Getting Biblical in Daily Life
Christian Perspective
These four epistles were written by Christians for Christians, so they've definitely got a lot to say about what it means to believe in Jesus.
In 1 Peter, there's a verse that refers to a Christian idea known as the Harrowing of Hell: "[Jesus] also he went and made a proclamation to the spirits in prison" (1 Peter 3:19). In the Apostle's Creed (one of the mainstream statements of Christian belief used by loads of different denominations), this statement is expressed as "he descended into hell" or "he descended to the dead."
What exactly does that mean? Christians can't quite agree, but most think it has something to do with Jesus heading down to Hell after his death to rescue the souls of the faithful. Since you have to believe in Jesus to get your ticket to Heaven, that leaves holy folks from the Hebrew Bible—like Noah, Abraham, and Moses—out of luck. So the thought is that Jesus swoops down to kick the Devil's butt and spread his message and then takes along any new believers with him.
Roman Catholic Perspective
A few passages in James also give some support to the Catholic sacraments of Anointing of the Sick and Reconciliation. James says:
Are any among you sick? They should call for the elders of the church and have them pray over them, anointing them with oil in the name of the Lord[…] Anyone who has committed sins will be forgiven. Therefore confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, so that you may be healed. (James 5:14-16)
Basically, during the Anointing of the Sick, a priest does just that: he rubs small amount of oil onto a sick person's body while praying for them. Reconciliation is the same idea as in James: a person confesses their sins to a priest and they can be forgiven. (God forgives the sin through another Christian.)
Catholics also really dig James because of his thoughts on faith and works. He says:
What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you? If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, "Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill," and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead. (James 2:14-17)
That pretty much jibes with everything the Catholic Church said during the Council of Trent, the church council that was called to respond to the Protestant Reformation (which was critical of the way the Catholic Church was running things). The Church completely agreed with James: they thought that a person needed to believe in Jesus and be an overall good guy in order to get admittance into Heaven.
Protestants were not amused.
Lutheran Perspective
It's no surprise that Martin Luther really didn't care for the Epistle of James; he was much bigger into Paul's thoughts on justification (which he lays out in Romans). See, Luther thought that no matter how many good deeds you did, it wouldn't get you in God's good books if you didn't believe in him first and foremost. Just doing stuff like going to church or praying the rosary wouldn't make you holier or better—only a personal relationship with J.C. could do that.
Luther called James "an epistle of straw," and he thought that you could probably chuck it from the Bible all together and be perfectly fine (source). But today, Lutherans (and just about every other Protestant denomination that came to be as a result of the Reformation) accept James as part of the New Testament.
Sorry, Luther. Better luck next revolution.
In the end, Catholics and Lutherans had to agree that they were both kind of right. A person needed both faith and works to make God happy. In 1999, representatives from both faiths signed a declaration saying that "consensus in basic truths of the doctrine of justification exists between Lutherans and Catholics" (source).
See? Was that so hard? It only took 482 hundred years.
Mormon Perspective
Joseph Smith, the founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, claimed to receive a revelation from God after reading a passage from James 1:5: "If any of you is lacking in wisdom, ask God, who gives to all generously and ungrudgingly, and it will be given you." According to the story, Joseph Smith did ask and God and Jesus appeared to him out of the air (source). The rest is Mormon history.
Jewish Perspective
When it comes down to it, these letters are pretty darn Jewish. The authors are obviously Jews who believe that Jesus is the Jewish Messiah; they're writing to both Jews and Gentiles to share their message with them, but it's done through the lens of Jewish tradition and culture. And you better believe that they can all drop stories from the Hebrew Bible like pros:
- Genesis: "God waited patiently in the days of Noah, during the building of the ark." (1 Peter 3:20)
- Genesis: "By turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes he condemned them to extinction." (2 Peter 2:6)
- Genesis: "Was not our ancestor Abraham justified by works when he offered his son Isaac on the altar?" (James 2:21)
- Genesis: "Sarah obeyed Abraham and called him lord." (1 Peter 3:6)
- Exodus: "The Lord, who once for all saved a people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe." (Jude 1:5)
- Numbers: "They go the way of Cain, and abandon themselves to Balaam's error for the sake of gain, and perish in Korah's rebellion." (Jude 1:11)
- Joshua: "Was not Rahab the prostitute also justified by works when she welcomed the messengers and sent them out by another road?" (James 2:25)
- 1 Kings: "Elijah was a human being like us, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth." (James 5:17)
- Job: "You have heard of the endurance of Job." (James 5:11)
Jude even gets so excited that he quotes from some non-biblical Jewish books like the Book of Enoch and tells a story from The Assumption of Moses. They never made it into the Bible, but both were pretty popular with first century Jews. Yup. James, Peter, and Jude were real mensches.
Even though these guys had Jewish roots, lots of the Jews of their day didn't really agree with their interpretation of thousands of years of Jewish tradition, scripture, and teaching. Despite this, James, Peter, and Jude don't have anything too terrible to say about non-Christian Jews. Some New Testament authors (like Paul) really criticize their fellow Jews for not jumping on the Jesus bandwagon with them. These three guys, though, are more worried about slamming fellow Christians and the Roman Empire. They don't have time to take on any more fights.
Islamic Perspective
You can head on over to some of our other guides to see how Muslims interpret the New Testament. But here's something specific to these books.
The Arabic phrase insha'Allah ("if God wills") is a common saying in the Muslim world, and is also pretty close to something James wrote. The Quran says, "never say of anything, 'Indeed, I will do that tomorrow,' Except [when adding], 'If Allah wills'" (18:23-24). This passage has pretty much the same meaning as James's statement, "You ought to say, 'If the Lord wishes, we will live and do this or that'" (James 4:15).
The idea behind both verses is that God is in charge of the future, and you best recognize.