So we pray together, Lord our God, we know that it is good to quiet our hearts before you before we enter into a season in your word before we have been busy with many things working all day, scattered thoughts, and now we pray that our thoughts would turn to you. I pray that through our evening together we would come to understand better what true faith, what true religion is. I pray, Lord, that we would hear your voice calling us to the true faith that perseveres to the end. The true faith that takes the practical steps that make it possible to advance within the Christian community, to demonstrate that our religion is real by caring for widows and orphans in their distress by being unstained by the world. These are parts of your testimony to us, Lord, about what you would do in us. And I pray that our hearts and our minds will be ready to receive your very will for us, we ask, that you would do this for your namesake and that we might delight in your presence, we ask, through Christ, amen. Last time we were in Hebrews chapter 11 and 12, and we had just gotten to the, perhaps, the climactic portion of the book of Hebrews. That climactic portion beginning in chapter 12, verses 1 and 2, just to remind you briefly, Hebrews chapter 11 is what we know as what we sometimes call the faith chapter, and we saw that the unique perspective on the faith that Hebrews affords to us is that the Christian faith is forward-looking. It's eschatological, if you will. It is a faith that acts upon walks based upon a confidence in what God will do. The very end of chapter 11 gets us ready for chapter 12 with this statement of verse 39 about the heroes of the faith. These were all commended for their faith. Now that word commended actually means attested, they were attested by God. God testified, God attested to them because of their faith, even though they didn't receive what was promised. God planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect. So God attested to them, and then Hebrews chapter 12 verses 1 and 2 and 3 tell us that now God is going to use them as testifiers to God. God attested to them, 1139. But now they're going to give their testimony to God, listen to their role and the summary statement describing the central call to action in Hebrews 12. Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us draw off everything that hinders in the sin that so easily entangles and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfector of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning or despising its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God, consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men so that you will not grow weary and lose heart, or maybe a better translation. So even though you grow weary, you will not lose heart. Now this passage that we've just read is something that plays off the idea of athletic competition off the idea of the Olympics. And not too recently we've had an Olympics, a Winter Olympics completed around here and it's not quite as obvious with the Winter Olympics which have their silly side and never really, I really don't understand two man lose at all. And curling seems like fun but a very strange kind of fun. But even there, although it's a little bit more alien to us, we can appreciate the tremendous skill that it takes, maybe especially skiing and practically skiing on ice at, you know, 70 miles an hour and those sorts of things. Summer Olympics even more, you know, you look at those summer Olympic runners, especially the runners, they're almost like walking anatomy lessons, you know what I mean? It's like perfect bone, sinew and muscle and then just a stretchable skin over the edge and you can see they're anatomy, you know, sculpted the way it's supposed to be. And perhaps when we look at those Olympic runners, we think they're ourselves, you know, I could never be an Olympic runner and we look at even the times that are posted by the worst runners from Togo and the Seychelles Islands and we look at them and we say, better than me, much better than me, and I'm talking about the female runners from Togo, I'm talking about the fast males in this room, you think about the Olympic marathoners, they run essentially, they run 26 consecutive miles at the rate of five minutes each. That's like sprinting for most of it's like sprinting for 26 miles and you think to yourself, I could never do that, but guess what Hebrew says? You are. It's exactly what you're doing, in fact, you're doing more. You are going to race, not for 26 miles, but your race that you have to run with endurance is as long as life itself. That's why I asked you earlier, how many of you are tired, tired, but happy. That's where we often should be, that's what Hebrews wants. It's not bad to be tired, as long as you still have enough to have joy in the running. Well, here's the description of the race that a Christian runs, as Hebrews draws our attention to the central command of really this entire section of his book, let us run with endurance. The central command of really the entire book of Hebrews. And we can see how he develops his almost point by point, even almost word by word. He says, first of all, since we are surrounded by such a crowd of witnesses, let us run. The Greek has it more like this. Consequently, we ourselves should run. The very first word practically is we. We ourselves run. Who runs? We do. Every Christian runs. Every Christian is on a journey, the book of Hebrews says, every last one. We run surrounded by a cloud of witnesses. We don't just run in the abstract, but we run with people watching us run. And these witnesses are not, to go back to the Olympics, are not spectators. Doesn't say we run surrounded by a cloud of spectators. We run surrounded by a cloud of witnesses, that is to say, there are those who ran before and finished the race and reached Christ and reached heaven. And they say, even as it is difficult for you to run now, so it was for me. And even as I, so they say, was attested by God, now I will testify to God and say, by his grace you can run the race even to the end. That's the witnesses. To put it in Olympic terminology, the stadium is not filled by affixionados or fans of running. Everybody in the stadium is a runner. Every last one is a champion on a par with those who are running on the stadium floor. They know, they know what it means to run. How do we run? We run, it says, laying aside or throwing off everything that hinders the sin that so easily entangles. Again, to stick with the Olympics, you know that in the Olympics people use the minimal possible equipment, right? The skiers are in those very light tights, even though it's cold. In the summer Olympics, they hold up the swimming suits that they wear and they say, you know, this swimming suit weighs a quarter of an ounce and you look at it and you see, I believe it. And you look at their running gear, counting their shoes, counting their shoes. The total weight of their gear might be seven ounces. They want to throw off everything they possibly can that was sold them down. That we understand about athletic competition. And in our race, we throw everything off, too, but what is it? It specifies that it is the sin that entangles us, that hangs around us, it could be translated. Now this sin, we notice is singular. He does not run into a list and specify five or six or seven sins that you have to watch out for. It is sin generically, it isn't necessarily, you know, great, big, fat, hairy, ugly sins that bothers. It's little ones, too. It's public and private. It's acted out and not acted out, sin entangles us and makes it difficult for us to run. Sin generically has to be put aside. He says, then, let us run with endurance, the race marked out for us. Here again, we have an allusion to the way in which competition takes place. The race marked out means we run within the course that has been set. In the winter games, you run, you ski inside the gates. If you say, well, you know, I really don't want to ski inside that gate. They say, fine, you don't have to, but that's called disqualification. And in the summer Olympics, you can't say, well, you know, I'm behind, so I'll just cut across the field a little bit and make up seven or eight yards. Again, you can do that, but you will not win the prize. You'll be disqualified. With the run, the race marked out for us. And he's alluding to here is our desire to avoid the path that God marks. And really what we need to do here is almost fill in each and every one of us what we would think of is it a path marked by the death of a loved one in an untimely way, loss of a job, lack of income, chronic illness, very difficult relationships, broken relationships. Whatever you can think of, smaller, great, he is saying, run the race that God marked out for you. Don't resist the course that he has, fix your eyes on Jesus as you run. He is the author and the perfector of our faith. Now this has two sides to it. One, we could take part the words one by one, but also the idea is that as you run in this course, this difficult race with endurance, remember that your Lord Jesus ran this path before you. And if you say, well, I don't really want to go down the course marked for me, then remember the Jesus ran a course that he might not particularly have preferred, I'll put it in another way. He wasn't surprised by what happened at the end of his life. From the time of his incarnation, he knew to anticipate the physical pain, the social shame, and the spiritual anguish of crucifixion of bearing our sins on the cross. That was the race marked out for him. If he was willing, then so should we. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, he says, and then he tells us who Jesus is one more time. He tells us first that Jesus is the champion or the author of our faith. We talked about that about whatever, two weeks ago, perhaps. Author of our faith, meaning the trailblazer or the pioneer, that's a reminder of what we studied back from chapter two, that Jesus doesn't just say go run, he's cleared the path for us to run. He has blazed the trail, he's cleared the obstacles out of the trail, the chief obstacle of course being Satan who held us all in the power of the fear of death. He defeated Satan through his death on the cross. So we keep our eyes on Jesus the author of our faith, and now he says the path is clear you can run. But that's not all. Jesus is also the perfector of our faith. That is to say, he is the one who takes us to completion for the race. He doesn't just say go run and I'll watch you. He doesn't say go run and I'll be at the end, although that's true. He also empowers us to run as we go along. He doesn't even empower us simply by running alongside us, but he perfects us as we run. A few years ago my middle daughter, who is a very slender child, decided she wanted to swim across the deep end of the swimming pool. That would give her the right to jump off the diving board. She was about six, so it was quite a while ago I guess I know. She'd gotten to the point where she could make it, you know, 40, I don't know, 60 feet maybe something like that. She could do it. I knew she could do it. It's okay, honey. Now is the day. It's time for you to get in the water and to swim across while the lifeguard is watching you and then you'll be able to jump off the board and she said to me, daddy, will you be with me? I said, sure, I'll be with you. I'll be standing right here in the side. I'll watch you. And if anything goes wrong, I'll take care of you. She said, no, will you be with me? I said, what do you mean? She said, I want you to swim with me. I said, now I can't help you. I can't hold you up or anything. She said, I know. I want you to swim beside me as I go. Now that's better than standing on the side I'm watching. But the truth is that Jesus does one better yet. He doesn't just say, I'll stand and watch, I'll swim beside you. He's like years earlier, mom and dad putting the hand under the belly of that little child as they swim so they don't get water in their mouth. That's what the Lord does. He is our perfector as well as the author of our faith. Jesus is our champion, our pioneer, our perfector, and he is our model and yet another way. Chapter 12, verse 2 goes on to say that he for the joy set before him endured the cross. I'll do a little Greek with you here. The word for for the joy that word for is a Greek word auntie which has two possible meanings here. One is, and I want to tell you about both of them because they're both true in themselves. And it's a hard decision as to which one he means. The one sense is that for the sake of the joy set before him he ran the race. That is to say, for the sake of the joy that would be his upon the resurrection. For the sake of the joy that would be his when he was welcome back to heaven, he was proclaimed to have fulfilled his task, be proclaimed the Son of God, the rule of the Savior with power after he finished the job. And then, not only that, but he would have this great train of his brothers, we talked about earlier, whom he is redeemed, his brothers and sisters, his children, coming with him. So for the sake of that joy, prospective, he endured the shame. And that's true. It's a true statement. It's a biblical statement. There's another possibility is what Hebrews may mean because the word auntie also means in fact it usually means instead of. And so we translate that in this way, who instead of the joy set before him endured the cross despising it. Now, what would that mean? That would mean that Jesus was in his glory in heaven, worshiped in perfect ease, in perfect delight with the throngs of angels around him and so on. But instead of that, instead of basking in that glory, he endured the cross despising it shame. And truth is, I'm not sure which one is what Hebrews intended. Maybe the second is more likely, but this I know, they're both true, and they both describe that is to say they're taught at least somewhere in the Bible, and they both aptly describe Jesus' motive as he ran. Even before the joy set before him endured the cross despising or scorning it shame. That is to say, again, he knew what was coming. He evaluated it. It did not surprise him, but he thought little of it. He thought more of the glory that would be his. Now then considering him, as you look at him, as you look at Jesus who endured such opposition from sinful men, consider him so that you will not grow weary and lose heart of that is to say, again, you may, one of the other may happen to you, specifically you may grow weary. Really, another way to translate it is so, although becoming weary, you will not lose heart. There's nothing wrong with becoming weary. If you're weary and well doing, if you're tired of the struggle, there's no sin or failure in weariness. The trouble with weariness is that it may cause you to lose heart and cease to run. So although becoming weary, we persevere onward, we run to the end. Now how does that happen? What happens through the communion, through the fellowship that we have described earlier? Two things, one by looking at Jesus, but also by staying strong in the body. If I can tell you a story about that, a story about running. I have run as an adult exactly one 10K race. I ran it in the mid-80s after I broke an ankle, which I may possibly have told you about. Did I tell you about that? No. Okay. In the mid-80s, I broke my ankle playing basketball once. And it was broken really badly and swole up tremendously. And it was broken and it had torn ligaments and bone ships and whole thing. It was so swollen that the X-ray technician or the radiologist, the doctor, missed it and said, you have a sprained ankle. So I tried to play basketball and football and tennis and run around on a broken ankle for about eight months. It didn't work real well. And things didn't go so well and finally I went to a doctor who said, I said to him, basically he knows, my ankle has really been bad. They told me I sprained my ankle about eight months ago and it's been really bad ever since it. Can you look at it and tell me what's going on? And he said, well, I don't know what's wrong now. But I do know in the past, you broke your ankle, you tore your ligaments all up, you bone ships. I said to him, I think I know when that was. And I said to him, you know, what can we do now? He basically said nothing but I didn't believe it. And so I started running a little bit just to see if I could get some strength and flexibility back. It never run before. And I had a friend who was a distance runner. He used to run half marathons just for the fun of it, you know, a few times here. And he was just so thrilled that I was running that he wanted to encourage me. He was spur me on to greater good deeds in his view. And so he told me about a 10K run that was coming up in just a few weeks and he said, you know, why don't we do that? That'll be lots of fun. It'll give you a goal of your running. And I said, you know, I'm up to two and a half miles here, 10K in case you don't know it's 6.2 miles. And I really don't think I'm up to it. He said, well, I'll train with you a little bit. We got all the way up to three and a half miles. And you know, I'll run with you. I said, well, you know, if you run with me, I'll be slow, you know, that. He said, it's fine. I'll run with you. So we ran. I started off at too fast a clip for my level of fitness and my leg, nothing, all better. Seven minutes of first mile, second mile, a little bit slower, seven minutes and about 10 seconds. And then third mile, third mile got a little slower, got a pain in my side, got a cramp in my leg. It started to slow down and slow down to barely more than a walk and people are just passing us right and left. Rollie-poly woman, this is the worst part. A rollie-poly woman, about five foot two, carrying a little extra baggage with her. And you know, she just kind of passed us by and I said, man, this is bad. And so let's step on the gas and pass the rollie-poly woman and the pain came back and the rollie-poly woman passed us again and I said, this is terrible. We can't let this rollie-poly woman pass us and we passed her again. She came back and she passed us back. I said to my friend John, I said, John, this is just too much. I'm ruining the race for you. I can hardly move. This is not going away. You just leave me here. I'll catch a cab back or I'll hitchhike or something. You just go on. I'm ruining this for you. He said, no. I said we run together. We're going to run together. Your pain will pass. We'll be alright. I said, okay. We went a little bit past the midway point and the pain passed. I said, John, I'm alright. We can run again. He said, okay, great. He said, do you see that guy up ahead in the striped hat? I said, you mean that guy over there, about 50 yards ahead, hoping, and he said, no, not that guy. That guy. That guy pointed to somebody, real tall guy, about 400 yards ahead of us. I said, yeah, I see him. He said, we're going to finish ahead of that guy. Let's go. I thought, fat chance. We passed the roly-poly woman. We left her in the dust. We passed the first guy in the striped hat. We passed the second guy in the striped hat. With one mile to go, we passed number two. My friend, John, said, as they barked out the time, Dan, you're doing great. I'm taking off. See you at the finish line. And he just lit out with all those reserves that he'd been storing up running with me. Now the time I had a chance to catch my breath and be depressed, he seemed to be about 80 yards ahead of me in a past eight people. And I was crushed, then I said, no, I am doing all right. I am not going to reach John. I'm not going to pass John, but I'm going to finish next to John. And so I started to run. I started to pass one person, two people, and then three, and then four. And then five. And now we're in the city streets. There's only three blocks to go, and I've got to pass three more people. And they're not right there. But the earlier runners, and there was actually prize money in this race, and some of these guys are really fast and really good, are cooling off, and they're stretching, and they're jiggling the way runners jiggling. And they're just being cool and relaxing, and drinking things, and so on. And one of them saw somehow the look on my face. That was trying to prove something, even though I was sort of, you know, thoroughly in the middle of the pack. And he looked at me, he fixed his eyes on me, and he practically screamed at me. He said, come on, finish with nothing left. My feet sprouted wings, my hair caught fire, and soared down the last 200 yards or so. I passed the last three and finished a couple steps behind my friend, John. It was great. It was a great race. That race is a little bit like the race of the Christian life. First of all, I guarantee you I grew weary and wanted to quit as the Hebrews wanted to quit. Probably the main mechanism that beckoned me on was my friend, John. Remember, encourage one another daily as long as you call it today. Don't forsake the assembly together. My friend did not forsake me. He encouraged me, really, by his aid I finished the race. I did also have a goal at the end of the line. I was trying to pass people, I was trying to finish nobly in my race. And the end line, the terminus spurred me on. And so in some ways, the race is like Christians, races like that race, but there's also a number of differences. First of all, in the town where I finished, there were, you know, my friends and just people shopping. My wife and John's wife were there waiting for us. That was nice. But the end in this race that Hebrews talks about is not a human city, but it's a city without foundations. It's the city of the great king. It's the heavenly Jerusalem toward which we run. And at that finish line, it's not a man who gave John and me a little ribbon saying, we came in 89th and 90th that day, and a little silver thing that said of males between the age of 30 and 35 who ran in America in the last year. Our time was in the top 40%. Now we got something better at Heaven's Gate. Remember back in kindergarten when everybody who ran got a first place prize, remember that? See, that's really God's way. Everybody who finishes is a champion. That's more true than the Olympic competitions and the competitions we have today, spiritually speaking. He has an endless supply of reads for winners, everyone who finishes. What might he say as he would spur us on? For some he might say, for some of us, finish with nothing left. For others, gentler words like, I will never leave you nor forsake you. I will be with you always, even at the end of the age, those sorts of words are ours, or even I endured the cross and despised the shame. I did not consider it to be lost to give my life for you. So we run, heber says, we run our race as long as life itself. We run to the end point who is Jesus. And this idea of running a race and coming to Jerusalem is actually a theme that is found here and there throughout the book of Hebrews and here and there really throughout the entire Bible. It really begins in chapter 10, verse 35, you need to persevere so you will receive what was promised, he says. The focal point of it, however, is chapter 11, verses 10 to 16. He talks about Abraham who lived in tents and looked better to a better city. He speaks of those who received just a tiny fraction of the promises. These all died, he said, not receiving but seeing and greeting them from afar, confessing that they are strangers, outsiders, and exiles on the earth. They chose not to return to the country they left, even as the Hebrews should choose not to return to the country they left, the country of paganism or the country of Judaism. But rather they should run toward the heavenly Jerusalem. They are looking, Hebrews 13, verse 14 says, they are looking for a city that is to come. Now this pilgrim theme is one that used to be far more prominent in Christian thinking than it is today. It's found in Hebrews, it's found in first Peter especially and here and there as well. It tells us, it warns us against being too ready to be assimilated to our culture. Our culture is largely Christianized and really in almost every culture there are people who love what is there, if whatever nation people are in, they tend to appreciate their own land, their own language, their own customs. And so we can think, well you know, our customs and our culture and our land are close enough to Christianity that it's okay to fit in. And often of course it is okay to fit into our society. But if we lose this pilgrim theme, the idea that we're pilgrims and aliens and we're strangers on this earth and we're headed not to just improving this earth but toward a heavenly city. If we forget that, we can lose the blessed radicalism that the gospel would have for us. There is a time to see things in shades of gray. But there's also a time to say there's an antithesis, there is a black and the white, there's the way of God and the way of evil. And by remembering that we are really not finally going to make our home in this land, by remembering that we can retain our edge as Christians. Okay, well let's look on a little bit more and see what he has to say to us about how to persevere to the end in 12, 4 and onward. In this section I will cover much more briefly. First, he points out to us that the hardship that they must bear should be construed as discipline, as a call to Christian growth and as a warning that they have a ways to go yet. There's four points out in your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted the point of shedding your blood. That is to say, if you're weary now, I assure you brothers, more is coming as possible that you will be shedding your blood soon, so don't wear out yet. And if you are in danger of wearing out before blood is even spilt, then that may be an indicator that you need to get stronger and tougher and shed that flabbyness that he was talking about earlier. Therefore, the discipline that you perceive and receive, well, we'll put it this way, the sufferings that you have right now are a discipline from God to inspire you to become stronger, to inspire you as he puts it down here a little bit later around verse 12, to inspire you to not be disabled, to strengthen your feet, to strengthen your arms and your weak knees, and start to run cleanly and clearly see the hardship you face as a discipline to drive you to become stronger. Next in, verses 14 to 18, he gives us a series of pieces of advice on how to live in general especially the time of persecution. He says we should seek peace with all men, good advice, don't pursue any difficulty, pursue no unnessed, don't stimulate unnecessary trouble we might say, number two, pursue holiness, number three, avoid bitterness, bitterness can poison us, anger at God, anger at others, if you're angry at God you can't listen to him, you can't receive from him, he warns against sensuality, like the sensuality of Esau who sold his birthright for a bowl of potage and allowed his appetites to rule him. He sought the benefits of spirituality but he wasn't willing to deny his flesh, avoid sensuality. And realize, he gives us then one last warning, realize that we have to do with the great God who is the judge of all the earth. Verse 18, he comes to his rhetorical climax, as you come to God, you must understand that you have not come to a mountain that can be touched and is burning with fire to darkness, gloom and storm, to a trumpet blast or such a voice speaking words at those who heard it beg that no further word be spoken to them. You haven't come to that mountain, he's referring to Sinai, he's saying you know, Sinai was frightening, it trembled, there was smoke, there was lightning, there was the blast of the trumpet, if even an animal touched that mountain there would be stone to death, Moses himself who was acquainted with the presence of God and talked to God face to face said, I am trembling with fear but if you think that was frightening, Hebrew says, you haven't seen nothing yet because that mountain is only a shadow of the mountain of the Almighty God. You have come, verse 22, to mount Zion, the heavenly Jerusalem, the city of the living God. It is indeed the place where the angels rejoice, verse 22, where the church has the names of its first born written, where the assembly of the righteous dwells, where Jesus, the covenant mediator, sprinkles his blood but it is also the place of the Almighty God, the God who is a consuming fire and he will shake it says, verse 27, all creation and you must be sure Hebrew says that you're ready, that you're grounded for that shaking that is to come, we'll all be shaken and the other way that you're ready to stand in that shaking is by belonging to Christ and by longing to Christ and by desiring to run to that finish line. So he warns us against sloth one more time. Chapter 13 kind of unfolds from there is a variety of points of general advice counsel to all Christians for living well in this time and during together. He tells us, for example, to be sure to entertain strangers, to remember to aid prisoners that this is say continue to encourage each other in your walk as Christians. He tells us to remain sexually pure, keep the marriage bed undefiled. He warns against turning freedom into greed, to be content with God's gifts, that's his advice. Submit to leaders, stay doctorly pure, allow them to lead you because if you grumble against them and resist them, it won't do you any good, you need leaders and they need to have their task of leadership pleasant by you not resisting them and fighting them at every turn. One last time that he tells us to suffer with Christ and offers that blessed benediction, one of the sweetest benedictions in the pages of Scripture made the God of peace, who through the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead or Lord Jesus that great shepherd of the sheep equip you with everything good for doing his will and may he work in us what is pleasing to him through Jesus Christ our Lord. That's the blessing he gives with all the warnings. The last word is a word of blessing, the word of greeting, the word of the love of God. So he presents a great call to perseverance, to endurance in the face of difficulty. Okay, let's look at James, shall we? Starting our second book in the course, James is such a very different book from the book of Hebrews, quite a contrast between the two books. At one level, Hebrews is a book that people a little bit afraid of, it's so complex and so in some ways even alien, but James, I mean, you know, it's so practical, it's almost like Proverbs, you know, if you don't know what to do and your family devotions, you know a lot of time, just pick up book of Proverbs, read a couple of Proverbs, it's something we can do, some wisdom from God don't do it too often because it's atomistic, but he, you know, James is kind of like that too. Just read it and think about some guidance for everyday life. We like the book of James, it's accessible, it's striking in its exhortations. On the other hand, it also stings us, a blessed thing, it's called to realize the ideals that we profess in appropriate action is spoken with a prophetic urgency, the generations of readers who have found James' directism, now quoting, who found James' directives difficult to perform rather than to understand. The ideals are there, the call to live up to them, so much like the sermon on the mount, so clear, so powerful, so penetrating, so convicting, and the very clarity becomes the problem as it's so difficult to avoid what is so patently said. So the popular level, Christians like the book of James, you may not know this, but the book of James is perhaps the most roundly criticized of all the books of the New Testament by scholars. Liberal critical scholars, yes, but unfortunately even some evangelicals have viewed James as a kind of an inferior work in certain ways, in fact the four main criticisms of the book of James, which have been echoed through the centuries, were all articulated first by Martin Luther, and if you like to look it up, it's in his table talk, volume 54, pages 424, and 425, volume 54 of his works, his students, how do you get 54 volumes of works, his students kind of wrote down everything he said for a while, so he got a few volumes like that. But in table talk he gives the four criticisms of James that I want you to know, not so that you can criticize James, so that we can have an answer and understand the book better. First criticism is that it contains all but nothing of Christ, so that it is dissonant with the rest of the apostolic message, and in truth if you look at the book of James, there's nothing about the cross of Christ, about the atonement, about his high priestly ministry, about his blood, none of those things are mentioned. The name, Lord Jesus Christ, is just mentioned a couple of times, that's true. But the picture of Christ as Lord is an as redeemer, are yet there, the language is not the language we're used to, he is called the Lord, in a sense we could call the book of James a meditation on the Lordship of Christ over our ethical lives, in fact that's maybe the main thing that the book is, a meditation on the Lordship of Christ over our ethical lives. But second, as we'll see next week, the book of James also has a great deal about the need for Christ and the remedy we have for our sin in Christ, not an ordinary language in its own way. Number two, it is alleged by many people that James was written by someone who is not an apostle, therefore not worthy to write, specifically either some unknown James, some people say who's James, we don't know who he is, or what most people say, James the brother of our Lord who knew Jesus during his earthly life but did not believe in him. So how could James an unbeliever during Jesus' life give a good testimony? Well, I guess it's a fair question, but it kind of proves a little too much, doesn't it? Because after all, you'd lose the 13 letters of Paul by the same token, and you'd lose Jude, and Luke and Acts would be out the window because they weren't apothe, and Luke was not an apostle, he was one of the apostolic men, in fact only eight of the 27 books in New Testament were written by apostles, so that is to say apostles within the original 12, so we really shouldn't complain about that one. The real issue for scholars is that the Greek of the book of James is kind of too good, so they say, for someone who was just a farmer from rural Palestine, but that shows a lack of understanding, it's kind of an older criticism, it shows a lack of understanding of the educated nature of the people living in Palestine, it's true that literacy was not very common in antiquity, but do you know what people had a higher level of literacy than just about anybody else was the Jews, do you know why, so they could read the scriptures, that's crucial, and then throughout the ancient world, and really throughout the world today, wherever people live in a land where two or three languages are spoken, it's actually very easy, I mean another way of putting it is, in many parts of the world illiterate people can speak fluently two or three or four languages, all it takes is repeated exposure, and if indeed it's the case, as almost everybody seems to think, close to half of all the people living in Palestine were Greek speaking than those who lived there could easily write excellent Greek, so there's no problem with that. A third criticism, maybe the most important of them is that the book of James is accused, and we'll talk about this more than once, is accused of flitting chaotically from one topic to the next, having no clear internal logic or structure, and just jumping from one teaching to the next, but in fact, the book of James is definitely very well structured, it is structured according to the patterns of rhetoric, and those critics who said, especially around the turn of the 20th century, early 20th century about 1900 and 1930, who said James is chaotic and poorly organized, lived in a time, I'll fault them slightly, but they lived in a time where an awareness of the conventions of ancient rhetoric were unknown, rhetoric was the one thing you studied if you were a student every year, a little bit like in our society today we study English every year, and we have to do composition, writing, you know, in history class and social studies, we're always writing, writing, we're always studying the language. In a similar way people were always studying rhetoric in the ancient world, know what was rhetoric, rhetoric included general factual knowledge, but also arranging it to persuade people to make arguments, to pursue the truth, and to sell things if necessary, that was what rhetoric was, and everybody knew the conventions of rhetoric including James, he used them and he structured his book according to them, now if you live in a time when nobody studies rhetoric you look at James and you say it's poorly organized, but the problem is not with James, the problem is with you, if you don't have the ability to recognize the structure that's there, and indeed it is there, number four, it is said that the Book of James was not respected by the early church as canonical, Eusebius and early church historian of note, put it who wrote around the year 3, 2330 AD, said that some disputed the Book of James, that is to say they disputed that it was, that it was actually biblical, and Jerome a great scholar from the early Christian days, said that James only was accepted incrementally in the ancient world, but again that's almost like saying, well James wasn't written by Paul nor was it one of the Gospels because incremental acceptance was the rule really for all of those books, what we need to do then is accept James on its own terms, James is a book of rhetorical argumentation for a certain way of life, one scholar Luke Timothy Johnson has written a book in which he calls it, he says it follows the pattern of protractic discourse, discourse that is oriented to persuade people to live a certain kind of life, and that's what James is, it's an argument to live a kind of life a life under the Lordship of Christ, and it is indeed a very rhetorical book, and a little bit like Hebrews, a sermonic kind of book, would you listen with me and follow with me and see the rhetorical flavor and the flourishes and the sermonic nature of the book of James, first of all the book addresses people in very direct terms, for example, repeatedly he speaks to my brothers, my dear brothers, or simply brothers, or you rich, or negatively, you adulterous people, he addresses people directly, he gives lots of commands, there are 59 commands in the book of James, the whole book only has about 105 verses, and there are 59 commands, of those 59 commands, 46 say you, you, go do this, 13 others are along the lines of let us, or let us all, or something like that. The look of James also shows it's a character in the rhetorical flavor, for example, the rhetorical questions you can turn to chapter two versus four to seven with me, and just look at a string of rhetorical questions that the author puts to his friends, he's depicting the scene where a rich man and a poor man come into church or synagogue simultaneously, and the usher says to the rich man you can have a good seat and says the poor man you sit in the floor here standing a corner over there, and then he puts a few questions to the very rhetorically he says, if you do this, have you not discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts, that's a question he puts to. Listen my brothers, has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith, and to inherit the kingdom he promised those who love him, but you have insulted the poor, is it not the rich who are exploiting you, there's the third rhetorical question, are they not the ones dragging you into court, there's the fourth, verse seven, are they the ones who are slandering the noble name of him to whom you belong, rhetorical questions in a rhetorical book, and there are quite a few others. The book also imagines people throwing up objections and answers some of those objections. For example, chapter two, verse 18, as James is really developing the idea of Jesus that everyone who has true faith will show it by their deeds, verse 18, somebody breaks in an imaginary interlocutor and he says, but someone will say, you have faith, I have deeds, he's imagining himself addressing a group of people, and as he speaks to them he says, I know what some of you are thinking, you're insisting on good deeds, but see some of you are thinking, well, for some of us, good deeds is the thing, and others good faith is the thing, and it's kind of one of those gift things, I just don't have the gift of works, that's all. He says, well in the answer that for you, and he does that a number of other times which I have cited in your book chapter one, verse 13, chapter three, verse 13, chapter five, verse 13, and so on. But historical questions and answers imply that the audience should be with James, and he sometimes shows a little bit of energetic impatience with his people. Chapter one, verse 16, he says, don't be mistaken. Chapter two, verse 22, he says, don't you see? Chapter four, verse one, he says, come now, you who are going to trade, come now, you rich, he says. Chapter four, verse four, he says, don't you know this rhetorical language designed even the shame people that see in the air of their ways. He also has lots of illustrations showing he's a preacher and a teacher. You notice the illustrations he has if you read through the book for tonight. He talks about the bits of horses, the runners of ships. He talks about flowers that fade about mists that settle on lakes. He talks about boats and fire and mirrors and looking into a mirror and trading. He talks about farm work and traveling here and there. He mentions Old Testament heroes, fire coming down from heaven, loaded with illustrations because he's rhetorical and wants to capture people's attention. Speaking of capturing attention, he sometimes does it with very paradoxical language. Practically the first thing he says is, rejoice in your trials. Consider it all joy when various trials befall you. We think, why would I do a thing like that? Paradoxical language. He says that the rich man should boast in his humiliation. He says demons are believers. Demons believe and they shudder. He throws ideas that don't fit very well together. The rich howl as their riches rot and as their gold and silver and precious metals eat their flesh like fire as the mowers cry out for their wages and the ones who keep those wages by food and get fat in order to be slaughtered like cattle on the day when God comes to visit. James is a book full of energetic imagery. James is a book that has its own logic, its own way of working, of taking people into the paths of God's thinking about the good Christian life. Very briefly, a couple more things I'll mention to you. I do believe that the author of James is the brother of Jesus. And I do because he fits very well the profile of James the brother of Jesus who was the leader of the Jerusalem church in Acts chapter 15. In Acts chapter 15, for one thing, I'm not going to go into this, but the speech in Acts 15 and the language of James uses a number of rare words only found in New Testament in Acts 15 and James 1 to 5. And if Luke is recording well, then it doesn't make sense that the one who uses these rare words over in James 1 to 5 is the same as the one who uses these rare words and only show up in Acts chapter 15. It's one way of arguing. Another way is that the picture of James in the book and the picture of James in Acts 15 is very similar. They both have a zeal for the law of God. They both have a lot of knowledge of the Jewish people. They both show concerns for making peace. Acts 15, through some counsel, James trying to bring people together and we'll see how he makes peace a little bit later in James chapter 3. More important, I think, is to recognize that James is writing for a Jewish audience. The mark of it, we'll see the importance of that after in just a few minutes. But a Jewish audience is we might say visible by reading backwards. You read the way in which James addresses his people and you say, now who would be interested in the kinds of problems that James addresses or who would need the teaching that James addresses and who would understand the language of James. Let me give you an example of that. In the book of James, it says that Elijah prayed for three and a half years. Now who knows their Old Testament, the story, Elijah prayed and it didn't reign for three and a half years. That's what James says. How long is this saying, King's it didn't reign? Three years. So why did he add a half a year? Why would you do something like that? Because in Palestine and only in Palestine, three and a half was a round number. He was rounding three off the three and a half because half of seven is three and a half. And if you look at the book of Revelation, for example, you see another round number times time and half a time. That's three and a half. And there are things that go on for 1,200 and what is it? 1,260 days which is roughly three and a half years. Here's another one. It talks about waiting for the early and the late reigns. There's only one place around the Mediterranean where there were two rainy seasons. That was on the east coast of the Mediterranean in Palestine or taking pride in monotheism. You believe that God is one. You do well. Well who took pride in monotheism in the ancient world? Everybody was a polytheist. Who took pride in monotheism? The Jews, the Jews did. He depicts a scene in which people come into a synagogue that's full for worship. That fits the Jewish scene, chapter two. Here's one more that's telling. In James 4 and 5, those who want to get rich get rich by trading. Those who are rich hold land. That's exactly the way in which it was done in Palestine the first century because land was very hard to come by. You had to be rich to buy much land. The only way you could get rich if you were poor was by trading. That's exactly the scene that's described in James. So what we have then is this. James is a Christian writing to Jewish Christians who have the needs of their day. Perhaps above all, the need that they face was a carryover from the Jewish people before they became Christians and that is pride in their theology. The idea that if you know the truth, that's good enough. And if you have right doctrine, you have right religion in real faith. And those sorts of ideas which have a germ of truth that can be greatly abused are what James will work on.