By David Wyant
The accuracy of the interpretation of any Biblical text is greatly increased by the correct identification of the author’s audience. Misrepresentation of the author’s audience virtually guarantees the misinterpretation of his text because the author’s audience influences his purpose for writing. The characterization of the spiritual status of the recipients of the Epistle of James has major implications for its interpretation. Determining whether James wrote to an audience that consisted exclusively of believers or to a mixed multitude of believers and unbelievers is a crucial interpretive decision. This article will argue that the titles James used to address his audience, particularly the epithet “brethren,” indicate that his readership consisted exclusively of born-again believers.
One of the major problems with contemporary popular and scholarly interpretations of the Epistle of James is the misrepresentation of James’s audience as a mixed multitude of regenerate and unregenerate people. Princeton Theological Seminary professor Dale C. Allison Jr. claims “James does not speak to an exclusively Christian audience.”i His view is that the epistle was written to a spiritually mixed audience comprising those who believed in Jesus as the Messiah and those who did not. This conclusion opens the door to an interpretation of James that views it as a collection of tests of salvation.
This is exactly what popular pastor John MacArthur does by outlining the Book of James “around a series of tests by which the genuineness of a person’s faith may be measured”.ii According to MacArthur, the Book of James contains twelve tests that determine whether a professing Christian has genuine saving faith or is a false convert. The members of James’s audience must examine themselves against the bar of these twelve tests of saving faith in order to determine whether their conversion was genuine. Despite MacArthur’s explicit statement in the introduction to his commentary that James was written to Jewish believers, he makes several statements in the main body of his commentary that clearly accuse members of James’s audience of being false converts.iii
However, Zane Hodges counterclaims that James was written to an audience consisting exclusively of born-again believers. He rejects both the notion that James wrote to question the authenticity of his readers’ conversions and the accusation that those who fail these highly subjective tests are unbelievers. He acknowledges the significance of correctly characterizing the spiritual status of James’s audience as born-again believers:
Even a superficial reading of James 1:2-18 shows that the author regards his readers as Christians. It may be said that nowhere in the letter—not even in 2:14-26!—does he betray the slightest doubt that those in his audience are truly his brothers and sisters in the Lord. If we do not observe this simple and obvious fact, we may fall into a quagmire of skewed interpretations, just as so many expositors of James have actually done.iv
There are various ways to substantiate Hodges’s view that James wrote exclusively to believers. One method of demonstrating the truth of this important conclusion is by examining the titles that James himself used to describe his readers.
After the letter’s salutation, James began the body of his letter by affectionately addressing his audience as “My brethren” (James 1:2, NKJV). The Greek word adelphos, meaning “brother,” conveys a close, familial relationship. Within the five chapters of his letter, James used this term of endearment a grand total of nineteen times to describe his readership (1:2, 9, 16, 19; 2:1, 5, 14, 15; 3:1, 10, 12; 4:11; 5:7, 9, 10, 12, 19). Reading each and every one of these nineteen references reveals the significance of this word in James. In the first occurrence of the term “brethren” (1:2), he prefaced it with the first-person possessive personal pronoun “my.” James used this expanded epithet “my brethren” five times in four of the five chapters of his letter (1:2; 2:14; 3:1; 3:12; 5:12). To this expanded epithet, James appended another appellation, “beloved”, identifying the recipients of his letter as “my beloved brethren” three times (1:16, 19; 2:5). James addressed his audience as “brethren,” “my brethren,” and “my beloved brethren” to affectionately and definitively identify himself with his audience. James addressed his readers as brethren because they shared a common spiritual identity that united them as a family.
James identified their common spiritual identity in 1:1,8 “Of His own will He brought us forth by the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of His creatures.” The English clause “He brought us forth” translates the Greek word apokueō, which means “to give birth to.” This is the language of regeneration (John 3:3). James believed that Jesus was the Messiah, placing him in the family of God as a child of God (John 1:12-13). In James 1:18, James affirmed that his readers were also children of God in the family of God by using the first-person plural personal pronouns us and we. These plural pronouns convey the fact that James knew that his readers had also believed that Jesus was the Messiah and had, in fact, been born again (John 3:3,16). Since they were members of the same spiritual family, James referred to them as brothers. In other words, James wrote exclusively to those who were born-again believers.
James used the phrase “my brethren” in a verse that clearly indicates that his readers were regenerate. He implored his readers: “My brethren, do not hold the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory with partiality,” (James 2:1, NKJV). This verse conveys the fact that James’s readers had placed their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ (Eph 2:8-9). As believers and “brethren,” they were not to show partiality amongst one another. James used the singular pronoun my and the plural pronoun our to affirm that all his readers, like himself, were children in God’s family, making them, by nature of their new birth, brothers and sisters in Christ.v Therefore, James wrote exclusively to an audience of believers.
James used the title “brethren” in another verse that confirms that his readers were believers. He exhorted his audience to “be patient, brethren, until the coming of the Lord” (James 5:7a, NKJV). In this verse, James used the Greek word parousia, meaning “coming, presence, advent,” to describe the return of the Savior. The return of our glorious Lord Jesus Christ is the blessed hope of all believers (Titus 2:13). Although it does not come through in translation, the command that James issued to his readers to “be patient” is a second-person plural imperative. If James had been a southerner, he would have said, “All y’all be patient!” James used the second-person plural imperative to address his entire audience as believers. As his brethren, they, too, were waiting for the Lord Jesus Christ to return. James wrote exclusively to an audience of people who possessed this blessed hope (John 14:23).
The evidence is overwhelming. James’s readers were regenerate.
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David Wyant is the pastor of Bethel Church of the Brethren in New Middletown, OH, an adjunct professor at SES and GES Seminary, and a part-time hospital chaplain. He has a PhD in Biblical Studies from Baptist Bible Seminary and an MDiv from Moody Theological Seminary. He lives with his wife, Lynn, and their cat, Pixi, in Youngstown, OH.
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i Dale C. Allison, Jr., “The Fiction of James and Its ‘Sitz Im Leben,’” Revue Biblique 108, no. 4 (2001): 569.
ii John MacArthur, The MacArthur Bible Commentary: Unleashing God’s Truth, One Verse at a Time (Nashville, Tenn.: Thomas Nelson, 2005), 1880.
iii “The recipients of this book were Jewish believers who had been dispersed…” (MacArthur, 1879). “James has in view professing Christians, outwardly associated with the church, but holding a deep affection for the evil world system…. Those with a deep and intimate longing for the things of the world give evidence that they are not redeemed.” (MacArthur, 1892-3). “…those who live in worldly lusts give evidence that their faith is not genuine.” (MacArthur, 1893). “…and sinners (a term used only for unbelievers; see note on 5:20) who would approach Him must recognize and confess their sin.” (MacArthur, 1893). “The ‘death’ in view is not physical death, but eternal death—eternal separation from God and eternal punishment in hell.” (MacArthur, 1898).
iv Zane C. Hodges, The Epistle of James: Proven Character Through Testing, ed. Arthur L. Farstad and Robert N. Wilkin, The Grace New Testament Commentary (1994; Corinth, TX: Grace Evangelical Society, 2015), 18.
v In James 2:1, rather than “the faith,” the NASB translates the Greek article as a possessive pronoun, “your faith.” This is a legitimate translation of the Greek article that further solidifies the regenerate status of James’s audience.
