The Epistle of St James is among the less read and less studied books of the N.T.; and this for obvious reasons. With one partial exception it has not supplied material for great theological controversies. But moreover it is a book that very few Christians on consideration would place among the most important books. No one wishing to refer to the written records which best set forth what Christian belief and even Christian practice is would turn to it as they would turn to the Gospels or to some, at least, of St Paul's Epistles. Nay, as we all know, even distinctively Christian language in one sense of the phrase, i.e. such language as no one but a Christian could use, is used in it very sparingly. Thus no wonder that it has been comparatively little valued by Christian readers, and comparatively little examined and illustrated by Christian commentators.

Yet on the other hand it has an important place and office of its own in the Scriptures of the N.T. Its very unlikeness to other books is of the greatest value to us, as shewing through Apostolic example the manysidedness of Christian truth. Our faith rests first on the Gospel itself, the revelation of God and His redemption in His Only begotten Son, and secondly on the interpretation of that primary Gospel by the Apostles and Apostolic men to whom was Divinely committed the task of applying the revelation of Christ to the thoughts and deeds of their own time.