All Episodes
Displaying 31 - 60 of 90 in total
Episode 31: Seen, safe, soothed
We've seen how believers were giving preferential treatment to the rich and dishonoring the poor. This episode briefly explores what attachment theory and the example ...
Episode 32: The threat of punishment
What kind of father is our heavenly Father? To some of us, James 2:8-13 may sound a little threatening, with its emphasis on law and judgment. We'll need a few episode...
Episode 33: The law of love
"Love your neighbor," Jesus taught. But who is my neighbor? In this episode, we explore the relevance of Jesus' parable of the Good Samaritan for our understanding of ...
Episode 34: Blessed are the merciful
James 2:13 speaks of both judgment and mercy. This episode uses both the Lord's Prayer and Jesus' parable of the Unmerciful Servant as background to James' teaching.
Episode 35: The whole enchilada
When James teaches about the "royal law" of loving one's neighbor, he echoes the teaching of the Sermon on the Mount, in which Jesus challenges his hearers' understand...
Episode 36: Mercy versus judgment
This episode completes our examination of James 2:8-13. There's a difference between an appropriate use of "judgment" and being judgmental or relating to people throug...
Episode 37: What good is your faith?
In James 2:14-17, the apostle offers what is meant to be a ludicrous example of the failure of Christian compassion. He does this to make a point: if you say you have ...
Episode 38: Wait...say what now?
Our visual perception works in a way that we see what we expect to see, and don't see what we don't expect to see. If you read James 2:18 closely, you might be surpris...
Episode 39: Bully for you!
James 2:19 uses a bit of rhetorical sarcasm to make a point. You can claim to be faithful in a way that might be true of any self-respecting Jew. But if it doesn't sho...
Episode 40: Don’t be such a fool!
In James 2:20, the apostle calls some of his readers "senseless." But didn't Jesus teach in the Sermon on the Mount that it was wrong to call someone a fool?
Episode 41: Faith alone...or not?
Some worry when they read James 2:22-24, which uses the example of Abraham to say that we are "justified by works." Is James contradicting Paul, or the teaching of the...
Episode 42: Abraham believed God
In this episode, we go back to Genesis 22 to explore the difficult story of God's test of Abraham, when Abraham was asked to sacrifice his son, Isaac. We need this sto...
Episode 43: Scandalous faith
James uses not only Abraham as an example of faith, but Rahab, the prostitute who hid Joshua's spies in Jericho. This episode explores the implications of holding up a...
Episode 44: Not everyone should teach
We've all had good teachers and bad teachers. And apparently, a number of people in the early church wanted the status of being a teacher. But James 3:1 warns that peo...
Episode 45: Nobody’s perfect...yet
When we've made a mistake, we sometimes say that "Nobody's perfect." And indeed, James 3:2 suggests that we "all make mistakes often." But what James says is informed ...
Episode 46: Little words, big consequences
We've seen how James says we all make mistakes. That's his way of introducing the fact that we all make mistakes in how we speak to one another. In James 3:2-5, he use...
Episode 47: Please don’t pass it on
Is anyone listening to this old enough to remember the praise song Pass it On? The song lyrics taught that "It only takes a spark to get a fire going"; the song was ta...
Episode 48: Words from hell
What James teaches about the way we speak reaches a crescendo in 3:5-6: our errant tongues can set our whole lives on fire, and are set on fire by hell itself.
Episode 49: Taming the untamable
In James 3:7-8, the apostle suggests that human beings know how to tame any kind of animal, but ironically, we can't tame our tongues...
Episode 50: Changing the way we see
James has written colorfully about the evils of the tongue and its wild, untamable nature. How do we learn to control it better? James 3:9 suggests one place to start:...
Episode 51: Bearing fruit
Olives don't grow on fig trees; figs don't grow on grapevines. What James 3:11-12 teaches is once more reminiscent of the words of Jesus: "You will know them by their ...
Episode 52: Who’s really wise?
In today's world, just about anyone can have a platform to share their supposed wisdom. But who's really wise? James 3:13 suggests that true wisdom is shown in an appr...
Episode 53: What’s wrong with ambition?
It's probably not hard to imagine how people's ambitions can threaten the health of relationships. James 3:14 suggests that believers were doing things for their own g...
Episode 54: Chaos theory--church edition
James has already suggested that out-of-control tongues are "set on fire by hell." The strong language continues in James 3:15-16: compared to true wisdom, the counter...
Episode 55: Being wise, making peace
James has already spoken about true and false wisdom. In James 3:17-18, he says more about the nature of godly wisdom, and what he says is reminiscent of Paul's teachi...
Episode 56: Craving and conflict
Try to imagine what you really want when you're in the midst of an argument... James 4:1 says that the root of our external conflicts is an internal conflict: we have ...
Episode 57: Frustrated desire
More strong language. James 4:2 says that conflict comes from frustrated desire. But his words seem to suggest that Christians were actually willing to commit murder t...
Episode 58: Pretty please?
Most of us were taught to say "please" when we wanted something; without the magic word, we might not get it. James 4:2-3 seems to suggest that this might be true of p...
Episode 59: Unfaithful
James pulls no punches. He's already suggested that believers were guilty of murder. In James 4:4, he calls them "adulterers." Why?
Episode 60: What does God want?
James has already spoken of how our desires clash within us and cause us to clash with each other. James 5:4 suggests that God, too, desires something. But the verse i...