The small, fast paced and pushy Epistle of James has been quite the instigator over the centuries. It was debated often in the early church, irritated the eminent protestant reformer Martin Luther and has encouraged and built up the lives of believers in every age. Many of its teachings are quite well know. Consider this short list all coming from the first chapter of the book of James:

• Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds...
• Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights...
• Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger...
• But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves...
• Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world...

Passages like this and many others throughout the book have made it one of the most memorable and impactful portions of scripture in the Holy Bible. James is strong medicine. He doesn't play around. He comes to life with an agenda that we might follow Jesus and build our lives on his teaching. James gives no room for being a pretend or play Christian. He demands the real deal from us as followers of the risen Christ.

Theologians such as John Frame of Reformed Theological Seminary have taught us about the tripartite nature of the truth of the Word of God. It has a normative aspect and teaches us what we ought to believe about God and ourselves. It has a situational aspect in that the Scriptures teach and impact us individually and communally in each of our lives. Finally, it has an existential and ethical aspect in that it prescribes for us the paths we should walk and the way we should live. James is an ethical book in that he says to us "this is the way to go now walk therein." As such, James is immensely practical and on the ground in real life with us.

This year at Jacobs Well we have looked at the normative truths of the Gospel. Who Jesus is and what he has done for his people. These truths are objective and the most real reality that there is. We have also briefly traveled in how truth about God should actually transform us. The situational aspect of the gospel is that it sanctifies and makes us holy. It impacts our own story uniquely. We now arrive to James to look at the ethical aspect of life in Christ: walking the walk, living out the talk.

Join us in the first half of 2014 as we seek to BUILD. Build our lives, our relationships, our families, our communities, our church and our mission on the teaching of Jesus as articulated in the book of James.