NOTES for Jam 1:1-11

James's mention of wisdom in connection with endurance may at first glance appear somewhat strange. But it can appear that way to us today, because wisdom for us today is often connected with something bookish, philosophical, abstract. Wisdom, however, as the Bible understands it, was always something practical rather than abstractly speculative. The corresponding Hebrew word, like its Greek equivalent, denotes above all art, skill, first of all practical skill. A skilled craftsman who knew how to make a beautiful thing from stone, wood, or metal could be called wise: here both the practical skill of a worker and the sense of beauty proper to an artist were needed. Wise was also the name given to someone who knew how to govern, whether his own household or an entire country.

Here skill was connected no longer with a craftsman's mastery, but with the experience that makes it possible to build relationships with people, take account of each person's interests, and see that the task set is solved, not by infringing on someone's interests, but for the common good. But the highest form of wisdom was the wisdom of the righteous person, the experience and skill of righteous life. It would seem that righteousness is a gift of God, and little depends on the person here. But every gift must be received skillfully, and the skill of righteous life is connected precisely with this ability. How can one follow God despite one's own sinfulness, and follow Him in such a way as to stumble less?

The wisdom of the one seeking righteous life was connected with the answer to this question. This is the wisdom of which James speaks. And the steadfastness he mentions, which would be a more accurate translation of the Greek word rendered as "patience" in the Synodal translation, plays a significant role in acquiring it. The spiritual core on which a person's whole life, inward and outward, rests can be strong only when external events do not wash it away or destroy it. And James advises asking God how to make it so. This is understandable: after all, it is God who makes a person righteous, opening to him the road into the Kingdom.

There are many Christians in the world who are more or less sincerely convinced that God acts only in the Church and addresses only them, Christians. It is hard to say when such a conviction appeared in the church environment. It has existed as long as Christianity itself.

The source of this confidence is connected with the perception of Christianity as a new religion given by God in order to renew the world through those who become its adherents. Then everything is logical: if God created a new, uniquely true religion, then all other religions are by definition untrue. God is not there and cannot be there. He is only in Christianity, though at this stage in our time people usually point not to Christianity but to some concrete Christian denomination to which the speaker belongs. All the rest are outside God, outside the Kingdom, and outside salvation.

Meanwhile Christianity was neither conceived nor created by its Founder as a new religion. It was founded as a new life, life in that Kingdom which the Savior brought into the world. And He Himself never said that His activity and the circle of His communion would be limited only to His followers, that He would never go beyond the boundaries of His Church.

Of course, those who have already entered the Church do not need to seek a meeting with Him by some other means. In His Church there is everything necessary and sufficient for full communion with Him. But there are other people in the world who have not yet entered the Church, and may never enter it, at least during their earthly life. There can be many reasons for this, and it is not for us to judge them. It is important for us only to remember that Christianity is precisely a new life. The life of the Kingdom. Life in fullness and without boundaries.

A life that objectively cannot be limited by any earthly framework. Nor by any heavenly framework either: from the beginning God wants no one to perish and wants every sinner to turn and be saved. The coming of Christ is not a religious event, and not even only a spiritual event in the human sense. It is an event of universal, cosmic scale. His coming, like the appearance of the Kingdom in the world, objectively and quite really changed everything and touched all and each.

The breath of the Kingdom blows in the world, touching everyone who sincerely seeks the truth. This means that God's hand can now reach absolutely everyone. Of course, this was possible for God before as well, in pre-Christian times. But now He has the opportunity to work with each person in an environment that spiritually corresponds completely to the character of His work. And everything good that a person has in his life comes from one source. There is no other: God is one, the Messiah is one, and the Kingdom also is one.

James addresses the twelve tribes in the dispersion. This designation has from ancient times referred to the Jewish people, but should we understand that James is addressing only Christians from among the Jews? Since the content of the letter concerns all Christians, by the twelve tribes we are entitled to understand the brothers who make up the Church, the people of God of the New Covenant.

The call to rejoice in temptations initially makes a strange impression. One can, of course, find a reason for joy in the fact that if the powers of darkness attack you, this means that you do not belong to them. But such awareness can lead to self-satisfaction, then to self-deception and proud self-exaltation, and that is itself a satanic trap.

So it is not temptations themselves that we should rejoice in, but the fact that the Lord gives us strength to cope with them, to stand firm against enticements. We should not fear them and lose our heads out of fear, but we should recognize them in time and be ready to receive help from above.