These are all important questions, and in the course of this study we’ll address all of them. It helps, however, to realize that the primary message driving James’s letter is that Christians’ faith in the gospel should work itself out in a life of obedience. As he says in 1:22, believers in Jesus should not just hear the word and believe it, but they should also do what it says. The gospel of Jesus—which James understands deeply and affirms completely—results in a new life of obedience when a person