Feb 14 2008
It is remarkable that new documents from the apostolic age should still come to light, but I’m privileged to offer a rough first draft translation of this newly discovered personal letter from James to Peter. Unfortunately it sheds no additional light on the difficult question of relating Galatians and Acts, but does have a strangely contemporary feel.
James, brother of the Lord to our well-beloved Rock, Peter: grace to you, and peace.
I remind you, brother, of the calling the Lord Jesus gave you, to strengthen the fellowship of his followers. These are dangerous times for the church of Christ in which many are departing from the scriptures and do not care whether they keep the covenant God made with his people. They claim to follow the Spirit of God, but how can they possibly be doing so when they are going against the plain teaching of scripture? Is it not written that when “the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God”, we are to “touch no unclean thing” and “to go out from the midst”?1 Yet far from going out, they are eating and drinking together in the midst of uncircumcised sinners. How can the Spirit of the one who inspired the scriptures now be guiding people into the ways of disobedience? Is he not the Father of lights, with whom there is no shadow of change? How then can he contradict himself?
Brother, I implore you, uphold the faith and do not let the gates of Hades prevail against us. You say you will invite Saul and a group from Antioch to a conference here in Jerusalem. Will that not be seen as accepting them and their ideas? They are calling clean what God has called unclean. You yourself have been mislead by visions about this very thing. I bless the God of our ancestors that you have returned from the way of error and now no longer share the blessed meal with Gentile sinners. I must tell you in all honesty, brother, that there are those of the Way from among the Pharisees who wonder if you are not too closely associated with Saul, and have not spent too long in Antioch. Only in Antioch, it seems, could such things happen. Yet because of its power in the region it infects us all with its imperialist ways.
Even were it not for these faithful brothers of the Pharisee party, I must tell you that you have disturbed the simple faith of many. Do not forget, my friend, what the days of your fishing life were like, when your worries were simple, and you walked in the ways taught by our rabbis from the Torah. Yes, the coming of Messiah has changed all things, but I fear that we are being caught in the ways of the big city, the temptations of Babylon. Things still look different in the countryside of Galilee, our home, and in the holiness and beauty of Jerusalem, the city of our God. Here we do not have our eyes defiled and our thoughts muddled by the presence of idols.
Do not be misled by Saul. He was over-zealous when he persecuted us, and he is over-zealous now. He simply takes everything too far, and nothing in moderation. Yes, we may rejoice that the Gentiles are turning to worship the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Yes, we may rejoice that they will bring their tribute to Messiah’s feet in Jerusalem. But we don’t have to eat with them. They must be summoned to turn from idols, and submit to the covenant of circumcision. Blessed be God who has shown them mercy through the coming of our awaited Messiah.
Do not, I say, be misled by Saul, do not treat him as one equal to us, apostles of the Lord and elders of his church. Calling a conference in which he is seated as equal with us will be a disaster for the church. The Pharisees will leave us, and the simple Galileans and countryfolk will have their faith shaken. The church will fall apart. May it never be so. This proposed council will be a disaster. You were called by the Lord Jesus to be the one on whom he built his church. Do not be the rock on whom it is shipwrecked. How I wish that abortion had never travelled to Damascus. Now he takes us all on the road to disaster.
My brother, remember your calling, and may peace be with you.
Notes- Ed - James is referring to Isaiah 52:10-11 [↩]