Author: Administrador

The big and essential question that engages the preacher and the hearer in this reading is announced in its opening verse: Who is the wise person? And what’s to know? Actually the reading is simply continuing the reflection on true and false wisdom that encompasses this central portion of the epistle of James. As usual … Continue reading “James 3:13-4:3, 7-8a Commentary by James Boyce”

This Sunday’s passage involves one of the more peculiar passages in the New Testament. But that shouldn’t distract preachers from the clear, strong, timely emphasis on the importance of considering the effects of what we say. Whereas once, commentators routinely dismissed James’s hortatory rhetoric as a miscellaneous hodgepodge of wisdom traditions, renewed (and more theologically … Continue reading “James 3:1-12 Commentary by A.K.M. Adam”

The preacher encountering this text might be forgiven for the sudden urge to suggest, in lieu of the sermon, that the congregation engage in a time of silent prayer. This passage begins with a stern warning to those who teach and proceeds to a set of pronouncements, nearly a tirade, on how the human tongue … Continue reading “James 3:1-12 Commentary by Sandra Hack Polaski”

“Not many of you should become teachers.” So the “teaching preacher” or “preaching teacher” launches this section of our sequential reading in James over several Sundays. Though the whole of James breathes deeply from the biblical wisdom tradition, today’s reading reflects that tradition as deeply as any part of the teacher’s address to the hearer.1 … Continue reading “James 3:1-12 Commentary by James Boyce”

The second chapter of James offers a far-reaching treatment of the life of faith. The passage begins with a question about what faith actually is (James 2:1). In reflecting on the first chapter of James last week, we noted that the author is concerned about an understanding of faith that is too small. People may … Continue reading “James 2:1-10, [11-13], 14-17 Commentary by Craig R. Koester”

The second chapter of James opens with an illustration that is as relevant in the contemporary church as it must have been to James’s first readers. I daresay nearly every one of us who sits on a platform or in a choir loft during the worship service has at some point seen a stranger entering … Continue reading “James 2:1-10, [11-13], 14-17 Commentary by Sandra Hack Polaski”

The exposition in last week’s passage, James 1:17-27, can strike readers as abstruse and random; this morning’s lesson, however, is clear and pointed as broken glass. James poses a hypothetical situation to his readers — or perhaps describes a situation he knows already to be going on. This focal example takes up the themes that … Continue reading “James 2:1-10, [11-13], 14-17 Commentary by A.K.M. Adam”

This Sunday is the beginning of a series of readings from the book of James. Although Martin Luther made critical remarks about this book, calling it an “epistle of straw” in his preface to James, the book retains a significant place in the canon of Scripture. The author is traditionally identified as James, the brother … Continue reading “James 1:17-27 Commentary by Craig R. Koester”

The book of James is something of an enigma in NT literature. Is it from the very earliest stratum of the church — the Jewish Christians who looked to Jesus’ brother James as their leader, even before the Gentile mission — or a later, second- or third-generation group who struggled to keep the faith amid … Continue reading “James 1:17-27 Commentary by Sandra Hack Polaski”

These verses from the Epistle of James include the point that the epistle is best known for: “[B]e doers of the word, and not merely hearers,” just as next week we will read James reminding us that “faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.” It’s tempting to fixate on the apparent contrast … Continue reading “James 1:17-27 Commentary by A.K.M. Adam”