Greg Gilbert - James: A 12-Week Study

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This series is a tremendous resource for those wanting to study and teach the Bible with an understanding of how the gospel is woven throughout Scripture. Here are gospel-minded pastors and scholars doing gospel business from all the Scriptures. This is a biblical and theological feast preparing Gods people to apply the entire Bible to all of life with heart and mind wholly committed to Christs priorities.

BRYAN CHAPELL, Chancellor, Covenant Theological Seminary

Mark Twain may have smiled when he wrote to a friend, I didnt have time to write you a short letter, so I wrote you a long letter. But the truth of Twains remark remains serious and universal, because well-reasoned, compact writing requires extra time and extra hard work. And this is what we have in the Crossway Bible study series Knowing the Bible . The skilled authors and notable editors provide the contours of each book of the Bible as well as the grand theological themes that bind them together as one Book. Here, in a 12-week format, are carefully wrought studies that will ignite the mind and the heart.

R. KENT HUGHES, Senior Pastor Emeritus, College Church, Wheaton, Illinois

Knowing the Bible brings together a gifted team of Bible teachers to produce a high-quality series of study guides. The coordinated focus of these materials is unique: biblical content, provocative questions, systematic theology, practical application, and the gospel story of Gods grace presented all the way through Scripture.

PHILIP G. RYKEN, President, Wheaton College

These Knowing the Bible volumes provide a significant and very welcome variation on the general run of inductive Bible studies. This series provides substantial instruction, as well as teaching through the very questions that are asked. Knowing the Bible then goes even further by showing how any given text links with the gospel, the whole Bible, and the formation of theology. I heartily endorse this orientation of individual books to the whole Bible and the gospel, and I applaud the demonstration that sound theology was not something invented later by Christians, but is right there in the pages of Scripture.

GRAEME L. GOLDSWORTHY, former lecturer, Moore Theological College; author, According to Plan , Gospel and Kingdom , The Gospel in Revelation , and Gospel and Wisdom

What a gift to earnest, Bible-loving, Bible-searching believers! The organization and structure of the Bible study format presented through the Knowing the Bible series is so well conceived. Students of the Word are led to understand the content of passages through perceptive, guided questions, and they are given rich insights and application all along the way in the brief but illuminating sections that conclude each study. What potential growth in depth and breadth of understanding these studies offer. One can only pray that vast numbers of believers will discover more of God and the beauty of his Word through these rich studies.

BRUCE A. WARE, Professor of Christian Theology, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary

K N O W I N G T H E B I B L E

J. I. Packer, Theological Editor

Dane C. Ortlund, Series Editor

Lane T. Dennis, Executive Editor

Genesis

Isaiah

Mark

John

Romans

James

J. I. PACKER is Board of Governors Professor of Theology at Regent College (Vancouver, BC). Dr. Packer earned his DPhil at the University of Oxford. He is known and loved worldwide as the author of the bestselling book Knowing God , as well as many other titles on theology and the Christian life. He serves as the General Editor of the ESV Bible and as the Theological Editor for the ESV Study Bible .

LANE T. DENNIS is President of Crossway, a not-for-profit publishing ministry. Dr. Dennis earned his PhD from Northwestern University. He is Chair of the ESV Bible Translation Oversight Committee and Executive Editor of the ESV Study Bible .

DANE C. ORTLUND is Vice President for Bible Publishing at Crossway. He is a graduate of Covenant Theological Seminary (MDiv, ThM) and Wheaton College (BA, PhD). Dr. Ortlund has authored three books and numerous scholarly articles in the areas of Bible, theology, and Christian living.

Knowing the Bible: James, A 12-Week Study

Copyright 2013 by Crossway

Published by Crossway

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Wheaton, Illinois 60187

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher, except as provided for by USA copyright law.

Some content used in this study guide has been adapted from the ESV Study Bible (Crossway), copyright 2008 by Crossway, pages 23872399. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Cover design: Simplicated Studio

First printing 2013

Printed in the United States of America

Scripture quotations are from the ESV Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version), copyright 2001 by Crossway. 2011 Text Edition. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Emphasis in Scripture quotations has been added by the author.

Trade paperback ISBN: 978-1-4335-3479-9
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Mobipocket ISBN: 978-1-4335-3481-2
ePub ISBN: 978-1-4335-3482-9

Crossway is a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

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Getting Acquainted

Jamess letter is one of the most quoted books of the entire Bible. Its filled with famous phrases and quotations that often make their way into Christian conversation:

• Faith produces steadfastness.
• God cannot be tempted.
• Every good and perfect gift comes from above.
• Be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger.
• Be doers of the word, and not hearers only.
• Even the demons believeand shudder!
• Faith apart from works is dead.
• Resist the devil and he will flee from you.

On the other hand, James is also full of passages that have left Christians scratching their heads. Does James have it in for rich people? What is the point of anointing a sick person with oil? Does James teach that if you just have enough faith, God will always heal? Then there are even larger and more pointed questions. Why doesnt James talk very much about the cross? Does he understand the gospel the same way the rest of the New Testament writers do? And isnt he disagreeing with Paul in chapter 2 about the relationship between faith, works, and salvation?

These are all important questions, and in the course of this study well address all of them. It helps, however, to realize that the primary message driving Jamess letter is that Christians faith in the gospel should work itself out in a life of obedience. As he says in 1:22, believers in Jesus should not just hear the word and believe it, but they should also do what it says . The gospel of Jesuswhich James understands deeply and affirms completelyresults in a new life of obedience when a person believes. Thats Jamess message, and as we come to understand that, his book will be a stirring exhortation to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which we have been called.