Book of James

As a child, my youngest daughter almost never got into trouble. Her mother thought she was very good. I thought she was sneaky. We were both partly right and partly wrong. She was good and sneaky, but she was also wise. They say experience is the best teacher. The wise person can learn from the experience of others. My daughter was watching her two older sisters, and she was learning. She learned what got them into trouble and she learned what they could get away with.

The author of the book of James wrote in educated Greek. What he wrote however was not Greek in nature. It was a common form of Hebrew literature called wisdom literature. Proverbs is perhaps the best known of this type of literature. Wisdom literature is a collection of thoughts of wisdom. It is a recording of what wise men have learned by studying the world and the people around them. Wisdom literature does not give us promises it gives us probabilities. A wise man will tell you that if you drive extremely fast you will get a ticket. That is not a promise; it is a very likely probability. Wisdom literature gives us guidelines not guarantees. A wise man will tell you that you should drive carefully to avoid a wreck. This is guidance, and it is very wise. It is not a guarantee that driving carefully will keep you from ever having a wreck.

It would be nice if every person were wise. We know that this is not the case. Many people are foolish. They seldom learn from their own experiences, and never from the experiences of others. A foolish person makes the same mistakes repeatedly. Not everyone can be wise, but everyone can choose to learn from the wise. If we allow the teachings of James to guide us, we will make wiser choices. We cannot all be wise, but we can learn to act wisely.