Wisdom and All of Her Children

As we’ve launched into our study on James, I’ve been thinking about the Jacobite uprisings of the 18th century. The connection perhaps seems like a stretch unless you know that the name “James” is just a weirdly Anglicized version of “Jacob,” the Jacobites being supporters of the Catholic King James the II. In similar fashion, the name translated in our Bibles as “James” in the New Testament is always Iakobus in the Greek and Latin. When used in the New Testament in reference to the Old Testament patriarch, the word is translated “Jacob”, yet when used in reference to anyone living at the time of Jesus, the name is translated “James.” Presumably, when John Wycliffe translated the Bible into English in the 14th century, he translated the name Jacob as “James,” because “Jacob” sounded a bit too Jewish, and Europeans weren’t very fond of Jews at the time. When the time came for an Authorized English Bible, no one was brave enough to suggest that they might now render the name as “Jacob” when the entire project was a tribute to a King named James the I. (I half-jokingly suggested we name this sermon series Jacob: Wisdom Works, and our Senior Pastor James Holland half-jokingly had me beheaded.)This name swap seems like it’s not that big a deal until we realize what we lose when we lose a name. Here’s the first verse of the Epistle in the highly Anglicized tradition of the Authorized Version:James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ,To the twelve tribes in the Dispersion:Greetings.A strange beginning to a book you’ve been taught is mainly only important as a counter-balance to the extreme reading of Paul’s justification by grace through faith. It’s easy to ignore the general greeting as just flowery biblical language. But now here it is, brought a bit more directly into English with its Judaism intact:Jacob, a slave of the Messianic God and King Joshua.To the twelve tribes scattered like seeds:Rejoice!With the second version, you will immediately be poised to read the coming chapters with deeply Jewish implications. You may recognize that the twelve tribes scattered like seeds are the twelve tribes of Israel; are the twelve sons of Jacob. You may be relieved to hear of twelve tribes and not just the two from whom only a remnant survived exile. You may be thinking of them as seedling trees that will someday bear fruit. You may be confused to see a Jew proudly calling himself a slave, for their story is one of escaping slavery. You would then be relieved to see that he is a slave of the Messianic King who was to succeed and be a greater David; a true conquering Joshua on a Jerusalem throne. You may be floored to see a new Jacob speaking fatherly wisdom with authority to his sons scattered throughout the world, teaching them to wrestle well with God and receive his blessing. You would not be wondering about a linear order in the doctrine of salvation, because you would already be viewing these tribes as children of Abraham. And because this is written by a slave and on behalf of Joshua Messiah, you already know that they are Abraham's children by their faith and not by the works of the flesh, and that this is why there are twelve tribes, because the church under the twelve apostles is the spirit and fulfillment of what happened with the first Israel so long ago. You would therefore not be surprised to see someone like Rahab mentioned and celebrated. You would be listening, because you know that to be scattered from Jerusalem is a temporary testing and a trial, for how to live in such a condition, and for what our hope might be.- Josh