Romans vs James

When posed with the query, "I really have intentions to start reading the Bible again. Where is a good book to start?" I would always point to Romans. Romans is a great summation of Christian theology, written in very organized and accessible language, and its chapters flow from one logical thesis to the next. The first chapter describes humanity's moral corruption and deviation from God, the second continues on to explain the law that delineates between holy and unholy and the condemnation under which we stand, and the rest of the book goes through the arguments of whether Jewishness is of spiritual import, the exemplification of godly faith by Abraham the patriarch, the explication of God's provision and our redemption through Jesus Christ, the exhortation to live transformed and righteous lives as new believers, our obligation and indebtedness to God's divine law, the explanation of the great hope we have in God's salvation, and the call to bring the gospel to the Jews and to the nations. In fact, most evangelical Christian literature follows a similar model: describe God's perfection and creationist relationship with man, demonstrate man's sin and corruption, show Jesus as the hope and assurance of salvation, and give counsel to lead transformed and missional lives in response to the gospel truth. Romans is overall an excellent read for establishing the basics about sin, the law, salvation, grace, and the relationship between God, Jesus, me, and you.

For the advanced subscriber to the gospel of Christ, I've recently decided to point to the book of James. Once upon a time, I was pretty dismissive of James because here was my understanding of the epistle:

Chapter 1, be persevering under trials, check.
Chapter 2, faith without works is dead, understood.
Chapter 3, no man can tame the tongue, simple concept.
Chapter 4, be nice and humble and peacemakers, okay.
Chapter 5, be patient for the Lord's coming and pray a lot, got it.

It's not that I oversimplified the text, although that certainly is true of most of my literary distillations. James is not a difficult or abstruse read. It lacks the bizarre prophecies, scriptural cross-references, or theological nuances that are more replete in a lot of other New Testament books. James is, to the casual reader, an easy book.

But the more I've progressed in my pursuit of Christ, the more I am convinced that this Christian life and our approach to scripture is not based in conceptual understanding. It is a benchmark of maturity for Christians that they progress from being able to read and interpret the Bible on an intellectual level to becoming the people that exemplify the better parts of God-inspired character. The first time you read James 1, you might read it like I read Proverbs: good wisdom, good advice for living so that we can all play nicely with each other. But the next time you read James 1, maybe you'll consider Jesus dying so that we could shrug off the shackles of sin, the dregs of our very nature, and become one with God and become like Him in righteousness, and you'll be humbled by the sort of person you are supposed to be: a person who welcomes trials and difficulties with joy in his heart, a person who takes pride in his humble circumstances knowing that he is where God wants him, a person who perseveres patiently through harsh circumstance spurred onward by an eternal perspective, a person who is quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to anger, a person who keeps a tight rein on his tongue, a person who looks out for widows and orphans and keeps himself pure. And that's only the first chapter, succeeded by the chapter that tells you that faith without substantiating works is in vain.

If you read that passage not with the goal of conceptual understanding, (check, I've got this passage down) but with perspective on the sort of person you are and the sort of Christ-like nature God expects of His servants, it is utterly humbling and transforming, and you come to an awestruck understanding that only through God's grace and the transforming work of the Holy Spirit will you become anything like that because it's not in our nature. You come to appreciate that Jesus modeled this righteousness to unfettered perfection. You draw closer to God's heart.

Romans is a good book for the head. James is a good book for the heart. As Peekay would say, first with the head, and then with the heart. Ecclesiastes is probably Level III.