BIAY - The Fruit of Real Faith
James 1-2, Psalm 50
Welcome to the Bible in a Year for 2025. Intro to this series and resource links available here, plus here’s how I’m approaching this year.
Scriptures for Today:
Reflection:
The letter of James is a stick of dynamite. His teaching is vivid, clear, and punchy. This is James the brother of Jesus, who became a believer after Jesus’ resurrection and was leader of the Jerusalem church. This is either a letter he wrote to send to circulate among the churches around the Mediterranean or a collection of his “greatest hits” by those in his church who wanted to organize and share his teaching with others—something like the students of Oswald Chambers taking notes and compiling them into the classic devotional My Utmost for His Highest. Either way, it is powerful and challenging.
These 2 days will be all to brief on this rich, dense book, but should wet our appetite for more study of it later.
Quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to become angry (1:19) - James is really interested in how we put our faith in to practice in daily living throughout his letter. This is a great example. My kids got tired of me repeating this verse to them (you can imagine the eye rolling), but the truth is I needed to repeat it for myself too! We can see this is a good teaching, but verse 20 is the real kicker because it tells us why: “because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires.”
Be doers of the word and not hearers only (1:22-25) - Hearing the word is wonderful and sometimes we feel like we’ve done a lot when we understand and feel the conviction it brings. But James is adamant—the work is only half-done at best. Hearing is just the beginning. The word of God is meant to be lived.
No playing favorites (2:1-9) - Showing preference is as typical as typical can be for human beings. We show preference by status, wealth, looks, race, sex—whether intentional or without even realizing it! Again, this is remarkably normal across time and culture for human beings. Yet this is not to be for the people of God. This passage pairs well with Paul’s words in Galatians 3:26-28. Since the importance of someone’s sex, wealth and status, and ethnicity relative to others is downgraded in Christ, James’ rebuke and command here makes perfect sense for Christians. Yet, this is a great example of our call to be diligent about “doing the word” and not only hearing it.
Faith and deeds (2:14-26) - James says starkly: “As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead.” It isn’t enough to agree with some truth claim statements about God. As James puts it, “even the demons” do that much. Genuine faith produces godly works. We are saved by earning it with works, but authentic saving faith is transformative and always leads to kingdom works. I love the way James describes it in his illustration of Abraham: “You see that his faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did.”
Questions:
In what situations is it most challenging to be “quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry”?
How do you put your faith into action through a ministry or through daily living?
What else might the Holy Spirit be speaking with you about in the text today?
Prayer: Lord, may your Spirit work within me to produce a life and works in keeping with authentic faith. Amen.
“But the seed falling on good soil refers to someone who hears the word and understands it. This is the one who produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.” (Matthew 13:23)
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