| Text | Observations |
| JAS 1:21 Therefore putting aside all filthiness and all that remains of wickedness, in humility receive the word implanted, which is able to save your souls. | James considers salvation possible because of the implanting of the word into the hearts and souls of his hearers. |
| JAS 2:1 My brethren, do not hold your faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ with an attitude of personal favoritism. | His readers came to a point of faith in Jesus as Lord and Christ; this distinguished them from other Jews. |
| JAS 2:5 Listen, my beloved brethren: did not God choose the poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which He promised to those who love Him? | This choosing (Greek aorist tense) by God seems to point to the poverty of the earliest Christians compared to the wealthy Jewish ruling establishment. While his point is for the rich to respect the poor, he identifies faith and loving God as important distinctive traits of Christians. |
| JAS 2:14 What use is it, my brethren, if a man says he has faith, but he has no works? Can that faith save him? [15] If a brother or sister is without clothing and in need of daily food, [16] and one of you says to them, "Go in peace, be warmed and be filled," and yet you do not give them what is necessary for their body, what use is that? [17] Even so faith, if it has no works, is dead, being by itself. | While faith in Jesus as Lord and Christ is the distinctive between Christian and Jew, James says that faith cannot stop with a mere acknowledgement of the truth. True faith always results in action; true faith will be marked by the actions of those who believe. However, this does not relate to their conversion as much as their lifestyle. |
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