Wisdom for Life’s Tests

1:1  The letter from James opens with a simple and direct greeting. The writer identifies himself simply as James, a servant of God. There was only one James so well known in the early church that he would need no other form of identification, and that was James the Just, brother of Jesus, leader of the church in Jerusalem. The readers are expected to recognize the name.

Yet for all his prominence and important position in the church (so important that the letter from Jude begins, “Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ and a brother of James”), the title used is very modest. He is simply a servant. It is possible that he is thinking of himself as someone like Moses, chosen of God and taken into his service (Deut. 34:5; Josh. 1:2, Num. 12:7), but more likely it simply reflec…