Faith and Works: How James Is a Lutheran

Aug 21, 2026

Explores the Epistle of James through a Lutheran lens, addressing why Luther called it “the epistle of straw” and how the famous line “faith without works is dead” relates to justification. Argues that reading James as a whole reveals a coherent ethical vision: trials do not signal divine malice but serve a pedagogical purpose. Shows how trials cultivate integrity, covenant faithfulness, and practical wisdom that shapes people into friends of God and one another.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryReligion & Spirituality

FormatPDF

Pages3

Reading Time8 min

AccessFree to download

Faith and Works in James

Luther’s Critique and James’ Ethical Context

Trials as God’s Good Purpose

Trials, Pedagogy, and Maturity

| | EXPOSITORY | Copyright © 2006 SAGE Publications (London, Thousand Oaks, CA, and New Delhi) | | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | | TIMES | DOI: 10.1177/001452460
[http://EXT.sagepub.com](http://EXT.sagepub.com) | 6067950 | | Faith anor, How James
Reverend Canon Ma Christ Chu
James
Ever since the protestant reformation, the book
of James has tended to get a bad press. Martin
Luther declared it ‘the epistle of straw’ and would have been glad to see it expunged from the canon. Its most famous verse – ‘faith without works is dead!’ – ran directly contrary to Luther’s teaching of justification by faith, seemed to encourage the pernicious idea that we have to merit our way into heaven. Experience convinced Luther: human nature is too corrupt for that. Our only hope lies in Divine determination to acquit us. Our part is to believe that God is for us, to trust whole-heartedly that God’s promises are true!
Personally, I find Luther’s dislike understandable. Many New Testament works exhort the believer to higher standards of Christian discipline by alternating between the carrot and the stick. Hebrews, for instance, hangs a whole gallery of pictures of the surpassing worth of Christ to motivate us. The percentage of text devoted to threats and warnings against apostacy is relatively small. Revelation dwells on blood and gore, but still manages to cheer us onward and upward with sublime visions of heavenly worship near the beginning and atthe end. Matthew cycles and re-cycles through the compassionate Emmanuel who takes all our diseases and infirmities, the exasperated teacher of spiritually obtuse disciples, and the harsh judge pronouncing end-time woes. By contrast, James can seem short on inspiration and long on scolds and accusation. His rhetorically high-flying passages do not last very long. Nevertheless, this estimate does the little book an injustice. If we take time to read the whole work in a sitting, we can put its ethical advice in context. Ironically, when we do, we find it commending faith! | | | d Works
is a Lutheran!
rilyn McCord Adams rch, Oxford
2:1–17
James’ cosmic vision begins with God: God is Good, the author of every good and perfect gift. God is the author of the goodness that creatures are, each and everyone a unique if distant reflection of the Goodness that God is. God is also the author of the helps that we receive and the benefits that we enjoy. God has made us for friendship with Godself, for harmonious living with God and one another, fora lifestyle that requires us to be peaceable and gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits.
James’ close-up picture of the churches to which he is writing foregrounds Christians in this world, experiencing trials. James’ purpose in writing is to explain what trials are for, so that we can engage them in purposeful ways. His first point is already quite Lutheran: trials are not a sign of Divine malice. God is good. God’s purposes for us are good. Divine wisdom would not undermine Its own projects. God is no sprite or devil leading us on to see whether he can trip us up!
James’ second point, his contrary interpretation, is that the purpose of trials is pedagogical, part of what it takes to rear us up into persons who can live as friends of God and one another. Friendship implies a covenant of faithfulness, a David-and-Jonathan pact to be loyal to one another through thick and thin. Loyalty demands a significant level of personal maturity: we need to have enough integrity, there has to be enough to us as persons to be capable of making promises and keeping them. We human beings are not born that way. Our capacity for it has to be evoked, shaped, built up in us by parents and teachers, friends and mentors. James insists, trials area useful tool in this educational process.
Psycho-spiritually, integrity is exactly what human newborns lack. Their experience is a booming, | Volume 117 Number 8 Pages 462–464 THE buzzing

FAQs

Why did Martin Luther dislike the Book of James?

He called it “the epistle of straw” and objected to the impression that “faith without works” undermines justification by faith.

How does the text argue James can be understood in a Lutheran way?

By reading James as a whole, it claims James commends faith and frames ethics as part of God’s good purposes rather than a way to earn divine acquittal.

What purpose do trials serve according to the discussion?

Trials are presented as pedagogical tools that help develop integrity, covenant faithfulness, and the maturity needed to live as friends of God and one another.

Aug 21, 2026

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