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Introduction
be heard.150 Church history reveals how leaders focused on one message or the other, depending on the issues they were addressing. Luther, faced with forms of Roman Catholic medieval theology that placed great emphasis on works in salvation, naturally focused on Paul in his preaching. Wesley, on the other hand, confronting a church largely indifferent to the moral imperatives of the gospel, appropriated the perspective of James. So in our day as well. Christians need to continue to pay attention to the warning of James that true faith is to be tested by its works and that only a faith that issues in works is a genuinely saving faith. James recognizes that Christians continue to sin (see 3:2), so he clearly does not expect 100 percent conformity to the will of God. But how high must the percentage be? How many works are necessary to validate true, saving faith? James, of course, gives no answer. But what we can say with confidence, on the basis of James’s teaching, is that if someone claims to have faith but is totally unconcerned to lead a life of obedience to God, their claim of saving faith must be questioned.
VI. STRUCTURE AND THEME As we noted in our analysis of the letter’s nature and genre, James consists of several substantial blocks of teaching on specific topics (2:1–13; 2:14–26; 3:1–12; 5:1–6) along with many briefer exhortations that often appear to have little relation to one another (1:2–4, 5–8, 9–11, 12, 13–18, 19, 20–21, 22–25, 26–27; 3:13–18; 4:1–3, 4–10, 11–12, 13–17; 5:7–11, 12, 13–18, 19–20). Many scholars have therefore endorsed the judgment of Luther, who accused the author of “throwing things together . . . chaotically.”151 Dibelius modernizes this basic view in his form-critical approach, treating James as a collection of loosely strung- together paraenetic components. But most scholars are now inclined to find more logical structure in James. James Adamson, for instance, claims that the letter displays a “sustained unity.”152 Unfortunately, there is little agreement about this “sustained unity.” As Donald Hagner comments, “The organization 150. See D. O. Via, “The Right Strawy Epistle Reconsidered: A Study in Biblical Ethics and Hermeneutic,” JR 49 (1969): 253–67. 151. M. Luther, “Preface to the New Testament,” in Martin Luther’s Basic Theological Writings, ed. T. F. Lull (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1989). 152. Adamson, 20.
