It’s New Testament wisdom literature… kind of like a ‘modern’ day Book of Proverbs. The Epistle of James is a book like no other in the New Testament. But that’s one of the things that makes it so special. Some of the greatest guidance we have on Christian living comes from this collection of sayings from the pastor of the church in Jerusalem.

This is how Wikipedia describes the Epistle of James:

The epistle may not be a true piece of correspondence between specific parties, but rather an example of wisdom literature formulated as a letter for circulation. The work is considered New Testament wisdom literature because, “like Proverbs and Sirach, it consists largely of moral exhortations and precepts of a traditional and eclectic nature.” Similarly, the Catholic Encyclopedia says, “the subjects treated of in the Epistle are many and various; moreover, St. James not infrequently, whilst elucidating a certain point, passes abruptly to another, and presently resumes once more his former argument.”

We’ve got a great team of bloggers leading us through the discussion on this book:

• Mark Lafler – Contributing Editor at BibleDude.net
• Josh Gillies (@whitefrozen) – Blogger at The Outpost
• Victoria Jenkins (@BiblicalFriends) – Blogger at Biblical Friendship
• Jessica McGuire (@jezamama) – Blogger at Jezamama
• Bryant Neal – Pastor at Camak Baptist Church in Camak, GA
• Julia Swodeck (@juliakate) – Blogger at Tither of Innovation

And here’s our posting schedule:

• Introduction (Mark Lafler)
• Chapter 1 (Bryant Neal)
• Chapter 2 (Julia Swodeck)
• Chapter 3 (Victoria Jenkins)
• Chapter 4 (Josh Gillies)
• Chapter 5 (Jessica McGuire)
• Project Wordles (Dan King)

So stay tuned for some great discussion, and please feel free to jump into the comments and share your thoughts! In the meantime, here are a few things that you can do right now…

• Read the Epistle of James in it’s entirety several times. In order to best understand individual statements in James’ writing, it helps to get a good feel for the the tone of the whole book. I recommend  that you read it at least three times, once in each of the different styles of translations:
  • Literal (word-for-word) translation like NASB
  • Dynamic equivalent (thought-for-thought) translation like NIV
  • Paraphrase (free) translation like The Message
• Subscribe to updates. Get the latest posts in this series in your email inbox or favorite feed reader. This is the best way to keep up with everything!
• Tweet it up! Follow @bibledude and retweet updates from this event. If you want to share your own tweets, make sure that you use the #jamesepistle hashtag.
• Share your posts! Your contributions help make these kinds of projects really worthwhile! If you’ve written a perspective, an interpretation, a poem, or anything else about this book, then please share those links in the Simply Linked widget below.