Protestants have wrestled with how to interpret the epistle of James in a distinctly Christian way since Martin Luther famously described it as “an epistle of straw.” Luther struggled to detect the gospel in the letter, concluding, “It has nothing of the nature of the gospel about it.” A survey of contemporary evangelical commentaries reveals the struggle remains. Interpreters continue to grapple with James and how it relates to the gospel. There are at least three challenges facing those who wish to approach the letter from an explicitly gospel-centered perspective: (1) there are only two references to Jesus in the letter, which is unique among the epistolary literature of the New Testament, (2) the letter appears to lack unity, as Martin Dibelius forcefully argued, and (3) the letter primarily consists of paraenesis rather than a blend of theological propositions and ethical exhortations, as noted by Richard Bauckham and others. These features have perplexed evangelicals and prevented most scholars from developing a thoroughly gospel-centered approach to the epistle.
The field of homiletics may be the area most affected by this scholarly confusion and lack of consensus. If the book only mentions Jesus twice, appears to lack unity, and primarily contains practical exhortations rather than theological propositions, how should Christian preachers approach the letter of James? Is it even possible to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ consistently from the epistle of James, or does the letter of James undermine the credibility of Christ-centered preaching and demonstrate the illegitimacy of the approach? This paper will argue a gospel-centered homiletical approach to James is not only possible but necessary.
The first section introduces the difficulty of preaching the gospel from James while highlighting the potential dangers of not preaching the gospel from James consistently. The second section examines the content of James, demonstrates its dependence on Jesus’ teaching in the Gospels and its relation to the wisdom literature of the Old Testament, and argues Jesus’s teaching is an essential but often overlooked component of Christ-centered preaching. The third section argues James 1:1 and 2:1 serve as the distinctly Christian foundation of the letter and contends Bryan Chapell’s concept of “grace-driven obedience” is a helpful tool to preach the gospel from James. The fourth and final section applies the “Christocentric, grace-driven” approach to James to demonstrate its viability.