Both tackle the themes of worldliness over against heavenly-mindedness. There are so many ways in which the book of James clearly echoes that most famous sermon of Jesus. If you could read only one thing in order to better understand James, it should be Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, recorded in Matthew 5–7. In a small effort to help correct that tendency, let’s consider the following ways in which we see Jesus in the book of James. They merely glean the great imperatives of James while missing the great indicative named Jesus. If you were to listen to most people talk about James, and most preachers preach through James, you might think that they were all students of Martin Luther! It is all too common for people to approach James as a book without Christ in it. Luther is correct when he says, ‘That is the true test, by which to judge all books, when we see whether they deal with Christ or not, since all the Scriptures show us Christ.’ Absolutely! Sadly, though, Luther went on to say that James does not pass that test. And with respect to the latter, the most devastating criticism he levelled against James was that he believed it did not teach us about Christ. Luther said about James, ‘ I praise it and hold it a good book, because it sets up no doctrine of men and lays great stress upon God’s law.’ Luther did have a way of using his tongue to both bless the book of James and also to curse it.
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What is less well known or talked about, is that Luther also praised the book of James in the same preface.
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The great Protestant reformer, Martin Luther, infamously referred to the book of James as ‘an epistle of straw’ in his preface to the German New Testament.