It was to these that James wrote, offering pastoral words of rebuke and encouragement. His epistle insists that true Christian faith is actualized in works, foremost of which is control of the tongue. Just as the chief priest in Jerusalem might send out letters to the Jewish Diaspora, so as pastor of the mother church James sent out this letter to Jewish Christians everywhere, as a kind of encyclical sermon. (Apart from the opening greeting, James’s letter does not bear any other epistolary characteristics.)