James 2:14-26

Faith is a Verb (2009) (9" x 12")

collage on paper



One confusing issue for many Christians is the seeming discrepancy between James and Paul concerning the question of faith versus works. This is especially true since both authors use Abraham as a prime example to prove their respective ideas.

The best solution I have found to resolve the issue is to consider a basic principle of hermeneutics (the science and art of interpretation). One should always let an author define his own words. So an instructive exercise is to go through the key passages in Paul and James and write down how each one of them defines the words faith, work and law. You will soon see that there is no contradiction between their teachings, just slight differences in how they define their terms.