10 Things You Should Know About the Book of James

This article is part of the 10 Things You Should Know series. 1. James has one controlling theme that holds everything together. It misreads James entirely to suggest there is no coherent vision linking the whole letter together. In fact, James has one grand preoccupation from start to finish: the undivided life of God’s people. He is so consumed with this theme that it runs like a golden thread through every section of his letter. James writes to show us what the person wholly devoted to God believes and to display how they think, live, speak, and pray. The key to James is not merely to look for certain linking words but to look for certain words fleshed out in story form. For example, “You adulterous people” (James 4:4) is a dramatic and powerful pictorial description of the letter’s key theme: the believer who is divided is two-timing God. 2. James’s key diagnosis is “double-mindedness.” The Greek word for double-minded (James 1:8) is dipsychos—literally “two-souled”—and it appears to be James’s own coinage, a term he invented to name the precise malady he sees in the churches he is addressing. The double-minded person is not the ordinary Christian who wrestles with doubt or str...