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In this section, James emphasized that true faith in Jesus is a matter of both believing and doing good deeds. There is no such thing as faith without good deeds to go with it. It is the good deeds that demonstrate that there is true faith. Faith without good deeds is not true faith at all.
James used examples from the lives of Rahab and Abraham to show that faith and good deeds always go together.
Some other possible headings for this section are:
Faith and good deeds
If you really believe/trust you will also do good deeds
Real faith is proved by good deeds.
In this paragraph, James used three rhetorical questions to emphasize that faith without good deeds is useless.
Suppose a brother or sister
Suppose that there is a fellow believer, man or woman,
If there is a Christian brother or sister
Suppose: The Greek word that the BSB translates as Suppose is literally “If” (as in the RSV). This word introduces an example of faith without good deeds. Consider how your language naturally introduces an example. For example:
For example
For instance
If it happens
a brother or sister: The phrase a brother or sister refers to a male or female fellow-believer. Notice that James explicitly includes women here.
Some other ways to translate this phrase are:
A brother or sister in Christ (NCV)
a believer, whether a man or a woman (GW)
is without clothes and daily food.
and he or she does not have enough clothes and food for that day.
who needs clothes and food,
without clothes and daily food: The phrase daily food means that the person did not have enough food even for that day.See Moulton & Milligan, Vocabulary of the Greek Testament, page 269; F. Field, Notes on the Translation of the New Testament, page 236. Some other ways to translate this phrase are:
needs…food (GW)
lacks daily food (NET)
with not enough food for the day (REB)
don’t have enough to eat (GNT)
without clothes: The Greek word that the BSB translates as without clothes here means “does not have enough clothes to keep him warm.”
In the Bible lands, it is often cold, especially at night, and one of the chief functions of a person’s clothes is to keep him warm. (See Exodus 22:26–27). It is clear from the phrase “keep warm” in 2:16 that this is what James has in mind.
Some other ways to translate this word are:
needs clothes (GW)
is poorly clothed (NET)
does not have enough clothes to keep warm
Note 1 topic: figures-of-speech / hypo
ἐὰν
(Some words not found in SR-GNT: Ἐάν ἀδελφός ἤ ἀδελφή γυμνοί ὑπάρχωσιν καί λειπόμενοι τῆς ἐφημέρου τροφῆς)
James is using a hypothetical situation to teach. He begins to describe the condition in this verse. He describes the rest of the condition and the result in the next verse. Alternate translation: [Suppose]
Note 2 topic: figures-of-speech / metaphor
ἀδελφὸς ἢ ἀδελφὴ
(Some words not found in SR-GNT: Ἐάν ἀδελφός ἤ ἀδελφή γυμνοί ὑπάρχωσιν καί λειπόμενοι τῆς ἐφημέρου τροφῆς)
As everywhere else in the book, the term brother refers to a fellow believer. In every other instance, the term can mean either a man or a woman. But in this verse James uses brother to mean a believer who is a man and sister to mean a believer who is a woman. If your language has both masculine and the feminine forms of the word you have been using to translate “brother,” you can use them both here. Otherwise, you could use an equivalent expression. Alternate translation: [another man or woman who believes in Jesus]
γυμνοὶ
(Some words not found in SR-GNT: Ἐάν ἀδελφός ἤ ἀδελφή γυμνοί ὑπάρχωσιν καί λειπόμενοι τῆς ἐφημέρου τροφῆς)
The word unclothed can mean “naked,” and if a Bible translation already exists in your area, it may say that. But in this context, the word actually refers to lacking adequate clothes. Alternate translation: [badly clothed]
2:14-26 James explains why Christians need to be concerned about the judgment of their actions (2:12-13): Real faith must be accompanied by good deeds (see 1:22-25).
Note: The OET-RV is still only a first draft, and so far only a few words have been (mostly automatically) matched to the Hebrew or Greek words that they’re translated from.
Acknowledgements: The SR Greek text, lemmas, morphology, and VLT gloss are all thanks to the CNTR.