and one idea kind of leads to the other. And so he links them.

He talks about perseverance in verse three. He talks about perseverance in verse four in chapter one.

He talks about if lacking, you don't like anything, verse four, verse five, if any of you lacks.

And it kind of goes through like that, doubting, same thing in verse six.

In one sense, this comes across very well as a spoken word.

Remember, Hebrews was the sermonic epistle, the epistlatory sermon. This, too, comes across like a sermon.

So it could have been a letter written in a way that would lend itself well to be read.

It could be a bunch of kind of chopped up messages all put together for one kind of final letter to be sent out.

And of course, that letter would be sent out and be read. But it is very, it is very readable.

It's very listenable. And it seems very generic, too, because you don't have all the personal stuff.

Oh, where's Mark when I need him? I wish Barnabas was here. What about this false teacher?

What about the cloaks and parchments and stuff like that? It's more just kind of a general.

That's why we have it under the category of general epistle. The other thing you're going to find out as you look at the book of James, since he's the half brother of Jesus, this is going to sound like Jesus.

And that shouldn't surprise you. Lots of similar teaching in this book, especially with the

Sermon on the Mount, especially with some wisdom literature. So when you're reading through this, of course, we have the one author, the

Holy Spirit. But if you want to do some studying, you'll be able to see, you know what, there's a very close correlation between what

Jesus said, for instance, in the Sermon on the Mount and with what James said. You're also going to like this book a lot in the book of James, because it's very energetic.

It's lively. There's a lot of pacing to it. I used to call the gospel of Mark, I used to call that the

Indiana Jones gospel. And you could probably say the same thing here. You know, movies now, it just has to be one action scene after another, after another, right?

In the old days, they would build up the characters, they would develop the plot, there'd be a lot of intrigue, and then there'd be a really fast scene or a car chase scene or something.

And it would slow down again, let you catch your breath. Now it's just rock and roll. It is, you know,

Aliens 2. I think I'd like to watch that show again, if I could just get rid of all the language.

Very high paced, fast paced rather, high energy. What's high paced?

I think that must be the THC paste that they now sell in California. And if you hear somebody say, you know what, this is not very doctrinal.

I don't really like, you know, it doesn't have a lot of theology. I think you ought to avoid that kind of thinking, because that's just not the good way to talk about it.

James 1 .1, James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ to the 12 tribes in the dispersion.

Greetings. Greetings. I mean, some stuff

I learn, I tell you, other stuff I just skip. I was going to skip this, but I'll read what's in my notes anyway.

Since an epistle written on papyrus was rolled up, right, they don't fold it, it was convenient to begin with an introductory statement indicating origin and destination.

You know, I know, like I did the other day, I got a letter in the mail and it said on the front left, you know,

Commonwealth of Massachusetts Tax Abatement Center. I'm like, oh great.

So I would know right away what's going on. If you have to unroll something, like,

I don't know, it's just, it's a scroll. What's in the scroll? It could be anything. It could be Ed McMahon's signature in there.

I mean, I have no idea. So you'd open it up and it would kind of tell you that early on. And here we have

James, a servant of God. If you want to be technical,

Yaacob, Jacob, right? Why would you have James and not

Jacob? I don't know. I don't know. Maybe King James was the

Bible. Some have said that. You say, hey, wait, there's lots of James in the

Bible. Well, yeah, there is. And I don't think this is son of Alpheus. I don't think this is the father of Judas, not

Iscariot. I think this is the half brother of Jesus. And most of church history would agree.

If you want to know about James, his dad's Joseph, his mom's married, next to the oldest child, was an unbeliever for a long time.

It says, even his own brothers did not believe in him, John 7, 5.

And he was probably with his family in Mark chapter 3. And they said, when they wanted to grab him and essentially take

Jesus and put him into some kind of straitjacket, he is out of his mind.

And then the Lord saves him. And now James is one of the apostles that the Lord Jesus, the risen

Savior, appears to in 1 Corinthians 15. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles.

So anyway, my name's Mike Abendroth. We're talking about the book of James. I'm going to take a few minute break. We're going to come back and do another