being in what I would, a traditional exercise where we just go through, go through book by book or verse by verse and that kind of thing. I tried to kind of talk about the events surrounding James and during that period of time in the Bible, then I had just gone through James verse by verse. especially with James. So if you recall back, I don't know, a couple, three lessons ago, I talked a little bit about Canaanite woman in Matthew chapter 15, had a daughter that was ill and basically Jesus more or less told her he couldn't help her because she wasn't a Jew. That's a loose translation of what he said. I kind of described her as the only woman in the Bible who out-talked Jesus, because he eventually just said, O woman, great is thy faith, be it unto thee even as thou wilt. And that brings to mind a joke that I heard. A man and a woman had been married for quite some time, They were driving through the country and they'd been fighting over something and been silent for a long time. They were going by a field and a farm and they had a bunch of farming. You know, some of the dumbest farming, chicken and goats and sheep and that kind of thing. And he looked over to them and he said, relatives of yours? She said, yeah, my in-laws. Think about it. Billy? All right. Yes. Bill is at the Willows at Fritz's Farm. Do what? Bill is at the Willows at Fritz's Farm, which is the sun. The Willows at Fritz's Farm. So we started this sort of trying to nail down exactly when James, or which James, wrote this book. And if you remember, there were three James. There was James, the son of Zebedee, who was the brother of John. And we pretty much figured out he didn't do it, because he was executed early on by Herod. And there's another James, whose father, they kind of identify these by their father, and I can't remember exactly who his father was. And then there was James, who was the half-brother of Jesus. And we kind of concluded that he was, a man of influence with the church at Jerusalem, and that he, in all likelihood, is the James that wrote the book of James. We also established that James is a book that appears to be in conflict with Paul's letters, and the entire concept of grace without the law, and taken on its face, that is absolutely true, because there are some passages in James that are directed about being justified by faith and faith only, but that's why it's so important to study the context of James. You know, context will often resolve conflict, and I think that's exactly what happens in the book of James. You know what it says, but you gotta know who it was written to, when it was written, and what it means, and hopefully I've shed some light on that in this study. We also talked about the importance of dates, and understanding the sequence of events that occurred in that period of time between the death of Jesus, which was around 28 or 29 AD, and 70 AD when the Romans finally took control of Jerusalem and basically burned it to the ground. And at that point in time, the Jewish nation for all practical purposes ceased to exist as a nation. They were dispersed all, a bunch of them were killed, and they were dispersed to the four corners of the world. In that 40 or so year or period of time between the death of Jesus in 70 AD, I think is one of the most dynamic periods of time in human history, and certainly in Christianity. If you think about it, Jesus was crucified, he's raised from the dead, He hangs around for 40 days and then he ascends into heaven. He does it right in front of the disciples, so there's actually no question or no doubt in their mind as to what they saw. You know, it's one thing to hear about something that happened, but it's another thing altogether when you see it with your own eyes. And that's exactly what they did. They saw Jesus rise into the heavens and disappear in a cloud. And so they know what they saw. There's no mistake about it. and they knew that without a doubt he had died, they knew that he was buried, and they knew without a doubt that he had risen from the grave and had risen into the heavens. They saw every bit of it with their own eyes. So it's also during this 40-year time period, roughly 40 years, that the entire New Testament is written, perhaps with the exception of John, which there's a little bit of controversy. You know, tradition has it John's writings were much later in the late 80s and 90s. There are some that think some of his writings were earlier than that, but anyway, most of all of Paul's letters were written during that period of time, and all the other New Testament books were written during that period of time, like I say, perhaps with the exception of John. So the Jews' role in history, in the history of Christianity, was fulfilled during that period of time as well. Now, don't misunderstand what I'm saying. God is not done with the Jews. But from 2000, roughly the year 4000, I guess, 2000 BC, which is when roughly when God's promises were made to Abraham, that was the birth of the Jews. That's when the whole thing started until the birth of Jesus was approximately 2,000 years. And I think I emphasize the point that without the Jews, there's no Bible. They wrote every single book of the Bible. And so, we sometimes tend to dismiss the Jewish nation as, I don't know, people have varying degrees of attitude toward the Jewish people, but we need to remember that without them, there would not be a Bible. not the Old Testament, not the New Testament. And they're not going to rise to prominence again on the world stage until the second coming of Jesus. And so I think all those things are important. So Jesus ascends into heaven 10 days later, after that we have Pentecost, we know that the Pentecost is 50 days after Passover. We know that Jesus was crucified on the Passover. So 50 days after that, the disciples, Pentecost happens, the disciples are filled with the Holy Spirit and their ministry begins. And they are preaching what is often referred to as the kingdom gospel. which is believe in Jesus Christ as the Messiah, repent, be baptized for the forgiveness of sin, and of course at Pentecost for the receiving of the Holy Spirit. But it's important to know that this is not the same gospel that Paul preached. But none of them knew about Paul's gospel at that point, because it hadn't happened yet. It hadn't been revealed to Paul. That doesn't happen, you know, the disciples started preaching in either 29 or 30 AD, and Paul's conversion took place probably about six or seven years after that. So, you know, you can't go back and say, well, they should have been preaching the same thing, because what Jesus revealed to Paul, After his conversion, he spent three years in Arabia, which often say three years in the desert. There's a reason why throughout the New Testament, Paul refers to what he preaches as mysteries. They were mysteries because up until that time, they had not been revealed. All these Jews knew, all James knew, was the law, and didn't know anything about the grace. He didn't know anything about the death, I mean, he knew Jesus had died, but you won't see him talking about the death, burial, and resurrection anywhere in the book. And so, there's a three or four year period there after Pentecost when the number of believers grow pretty rapidly. but also the hostility of the Jewish leaders is growing as well. They don't particularly like what's going on. So one of the facts about Jesus' ministry that I think is often overlooked in mainstream Christianity is that the Jews, all the way from about 1500 BC, which is when the law was given to them, As you all can tell, I'm a date guy. I like these dates because to me, I don't know, it just makes things make more sense to me if you understand the dates. So Abraham was approached by God in about 2000. It's about 500 years later. So there had to be a period of time, there were two or three generations from Abraham until it was Jacob, from Jacob the father of Joseph. until Jacob and his family went into Egypt. And then there was 400 years after that. So it was about 500 years after God first approached Abraham that the Jews left Egypt and they went as a family of seven. As you recall, they left as a nation of two or three men. And you know, that 400 year period doesn't sound like much in the Bible. But if you think about it, Pilgrims came to the United States about 400 years ago, and look where we are. So to say that there were two or three million Jews that left Egypt in the accident, or when Moses led them out of captivity, is not at all a stretch, and some people would think that it was. And one thing that is important to remember, and I think this is the point I was trying to make, where it's often overlooked in mainstream Christianity, And that is that the Jews were never instructed by God to share God with the Gentiles, never. In fact, they avoided, like the plague, they avoided having anything to do with the Gentiles. And the thing I think that is so often overlooked is this was true during the minutes Well, I do think Jesus came to evangelize the world, and that's not the truth. He came to give the Jews an opportunity to believe that he was the Messiah. And that was during his entire three-year ministry. He was not there to convert the world to Christianity. And I think this is a critical piece of information when it comes to interpreting the Bible and particularly even the four Gospels. If you know that when you're reading the four Gospels, there's a lot of things that take on a totally different meaning than if you think that Jesus was just trying to convert everybody that came within the sound of his voice. So we got all this going on with the disciple preaching, the Jewish leaders are getting more and more hostile toward them, and then it more or less reaches a boiling point with the sowing of Stephen, And that occurs around 33 or 34 AD. So about four years, disciples have been preaching, obviously they've seen all this stuff, they've gone through this thing with Pentecost where the Holy Spirit comes down and loud wind and noise and that kind of thing. And so, you can just imagine, they're pretty enthusiastic about what they're doing because they've seen this stuff. And how different would our, witness or ministry be if all that kind of thing happened right here. You know, you think you'd have a little bit different attitude than you have right now, I'm pretty sure you would. And so, it more or less reaches a boiling point now with Stone and Stephen, which happens about 34 AD, and that event ushers in this situation that Paul writes about, in Romans 11, 25, when he says that blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles be come in. So keep in mind that 34, the Gentiles weren't even in the picture. Paul hadn't even been converted yet. Paul is standing over under tree, holding the coats of all these young guys that are throwing rocks at Stephen. So he's not even converted yet, but, He soon will be, and the traditional belief is that with the stoning of Stephen, God pretty much shut the window of opportunity for the Jews as a nation to believe that Jesus was the Messiah. That doesn't mean that individual Jews couldn't believe, but as a nation as a whole, that door was closed. So there's some key points that I want to review, and I think this is information that's critical to understanding the book of James. Based on all the available information, James was most likely the first book of the New Testament written. It was written before the four gospels, written before any of Paul's letters, and it was probably written around 45 B.C. The writer, if we said, was James, the half-brother of Jesus, And the date is important because it means that James had nothing but the Old Testament to go by. He didn't have any of the books of the New Testament, because it hadn't been written yet. Only the Old Testament was available. All these people were making history, but they weren't writing about it just yet. So, and you know, there's some, Lack of agreement on exactly when James was written. The earliest date that I've heard is 37 A.D., and the latest I've heard is around 45 A.D., so somewhere in that timeframe, James wrote the book of James. If it was the earliest date of 37, that's important because that means Paul hadn't even started preaching yet. It was about 37 A.D. that Paul was taken into the desert by Jesus, and he spent three years there. If it was the later date, then Paul may have been preaching by that time, but James may or may not have even heard about it. And we don't know how seriously he would have taken it. So at the time of the writing of James, James, it's obvious that he's sticking to the historical version of God's relationship with mankind, and that is Jews and Jews only. Tradition has it that James was thrown from the pinnacle of the temple Stoned, and then stoned, after he failed to fall, didn't kill him, stoned to death, and some guy came down and hit him in the hip with a plug. That caused his death. I don't know how accurate that is, but that's a traditional story. All the New Testament writers, maybe with the exception of John, believed that the second coming of Jesus was gonna happen during their lifetime. They knew something of the terrible events of the tribulation, excuse me. They knew Jesus was gonna come again, but they didn't know when it was gonna be. They thought it was gonna be within their lifetime. They had no idea it was gonna be 2,000 years. We talked about Paul writing in the present tense when he wrote about the rapture in 1 Thessalonians 4, 17. Then we which are alive, notice he uses the word we, not someday you, but we, which are alive and remain, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so shall we ever be with the Lord. Same thing with Peter when he writes in 1 Peter 4, 7, but the end of all things is at hand. Be ye therefore sober and watch and pray. So these guys were expecting more to come just in time. It's only when you get to the last days of Paul's life, and Peter's as well, that each of them realize that they're gonna die and they're not gonna see the second coming of Jesus. Paul writes in 2 Timothy 4-6, and 2 Timothy is believed to be his last book, or his last letter. Paul writes, for I am now ready to be offered in the time that my departure is at hand. It's only in his last little bit that he realized, hey, it's not gonna happen during the Old Testament. We talked some about how the Old Testament prophecies, you know, there are many, as you guys know, there are many, many prophecies in the Old Testament. And we also know that from studying the Bible and as a Bible believer, that if there is a prophecy in the Old Testament, it's gonna happen. And most of them have already happened. Now obviously, all those prophecies regarding the tribulation and the thousand year reign of Jesus, none of that's happened yet. But we talked about, and there's nothing in there that suggests that there's gonna be this 2,000 year gap between the first and the second coming of Jesus, just not in there. We did have a talk about one scripture in Hosea that I think everybody's kind of interested in. It's Hosea 5.15, which says, I will go and return to my place till they acknowledge their offense. So go and return to my place. That's Jesus going back to heaven. That's happened. Till they acknowledge their offense and seek my face. In their affliction, they will seek me early. Moving on to chapter six, verse one and two. It says, come and let us return to the Lord for he has torn and he will heal us. He has smitten and he will bind us up. After two days, he will revive us. In the third day, he will raise us up and we shall live in his sight. So that two days, we also talk about Scripture in 2 Peter 3, verses eight and nine, where Peter wrote that with the Lord a day is a thousand years. He writes, but beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord is a thousand years, and a thousand years is one day. So if you apply that to that scripture in Hosea, basically he's saying after two days, after 2,000 years, he will bind us up, And a third day, the third 1,000 years will be the 1,000 year kingdom. You can make of that what you will. Of course, I guess you could argue that that's subject to interpretation, but that seems to be pretty profound to me. We may very well be drawn to the close of that 2,000 year kingdom. depends on what the, if it's exactly 2,000 years, it depends on what anniversary date God wants to use. You know, whether it's slamming the door on the Jews, which would be about 33. Well, that would happen about 10 years from now. You know, Jerusalem getting destroyed in 70 AD. There's a lot of dates in there. And of course, you know, there's a subtle hint from Paul in Romans 11, 25, when he writes, for I would not rather that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own conceits. That blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles had come in. So, you know, he said, look, this is not gonna happen until the fullness of the Gentiles. Nobody knew exactly what that meant or how long that's gonna take. And obviously we've been in that period for 2,000 years now. So we're at 2,000 years in Poland, but it does suggest that there's going to be a period of time in which Israel will be blind. So it's important to understand that James was written to Jews scattered throughout Asia, probably in what we would think of as modern-day Turkey. And that's obvious in James 1.1 when he says, James, a servant of God, Lord Jesus Christ to the 12 tribes which are scattered abroad. You know, it was not written to Gentiles, which means it wasn't written to Gentiles then, and it wasn't written to Gentiles today. We can study it, we can try to understand the context and the timing, but if we attempt to compare it to Paul's writings, you're gonna run into what appears to be a pretty significant conflict of the scriptures. So it was written to Jews, and this is the part I think, if nothing else, you remember this about James. It was written to Jews who were still under the law, who believed that Jesus was the Messiah. That's it. They did not believe in the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus for the forgiveness of our sins. That was not on their radar. They believed that Jesus was the Messiah. They believed the kingdom gospel, but not necessarily Paul's gospel of grace. Does that mean they weren't saved? No, that's not what I'm saying. They believed a different gospel. They know nothing of the church. None of the church doctrine introduced by Paul. They know nothing of the body of Christ. They don't know anything. It's just, it's not there yet. So, It's interesting that James only mentions Jesus Christ twice in the entire book of James. And that's almost just in passing. In James 1.1 and James 2.1, he mentions Jesus, but it's not, you know, not in the sense that Jesus is their savior or any of that kind of stuff. It's just kind of in passing. It's important also to understand that the Jews that he's writing to believe and think that they are still under the law. And they believe that they're gonna have to suffer through the tribulation. I think those are two very important facts in understanding the Book of James. He's writing to Jews who are under the law. They don't, you know, the idea of not being under the law would be completely foreign to them. And they believe that tribulations are gonna occur. Likewise, in the Book of James, you don't find any reference to the Holy Spirit. which is such an integral part of Paul's writings. You don't find any of that in James. There's a reference to the human spirit. In James 2, 26, he says, for the body without the spirit is dead. He's not talking about the Holy Spirit, he's talking about the spirit that we all have within us. And James 4, 5 does the same thing. Do you think that the scripture saith in vain, the spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy? So he's clearly referring to this general spirit of life that's within every person. He's not talking about the Holy Spirit that's in the same man whose spirit is in union with God. That's not what he's talking about. You know, Paul, on the other hand, talks about the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Romans 8, verses 26 and 27, Paul writes, likewise, the spirit also helpeth their infirmities, Well, we know not what we should pray for as well, but the Spirit itself and the Spirit, every time you see that in Paul's writings, it's capitalized. It's not capitalized in James' writings, so that gives you a little context there. But the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groans which cannot be uttered, and he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God. You do not find anything like this in the book of James. We talked a little bit about the Jerusalem Council and the importance of that. So, and again, the timing of that becomes important, but the first Jerusalem Council, and that's, you can read about that in Acts chapter 15, and that's thought to have taken place only three, four, five years after the Book of James was written, I think, Generally, the Jerusalem Council was in 50 AD. So what is that? What's the importance of that? Well, so Paul, you know his story. He was converted. He went into the wilderness or the desert for three years where he was personally taught by Jesus Christ. And this mystery of the gospel of grace, the gospel of grace and belief, faith in Jesus Christ, independent of works, was revealed to him. And only at that point in time, let me put it that another way, up until that point in time, that had not been revealed to any human being. That was brand new on the planet. And so that was revealed to Paul. So Paul, obviously with that knowledge, is out preaching, to the Gentiles, and so he's preaching his justified faith, you're not under the law anymore. And people, these Jews from Jerusalem are coming along behind Paul and basically teaching that if you didn't follow the law of Moses, you couldn't be saved. So it's in direct conflict to what Paul is teaching. And Acts 15 one says that certain men, which came down from Judea, taught the brethren that except he be circumcised after the man of Moses, he cannot be saved. So, that's directly contrary to what Paul's teaching, so Paul's had enough of it. He and Barnabas go to Jerusalem to defend their ministry. And he testifies before the council, and the council, incidentally, is led by James, the same James that wrote the book of James. And he's the one that announces the decision of the council. And he's sometimes known throughout history as James the Just. There's a James, I think, James the Small. Or maybe, huh? James the Less. Yeah, James the Less and James the Just. So it's probably a Catholic thing, putting those labels on. So they go to Jerusalem, they present their case. Now keep in mind, another important thing that's happened by this time is about 10 years after Pentecost, Peter is sent to the house of Cornelius, who's a Gentile. And you recall those scriptures, he had a vision, men came and said, and he went and preached the gospel to the house of Cornelius, who was a Gentile. Now, and that was against everything that Peter knew and had been taught up until that point. So anyway, they go present their case and James is the one that announces the decision And in Acts 15 verses 19 through 20, we see his judgment, the judgment of the council, and that reads as follows. Wherefore my sentence is that we trouble not them which from among the Gentiles are turned to God. So basically he's saying, okay, we're gonna leave them alone. We're gonna let you do it your way to the Gentiles. But that we write unto them, and now he's gonna, even though he's saying Paul, You know, Paul says that all things are permissible, maybe not everything profitable, but everything is permissible. But James, he puts a few conditions on there. So he says, but we write unto them that they abstain from pollution of idols, and from fornication, and from things strangled, and from blood. So his decision is okay, you can preach gospel to these people, They don't have to follow the law, but they do have a few rules they're gonna follow, and that's what they were. So you can see how just a little bit of legalism creeps into his decision, even though he's saying it's okay, Paul, it's okay for you to do this. So if you understand that James has written, in all probability, before any of this took place, it all fits together perfectly. It does not establish that believing Jews don't have to follow the law. You won't find that in the book of James, only the Gentiles. None of the original 11 disciples ever teach, that I'm aware of, that they are no longer under the law. And I think that's an important thing. Everybody thinks that once Paul got it, everybody got it. That's not the case, especially the 11 disciples. James was an advocate of religion, which he went to the trouble of defining. In James 1, 27, pure religion and undefiable for God, and the Father is this, to visit the followers and widows in their affliction, and keep themselves from spawning from the world. So James is a proponent of a mixture of faith and works. We talked about how religion is probably one of world full of people out there who think that if they practice religion of some kind that that's what they need to do in order to stay in God's good graces. And we know better than that. Religion is one of the favorite tools of Satan. He's got a lot of people out there thinking if they could just go through life, be a good person, do good deeds, just be a nice guy, treat everybody good, that a loving God is not going to send a good person like that I think it's one of Satan's favorite receptions in this world. And it is, yeah, it's okay. Just go be a good guy, be a good guy, treat everybody good, and God will take care of you. Not so. It takes more than that. So, James has been interesting. I've learned a lot. That's all I got. Anybody got any questions? Comments, rebuttals? I have a question. We can't take questions from here. I'm sorry. No, go ahead. You can't what? No, I'm kidding. What was the question? In 1850, when the Jerusalem Council met and James gave the verdict, Yeah. Was he just given permission for Paul to teach that to the Gentiles, or was he given permission for him to teach it to anybody? Well, Paul taught it to the Jews as well. I know James said- I think James was given permission to teach that to the Gentiles. who never once thought that Jews were not under the law, only Gentiles. Does that answer your question? Yes, sir. Hey, I've got an update on Shelley. Hello. Okay. Yeah, update on Shelley. The good news is she's going to live. She's got she's got a sinus infection. So I got her medicine. She's home. And great job tonight. Thank you, sir. So good news. Good news.