Dr Paul Allen

There's much that can divide us today, and there's no shortage of ways to express ourviews. The Internet provides instant access to varying ideologies and opportunities for sharing them, which often results in quarreling, at times unfortunately under the guise of Christianity .  Quarreling isn't anything new, and taking a stand for righteousness is, well, right But as those who have been washed with the blood of Christ , we must not take our cues from the culture as we engage today's issues. As has been said time and again, there's nothing new under the sun. I imagine James, the brother of Jesus , would have much to say to us today on this issue if he were living among us. Thankfully, we have God 's Word to direct us and James' letter for insight.  James, writing to the twelve tribes in the Dispersion (likely Jewish Christians ), understood how ideologies, practices, and the like ...

So where does temptation come from if not from God?  (James 1:13).  Not all trials originate from outside sources. James points out that we bring some trials on ourselves through our own bad decisions. So instead of pointing the finger at God (or the devil) as the source of all our immoral desires, James says we need to consider our own responsibility in the matter. Are our evil desires the real root of the problem? To help us understand how our desires operate, James personifies them as a pied piper, dragging and enticing us away, luring us to follow along and give in. The process that James describes in verses 14–15 has huge implications for how we conceptualize and combat sin. Why? Just think about how we talk about sin. We talk about “falling into sin” or committing a sin, depicting sin as though it is an event—something that just happens all of a sudden—rather than as a multistep process. Recognizing this distinction has huge implications for how we combat our si...

Gossip of this kind is synonymous with slander. In other cases, such as the story of Doeg, gossip is passing on information to people who have no need to know it. In other cases, gossip is betraying the confidence of another, as Proverbs 11:13 says: “A gossip betrays a confidence, but a trustworthy man keeps a secret” (NIV). The dictionary definition of gossip only takes us so far in our quest to uncover its dominion over us. The definition—“Idle talk, not always true, about other people and their affairs”—only raises adolescent questions of “How far is too far?” William Penn’s aphorism continues to be one of the best by which to judge whether communication is gossip or not: “Never report what may hurt another unless it be a greater hurt to conceal it.” Just let that sit for a moment. Why is the sin of gossip so attractive to us? In the cases I’ve mentioned, someone had a desire for attention and power. “Knowledge is power if you know about the right person,” E. W. Mumford said....

Why did Luther ever question the canonical status of James? The answer is clear. Luther’s struggle with James grew out of the deepest theological controversy in the history of the church, the struggle over the nature of the Gospel as it was focused in the doctrine of justification by faith alone (sola fide). Luther’s opponents constantly cited the book of James to repudiate the evangelical understanding of the Gospel. The Roman Catholic community in particular relied heavily on the epistle, especially at the Sixth Session of the Council of Trent, which cited James 2:17 and 2:20 in chapter seven and James 2:24 in chapter 10. James 2:24 reads, “You see then that a man is justified by works, and not by faith only.” On the surface, this text clearly seems to repudiate sola fide in that it states explicitly that justification is by works and not by faith alone. The problem is intensified by James’ earlier statement: “Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered Isaac h...

James is sometimes called the "New Testament book of Proverbs. " That's because of passages such as James 4 that give us a series of loosely linked aphorisms of practical, godly wisdom. This chapter begins with our universal concern about conflict: What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend on your passions. (James 4:1-3) The world is marked by warfare. There's global war and national conflict; there's warfare in the church; there's warfare in the community; there's warfare in the home—there's conflict all around us. James says that these quarrels, fights, disputes, and contentions come from within, from the fallenness of our hearts. The motivation for these conflicts is envy...