Profound and Sometimes Preposterous Ponderings of Pete

An excellent question was raised by my good friend and fellow student of the Bible, His Reverend Eminence, Pastor Kelly VanArsdol (sorry brother, I couldn't resist 😁). He asked, "How do you frame this letter to an application to Gentiles since the original audience seems to be a Jewish reader with the 12 tribes? Does it change any of your interpretation or impact any applications?" My response to his question was - "I would start by quoting Galatians 3:28 There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. That being said, the letter was originally written to the 12 tribes who were being persecuted but only those who were believers. The interpretation remains. It is timeless, and applicable to all who believe. Christ said we will suffer for His name sake and James tells us how to behave when suffering as well as when our faith is tested. Our faith gets tested regardless of who we were before Ch

     Background: There are 66 books in the Bible. 39 in the Old Testament and 27 in the new Testament.   James is the 20 th book of the New Testament and falls between the books of Hebrews and 1 Peter. The author, is generally thought to be Jesus’s brother. There has been some discussion of he being another James (Jesus’s cousin via Mary wife of Clopas mother of James and Joses).   There has been discussion also that he, Jesus’ brother, was not educated enough to write the letter.   This would give support to an amanuensis, or scribe who wrote the letter but was dictated to by James. The letter was written in about 69-70 AD (possibly 62 AD) so it could not have been the apostle James who was martyred in 44 AD. There is also some speculation that his amanuensis wrote it after James’ death.   In any case, it was written primarily to the Jewish believers (see vs 1) being persecuted and probably before the Roman oppression against all Christians.   James was the leader of the church in Je

 I have been re-reading the book of Romans in the Holy Bible. There is a word that occurs 14 times that God has brought to my attention.  The word is "hope."  When God, through His Holy Spirit brings a word to my attention, I research it.  Like all Bible scholars, and wannabes (me), I went to the Greek. The word used for hope, in the Greek, is "elpida, elpidi," et.al.  This word is also translated as expected or expectation. So I contemplated (picture me in an Alistair Cooke setting, LOL) the application of the word hope.  Hope can be anything from hoping for an A on a test, a Lamborghini, a kiss, a healing, a new job, etc. But hope, as the apostle Paul meant in his epistles, was that of expectation.  Not just the hope of a maybe, but the expectation of a promise to be fulfilled.  A hope that requires faith. Faith that says not just something to which we look forward, but a trust and belief that allows you to EXPECT that it will be fulfilled.  Please don't mista