The Implications of Grace for The Ethics of James The Epistle of James is most commonly known as the epistle of works, and, given its emphasis on practical social action, it most deservedly earns a place in a discussion of the New Testament and ethics. The role of God, however, appears limited to various clichés, whether simply that “God wants people to act in a loving manner because Jesus taught so”, a focus on the potentially “legalistic” nature of James’s God, or ultimately a more complex discussion based on Jas 2,5 that “God has chosen the poor” and hates the rich (cf. Jas 5,1-6). None of these does justice to James as a wisdom text rooted firmly in the background of God’s gracious covenantal work. Moreover, scholars have sidelined or oversimplified James, insisting that it has no theological depth. While Luther is perhaps justifiably infa- mous for his statements on James, he does not stand alone. Dibelius repeatedly emphasizes, “Jas has no ‘theology’” 1, and Sophie Laws con- curs that James is an ethical document with “no theological impulse” 2. Such a simplistic rendering of James, however, tears the ethics of the text loose from any grounding, leaving it an essentially a-theological, a-Chris- tian moral text of the sort any philosopher of the Greco-Roman world could have promoted 3. Ironically, Christian ethicists have treated James similarly. Frank Matera’s New Testament Ethics contains one reference to James in the whole book 4. Richard Hays has a mere 5 references to James in his Moral Vision of the New Testament, one of those in a footnote 5. Likewise, Allen Verhey’s The Great Reversal. Ethics and the New Testa- ment gives James four pages 6. If, as Laws urges, James is “the most con- M. DIBELIUS, James (Hermeneia ; Philadelphia, PA 1975) 21, again 48, 81. 1 S. LAWS, A Commentary on the Epistle of James (BNTC; London 2 1980) 28. Some recent commentators have acknowledged that James is a pro- 3 foundly theological text, e.g. D.J. MOO, The Letter of James (Pillar NTC; Grand Rapids, MI 2000) 27; L.T. JOHNSON, The Letter of James (AB 37A; New York 1995) 85. F.J. MATERA, New Testament Ethics. The Legacies of Jesus and Paul 4 (Louisville, KY 1996). R.B. HAYS, The Moral Vision of the New Testament. Community, Cross, 5 New Creation (San Francisco, CA 1996) 212, 332, 465 (2x), 470, n.6. A. VERHEY, The Great Reversal. Ethics and the New Testament (Grand 6 Rapids, MI 1984) 133-136.