Dr. Manny Arango (0:00)

Hey, Bible nerds. This is Dr. Manny Arango, and I'm your host for the Bible department podcast powered by Arma. This podcast follows a Bible reading plan we created to help you read the entire Bible in a year. You can head to the show notes or thebibledepartment.com to download our reading plan and join the journey. To all my fellow pastors, I've got a question for you. Does your city know that your church exists? Listen, I get it. You're preaching, you're leading, you're discipling, you're doing ministry. We are in the same boat. And let's be honest, social media and marketing, not your strong suit. Not mine either. And that's probably the last thing on your mind. And that's why we chose to partner with Church Candy Marketing for our church Plant the garden. We out here, y'all. They help churches get more actual guests walking through the doors on Sunday without your eye having to stress over ads or algorithms or trying to crack the social media code. Right now, Church Candy is helping nearly 400 churches reach their communities with simple invite ads. And it works. It's super effective. I can tell you from firsthand experience. So if you're tired of being your city's best kept secret, how about you do this? Go to churchcandy.com Manny and book a free consultation book a discovery call. Their team will break it all down and show you how to start seeing new faces at your church this Sunday. I'm in the trenches with you trying to grow the church. And how about we just start a whole campaign? No more empty churches. So let's partner with Church Candy and get our churches full for the glory of Jesus. Let's go, fam. Welcome to day 65. All right, we got one of my favorite books of the Bible. We are walking into the book of James. If you have not done the reading, go ahead, pause this podcast episode, pause the audio, pause the video, go do the reading. And I'm gonna issue a challenge. It's been a while since we've had a book short enough for me to do this. I think instead of reading James 1 and 2 today and James 3 to 5 tomorrow, how about you just read the whole book of James today and the whole book of James tomorrow? That's my. That's my challenge. Okay. There was a season where I did Orange Theory Fitness. They always gave, you know, an option, an option for all the people in the class. They were a little bit more fit than I was. And so I'm gonna give a challenge for all of those who are in the Lord's gym. All right? And if you've already read James and you know you can put up a little bit more weight, then read the whole book of James today, Read the whole book of James tomorrow. We're gonna call that the holy double dip. All right, so let's get into this. There's a couple of people first. Let me just give. This is really a nerdy nugget, but I'll get into a nerdy nugget later. Okay? We're gonna drop a nerdy nugget, okay? I typically do a context clue, then a nerdy nugget, then a timeless truth. We'll drop a little nerdy nugget. That James is a Latinized version of this name, but the Hebrew version of this name would be Jaqov. Okay? Jacob. This happens a lot, actually, throughout the New Testament. Okay? So Mary, okay, Mary is a Latinized version or an Anglicized version of the word of the name Miriam. Okay? So Jesus's mother, her Hebrew name would have actually been Miriam. And we know, right, Miriam from the Old Testament. That's Moses, sister. This happens a lot when we move from the Old Testament into the New Testament. There are tons of names that get Latinized or Anglicized. And so there are two Yaakovs or Jacobs in the New Testament. Okay? One is the brother of John. Okay? Remember James and John, they come up to Jesus in the Book of Mark, and they're asking, like, can we sit at your right hand and on your left hand, Jesus says, that's not up to me to grant, but you will drink the cup. Okay? And by the time we. I think it's Acts chapter. Oh, man. I wanna say single digits. I wanna say it's before Acts, chapter 10. There's a persecution that breaks out in Jerusalem and that James actually dies. And so that James dies too early to be the author of this book of James. This James, however, is the brother of Jesus. Okay? So one of the things that always strikes me about this book is exactly how it begins. Okay? Here's what says James 1:1, James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ. A servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ. I love the show the Crown. Okay? I don't know if anybody loves this show. It chronicles Queen Elizabeth. And there's this famous scene where she has to tell her sister, I'm not just your sister, I'm the queen, okay? Cause her sister's, like, calling her Lilibet, which is kind of like a family name. She says, I'm not Lilibet right now. Like, I'm your queen. And the fact that James, the kind of reverence for King Jesus, even though Jesus is his brother. We know from the gospels that James was not a believer while Jesus was alive. He's not a disciple, and technically he's the half brother of Jesus. Just the fact that we get two epistles from two of Jesus half brothers says a lot to me. Imagine having Jesus as an older brother. You know, it's kind of like, golly, talk about. The bar has been set pretty high. And James does not name drop. If there's ever a time to name drop and be like, hey, hey, everybody. I don't know if you were wondering. I don't know if you forgot I'm Jesus, brother. Okay? That's not James tone or attitude in this letter. He humbly acknowledges, like, Jesus is not. He doesn't even admit that Jesus is his brother, okay? He just says, Jesus is. Jesus is my Lord. And so immediately that's just some context. We're already in our context clues. You'll realize throughout this letter, if you're used to reading Paul, that Paul typically will give doctrine and then teach you how to put it into practice. There's no doctrine in this book. Zero doctrine. The name Jesus is mentioned two times in the entire book. There's no mention of the crucifixion, no mention of the Resurrection, no mention of the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. There's no doctrine in the book. James is writing to believers. James is not writing for the purpose of evangelizing or converting anybody. James is assuming that his entire audience, which is Jewish, by the way, are Jewish believers, are Jewish Christians. And so now James is writing to them. A very, very practical letter. So you're not gonna get any doctrine. We're not arguing over any doctrinal positions in the book of James. Another thing that you'll notice as you read through James, which is why it is one of my favorite books of the Bible, is that it feels a lot like Proverbs, okay? Because that is what James is doing. So remember, this is written from a Jewish Christian to other Jewish Christians. And so we try to put all the books that have a really Jewish flavor to them. Matthew, Hebrews, James. We try to put all those books together in our Bible reading plan, okay? So we had a very gentile focus in the beginning of our New Testament plan with Luke and Acts and all the letters of Paul. And now we're getting a more Jewish flavor, okay? And James is thoroughly Jewish. There are two big influences that you can discern as you kind of go through the Book of James. The first influence is the Book of Proverbs. If you want just a quick flyover understanding of the Book of James, think about it as the New Testament's Book of Proverbs, okay? James is for the New Testament what Proverbs is for the Old Testament, okay? It's wisdom literature. It's sayings of a wise person. And so really, if there was a book where you could kind of pull a verse or a passage and take it quote unquote out of context, you could do that with James. Because it's not like the entire letter depends on other portions of the letter. What James says about taming the tongue is what he says about taming the tongue. What James says about faith without works is what he says about faith without works. Okay? So these kind of statements that James is making, there's a lot of, like, memorable one liners. A lot of verses that I memorized actually as a teenager come straight out of the Book of James. And so this is wisdom literature. The other big influence for James writing is not just the Book of Proverbs, but the Sermon on the Mount. And so James has been heavily influenced by Jesus, okay, His brother. And so the Sermon on the Mount in Proverbs, imagine you put both of those into a blender and go ahead, you know, hit go on your blender. I don't know if there's a go button, but you know, blend or puree or whatever the button is, and you blend the Sermon on the Mount together with the Book of Proverbs. And really, you're gonna get the Book of James, okay? So, all right, that's all of our context, okay? If you want to kind of know a key word for the Book of James, it is maturity, okay? James is going to show you what a mature Christian looks like. James is writing so that someone who has already made a decision to follow Jesus can be a mature Christian. And what are we getting to immediately, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, okay? Consider it nothing but joy, because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its full effect so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. James lets you know right out of the gate. I'm writing this so that you can be mature. And if we were to ask a question, what is wisdom? Wisdom is the thing that helps you to be mature. Wisdom is not just information. It's applied knowledge. It's to make you mature. I don't know if you've ever interacted with somebody and you're just like, man, you're just emotionally mature, you're spiritually mature, you're relationally mature, you're financially mature, you just, you have wisdom. Someone who's mature always has wisdom. It is mature. It's wisdom that makes somebody mature. Okay, that's enough of our context. Okay, let's get into our nerdy nugget. Okay, let's go to James, chapter two. James, chapter two. And we're gonna start reading in verse 14. Okay? Now here's our nerdy nugget. Martin Luther during the Reformation wanted the book of James to be taken out of the canon. Okay? He felt like this was a legalistic book. He felt like this was works based religiosity. Okay? And so we'll get into that now. Okay, we'll, we'll really dive into like, okay, what is going on? Okay, so James, chapter two. And we're going to start in verse 14. What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them, go in peace, keep warm and well fed, but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead. So the big mantras of the Reformation was faith alone, okay? Faith alone. We don't need to add anything to faith. James would come and say, well, that's a real Western concept of faith. Okay? James is Jewish. So for James it's like, nah, if you show me your deeds, to me that's the fruit that the root of faith is actually active in your life. So for the Western person, faith and deeds are at odds with each other. They would see this as a contradiction to maybe some of the things that Paul has to say. For James, this is not a contradiction, this is a completion. Okay? James would say, yes, faith is an important thing. It's the root. But deeds is fruit. Okay? Deeds doesn't come before faith, it comes after faith. And it is the proof that the seed of the word of God has actually caused a root system to grow that can actually support the tree, which is you. I want you. You know, the Bible says you should be like trees planted by streams of living water. And so the good deeds that we produce as humans is the fruit. Okay? So faith and works are not at odds. James says, actually, I'll know your faith. I will know that faith actually exists. If they're deeds, Paul says the same thing. Paul doesn't disagree with this. He says, whoa, if you think that God's grace in a revelation of grace gives you license to sin, you don't even understand grace. Okay, so deeds, faith, grace works. These actually go together. And I think in the reform tradition and especially the Western tradition, we've created dichotomies that don't actually need to exist. These are complimentary things that we are talking about. All right, so that's our nerdy nugget. That faith is the root, works is the fruit, and one doesn't replace the other. Bible nerds. I have an announcement. My brand new book, Crushing Chaos, releases May of 2025, and pre orders are officially open. When I began to learn Genesis in its proper context, I learned that the creation account is not primarily about God creating something out of nothing, but rather God bringing divine order to the chaos of the cosmos. That one nugget was a game changer for me because I've been preaching to all the kids in my youth group that peace was a solution for their anxiety. But really, God's solution to chaos is never peaceful, but rather order. Peace isn't something that you stumble into. It's something that you intentionally step into and that starts with aligning your life with God's order. I think that this book is a game changer. It's nerdy, it's practical, it provides a very contextual understanding of the book of Genesis. And if you grab a copy, you'll learn why there's a huge dragon on the COVID Head to the link in the show notes to pre order, or head to crushingchaos.com to see the really dope trailer that we made for this book. I think it's time for you to crush the chaos in your life. And that starts with grabbing a copy of this book. Now back to the podcast. Let's get into our timeless truth. By the way, the way that James is talking about faith and deeds is practical. It's wisdom. If you open up Proverbs right now, it's going to tell you, don't be a sluggard, don't oversleep, save money. Like, I mean, wisdom is not devoted to knowledge that can't be applied to real life. Okay? Wisdom cares. Are you a good farmer? Are you a good carpenter? Are you a good worker? Like, what do you do with your hands? Think about the word crafty, okay? The Bible says that the snake in the garden was crafty, okay? And think about arts and crafts. You do crafts with your. With your hands. So wisdom in the Bible is not some lofty philosophical practice that never meets the grit and the grime of real life for a Jewish person. Jews are not like Greeks. Greeks want to sit around in their fancy robes and come up with philosophy and come up with lofty ideas. But for the Jews, no, no, no. We're. We're not philosophers. We. We know. We know how to win at life. What good is it if you've got all this fancy philosophy, but you're not a good father, you're not a good husband, you're not a good entrepreneur, you're not a good business person, you're not a good citizen, you're not a good neighbor. Okay? You're not a good synagogue member, you're not a good synagogue leader. Wisdom cares about the practical things of life. And so James is like, whoa, let. Let's not. Does not make this all complicated. Faith is not that complicated. You know how I know you got faith? By the way you act. That's how I know. So James has. James is this. Like, he's pulling us. It's almost like James is this anchor in the New Testament, which is how wisdom literature works in the Old Testament. In the Old Testament, if all you've got is, let's say, Proverbs, then you would say, someone who's blessed by God is always gonna prosper. And then someone who's not walking in the way of wisdom is not gonna prosper. And then you get someone like Job, and Job is blessed, but is suffering, which adds tension. Okay? And books of wisdom in the Old Testament continue to add tension, to hold things in tension, okay? Because the Jewish perspective does not lend itself towards polarization. Okay? So I feel like James is probably hearing things that Paul's saying and going, okay, let me complete. Let me bring completion to what Paul is saying and hold everything he's saying about faith, intention. Let's get into our very last thing, our timeless truth for the day, which is wisdom requires situational awareness. Okay? The book of James is supposed to help you to become a wise person. The book of Proverbs supposed to help you to become a wise person. All the wisdom literature in the Old Testament is supposed to help you to become a wise person, and wisdom requires situational awareness. There's no place that's more, like, glaringly obvious of this principle than Proverbs, chapter 26. Proverbs, chapter 26, verse 4 to 5. And so this proverb is actually gonna also help us to navigate the book of James. And this is Our timeless truth for the day that wisdom requires situational awareness. Proverbs 26:4 says this. Do not keyword not. Do not answer a fool according to his folly, or you yourself will be just like him. Okay. Do not answer a fool according to his folly, or you'll be just like him. That's Proverbs 26:4. Now let's go to the next verse. Proverbs 26:5. Answer a fool according to his folly. What? The verse before just told me not to do that. Okay, Verse five. Answer a fool according to his folly, or he will be wise in his own eyes. Wait a second. Verse four is telling me not to answer. Cool. According to his folly, or else I'll be just like him. Verse 5 is telling me, answer a fool according to his folly, or else he'll be wise in his own eyes. So which one is it? And this proverb, which is there to create wisdom within us, is speaking right back at you and going, exactly which one is it? This is what it means to be wise. There are times where you shouldn't answer a fool according to his folly, and then there are times where you should answer a fool according to his folly. Because one of the big things that wisdom is teaching you is situational awareness. You cannot be wise without discernment. You have to be able to discern, when should I apply some works here? When should I lean on faith here? When should I answer a fool according to his folly? When should I ignore a fool because of his folly? A lot of times we want the Bible to tell us what to think, but real wisdom teaches you how to think, and you should be thinking like a person with wisdom. This is. I mean, nothing encapsulates wisdom literature like Proverbs, chapter 26, verse 4 to 5. Because the real test of wisdom is knowing when to apply verse four and when to apply verse five. That's acts of the test of wisdom. So the proverb is living and active. The proverb is always before you, testing whether or not you know when to apply verse four, when to apply verse five. And it's creating tension. We live in a Western world that is drawn to polarization. You should only ever answer a fool. You should never answer a fool. Whoa. There are times where polarizing views in our nation. There are times where one side is right and the other side is right. And wisdom comes in and says, yeah, I'm never gonna pledge allegiance to, let's say, the Republican party or Democratic party. Because, man, there are times where these people on the bluer side of things know what they're talking about. There are times where people on the red side of things know what they're talking about. There are times where reformed brothers and sisters get a interpretation of a passage very, very right. And there's times where Pentecostals get it really, really right. We're living in an age of polarization and we have to go, ah, the Bible doesn't create a dogmatic stance that's unmovable. The Bible gives us wisdom so that we would know how to discern, how to apply the Word of God and when to apply what from the Word of God. All right, that is James chapter one and two. I'll be right here to dive into James chapter three, four and five tomorrow for day 66. I'm so proud of you. If you're on a streak, don't break your streak. Can't be more proud of you. So glad to be on this journey with you. I love you. Till next time. Peace. Thanks so much for joining us on the Bible Department Podcast. You can find us online and learn more about the show@thebibledepartment.com and on Instagram at the Bible department. If you enjoyed this episode and want to dive deeper into the Bible, you can get free access to our library of courses@thebibledepartment.com we'll see you back here tomorrow.