In this final chapter of James, we study a wide spectrum of wealth and treasure. We read through warnings of treasure, treachery and transgression in these last days. Here we are called to patience and fervent prayer unto the Lord.

As we continue our study through James, we learn about war and our need for cease-fire. The world is at war against God, though we read His grace is still more. This section of scripture delineates 10 practical ways we can grow in humbleness as unto the Lord.

In this study we took a detailed look at sin, seeing that sin is objective, subjective and seductive. Some sin is defined clearly in the Bible as wrong. But James 4:17 shows us that if we reject what God has told us to do, this is also considered sin and will be different for every person. We also saw an example of sin in Eve in how she was seduced by the lure of sin in desiring to become like God, going outside His Word.

In this study we covered James 2-3. In James 2 we did some review of Sunday studies and were reminded that God is impartial in dispensing love and judgment and were reminded of the precedent that Jesus gave us of being generous to the poor. We ended chapter 2 looking at the relationship between faith and works and saw that the good works that follow faith are the fruit or evidence of true conversion. James 3 had many strong exhortations and warnings, especially as it regards our words and tongue.

James 2 has powerful words to share with us from the Scriptures about the sin of partiality. We saw in this study that God is not a respecter of persons, but treats all people equally, both in His dispensing love as well as in His acts of judgment. Because of this we were challenged to see people, even those that are dirty physically and morally, like they really matter because that is the way God looks at us.

In this study we began James with a short introduction to the book, its authorship and general subject. In Chapter 1 we saw James, the brother of Jesus, hold out to us the blessing of trials and temptations and saw how God uses them in our life to mature us and grow us in our faith. We were exhorted not just to be hearers of God’s Word, but to be doers of it, showing that our religion is genuine and not fake.

We saw from James 2 how James was preaching and heralding the same Paul Gospel that Paul taught: that we are saved by faith through grace. James’ controversial words on faith and works show us that genuine faith in Christ always produces works that follow. We also saw that our words and profession of faith are useless without the substance of fruit verifying the our faith is indeed real and genuine.

We started the Book of James with a straightforward and powerful call to “be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger.” We were challenged to actively pursue listening instead of being focused on speaking, looking at the connection between listening and anger. We ended looking at Jesus and were reminded that we are crucified with Christ (Galatians 2:20) and that our call is to daily take up our cross and follow Him (Mark 8:34; cf. Luke 9:23).