The Epistle of James is one of seven letters written by apostles other than Paul.  The other letters consist of three letters written by John, two by Peter, and one written by Jude, the brother of the Lord, and one written by James.  These letters are considered universal.  This is because they are written to the whole population of the Church and not to one specific community or person.

The canonical documents of the New Testament are books that were widely accepted by most Christian communities early in the life of the Church.  James is one such document, and although some of the documents such as Revelations or the Shepherd of Hermas were not accepted by all leaders, James generally was.

One reason for this is that the James who wrote this letter was most likely the brother of the Lord, as was Jude.  He was no doubt an individual who had personal knowledge of the Lord.  This became the requirement for being accepted into the New Testament Canon.  James was important to the early life of the church.  He is referred to in Mt. 13:55; Ac 12:17; 15:13-21; 21:18-26; 1 Co. 15:7; and Ga. 1:19; 2:9-12.  James was executed by Josephus, Hegesippus in the year 62.  At that time he was the leader of the church in Jerusalem.

The claim that he was leader of the church in Jerusalem is supported by internal evidence.  Although the letter was written in Greek, it is Jewish in origin.  “The author was familiar with the Old Testament and with the teachings of Jesus, yet his letter, though it is full of Hebraisms and makes use of parallelism and is in a didactic style that is characteristically Semitic, was obviously written in Greek.”

The letter was written to the Christian community but specifically to those Christian Jews who lived in the Palestine area.  The sources of the book used by the author are Old Testament Wisdom literature and the Gospel traditions of Jesus’ sayings that would have been present in the early Palestinian Church.

The document that is considered the book of James is more sermon than letter.  It touches on several moral themes that the first generation church considered important.  These themes included Christian behavior in times of trial, temptation, controlled speech, love thy neighbor, prayer, and anointing the sick.  The letter has two major points.  The first point is that the poor will be blessed and the rich cursed in the Kingdom of Heaven.  The second point is that faith should produce good works.  Some theologians believe that the second theme was directed at the apostle Paul.  Paul preached faith, not works, led to God’s grace.  Other theologians do not believe this is the case.  They point to the fact that although James and Paul disagreed on certain issues, they did agree on the major issues of the faith.