Adult & Teen Bible Study

Begins September 26 - Sundays at 9:45 am at GSLC\ or September 30, Thursdays at 7:30 pm on Zoom\ \ The Epistle (“letter for teaching”) of James may be the oldest book of the New Testament, written perhaps as early as ad45. James is thought to have been the brother of Jesus and was not a believer until after the resurrection. He later became the head of the church in Jerusalem.\ \ The book is directed to Jewish Christians scattered among the nations of the Roman empire. Martin Luther, who detested this letter and called it “the epistle of straw,” struggled with James’s teaching on works – Luther thought it contradicted Paul’s teaching on faith. But James was writing so as to encourage Jewish believers to continue growing in this new Christian faith, rather than just relying on their identity as God’s chosen people. James emphasizes that good actions naturally flow from those who are filled with the Spirit and questions whether someone has true faith if they don’t appear to bear “good fruit.”