There is a fundamental incompatibility of holding faith in Christ and showing partiality among people — especially based off social status. Favoritism and discrimination are violations of the Kingdom law of love.

If the content of our local churches don’t move us to do something — and if there aren’t people to do those things with and hold us accountable to do them — then we’re simply deceiving ourselves!

When James says, “count it all joy… when you face various trials,” he definitely has economic distress as one of those “various trials.” So what does it mean to be “lowly” and “boast in [our] exaltation?”

We hope you’ll join us as we move our Sunday Gathering outside this coming Sunday, May 7 at 10:30 AM. And to make things even more festive, we’re following it up with a catered Picnic.

“To ask for “wisdom” is almost to ask for an ability to “endure” with the ethic of Jesus (justice (1:20), love (2:8–11), and peace (3:18)) when pressure is put on people to live otherwise.” — Scot McKnight

As we dive into the book of James, we’ll see that he is calling us to live into true wisdom that embodies Jesus’ summary of the Torah by loving God and loving our neighbor.

We can ‘count it all joy when we meet trials of various kinds’ because we know that suffering proves our faith (cf. Rom 5:2-5, 1 Pet 1:6-7) and, as James will continue to build on, suffering produces Christlikeness.

Union with Christ depicts the reality of all the ways that the Bible pictures our human connectedness to Christ, in which he is indispensable for every good that we enjoy.

Not only are we guilty… Not only are we spiritually dead… We’re under the just/right wrath of God! But Christ came to redeem!!!