What do you think?
Rate this book
A Commentary on James
A thorough exegetical and homiletical analysis of each passage of James This definitive commentary sheds exegetical and theological light on the book of James for contemporary preachers and students of Scripture. Listening closely to the text while interacting with the best of scholarship, Aída Besançon Spencer shows what this epistle meant for the early church and what it means for us today. In addition to its perceptive comments on the biblical text, this volume examines James’s four key speaking wisely, using wealth, persevering in trials, and becoming doers of the Word. Spencer offers astute guidance to preachers and teachers wanting to do a series on James, with homiletical trajectories for each passage to show how historical narrative can be presented from the pulpit and in the classroom.
352 pages, Hardcover
Published July 14, 2020
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
August 16, 2020
This latest entry in the Kregel Exegetical Library by Aida Besancon Spencer is another solid entry in the series. I had heard before the book came across my desk that perhaps the theme presented would be focusing on the poor. That seemed like a stretch for sure, but when you actually dig into the book something much more helpful emerges. The author finds four themes in the book of James: how to deal with trials, how to be wise or have wisdom, how to view riches, and what she calls “a fourth unifying thing – becoming doers of the word and not hears only”. She is sensitive to the poor throughout, but that was a simplistic synopsis of this work. The book of James is clearly much about the four themes that she outlines and that sheds light as we read.
The introduction wastes no time getting to the heart of the matter. On authorship she holds the conservative position that this James is the Lord’s brother. She develops grammatical points and word choices that help explain the overall message. She examines early church traditions about the letter James. She goes through the history in a sufficient manner. One of her best contributions is how she takes scholarly criticism against James as the Lord’s brother and knocks them down one by one in vivid fashion. In the section on structure, she explains those themes I mentioned above and how they lead to an understanding of James.
The commentary section is truly helpful. Words are carefully described. There is no doubt that one of this scholar’s strengths is grammatical explanation. The exposition is solid and homiletical hints are given. A word I might use to describe this book is “fresh”. Of course it addresses what other commentaries look at in James, but it gets beyond the tired repeating that is starting to show up in some works. When a scholar seems to be in love with the book they write about, the commentary is always better. That is the case here.
I received this book free from the publisher. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
The introduction wastes no time getting to the heart of the matter. On authorship she holds the conservative position that this James is the Lord’s brother. She develops grammatical points and word choices that help explain the overall message. She examines early church traditions about the letter James. She goes through the history in a sufficient manner. One of her best contributions is how she takes scholarly criticism against James as the Lord’s brother and knocks them down one by one in vivid fashion. In the section on structure, she explains those themes I mentioned above and how they lead to an understanding of James.
The commentary section is truly helpful. Words are carefully described. There is no doubt that one of this scholar’s strengths is grammatical explanation. The exposition is solid and homiletical hints are given. A word I might use to describe this book is “fresh”. Of course it addresses what other commentaries look at in James, but it gets beyond the tired repeating that is starting to show up in some works. When a scholar seems to be in love with the book they write about, the commentary is always better. That is the case here.
I received this book free from the publisher. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
November 16, 2020
Summary: A scholarly and accessible exegetical commentary on the Epistle of James.
The Epistle of James has often been the object of at least discussion, if not controversy. Despite attribution to the brother of the Lord, it’s place in the canon faced questions, even from Luther who considered it a “right strawy epistle.” Then, those who have preached this epistle have struggled to find how it coheres.
Aida Besancon Spencer addresses all these questions and more in this new exegetical commentary in the Kregel Exegetical Library series. She addresses the standard introductory matters of authorship, date, and occasion, summarizing differing views. She proposes that James 1:21 is a thesis verse for the full book: “Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you” (NIV). She contends that there are three specific ways we turn from evil and accept the implanted word: through responding in godly ways to trials, by embracing God-given wisdom that shapes our speech, and by right attitudes toward wealth that cares for and uplifts the poor.
The commentary then follows the five chapters of James beginning with a translation and phrase by phrase grammatical analysis, noting the relationship of each phrase to surrounding phrases. Then an outline and literary structure is offered followed by careful exegesis. The chapter concludes with theological and homiletic topics, offering suggestions for those preaching or teaching these passages.
The exegesis is broken up by tables showing either internal structures or comparing/contrasting passages in James with other biblical texts. For example how James and Paul interact with Genesis 15:6, or the OT and NT quotations in James or parallels in questions and answers with Malachi 1. These “echoes” are important to understanding meaning and are woven throughout.
There are a number of excurses on specific passages in which the author offers contemporary applications–something one often does not find in an academic commentary, but which reflects her wide experience in urban work. Among these are “Who Are the Poor Today?” and how “Employers Still Withhold Wages from Workers.” Some of the latter include using bankruptcy laws to avoid paying workers, complaining of substandard work from contractors with otherwise excellent reputations, not passing along tips, withholding overtime wages, insisting on “off the clock” hours, or other off-hour work without pay.
I’m glad to add this commentary to my shelves. It is scholarly, thorough, accessible and embodies the author’s thesis verse for James, showing a humble acceptance of the word planted in us. We’re challenged in how we confront suffering, embrace wisdom, and deal with wealth. Aida Besancon Spencer models exegetical rigor and pastoral integrity.
________________________________
Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher. The opinions I have expressed are my own.
The Epistle of James has often been the object of at least discussion, if not controversy. Despite attribution to the brother of the Lord, it’s place in the canon faced questions, even from Luther who considered it a “right strawy epistle.” Then, those who have preached this epistle have struggled to find how it coheres.
Aida Besancon Spencer addresses all these questions and more in this new exegetical commentary in the Kregel Exegetical Library series. She addresses the standard introductory matters of authorship, date, and occasion, summarizing differing views. She proposes that James 1:21 is a thesis verse for the full book: “Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you” (NIV). She contends that there are three specific ways we turn from evil and accept the implanted word: through responding in godly ways to trials, by embracing God-given wisdom that shapes our speech, and by right attitudes toward wealth that cares for and uplifts the poor.
The commentary then follows the five chapters of James beginning with a translation and phrase by phrase grammatical analysis, noting the relationship of each phrase to surrounding phrases. Then an outline and literary structure is offered followed by careful exegesis. The chapter concludes with theological and homiletic topics, offering suggestions for those preaching or teaching these passages.
The exegesis is broken up by tables showing either internal structures or comparing/contrasting passages in James with other biblical texts. For example how James and Paul interact with Genesis 15:6, or the OT and NT quotations in James or parallels in questions and answers with Malachi 1. These “echoes” are important to understanding meaning and are woven throughout.
There are a number of excurses on specific passages in which the author offers contemporary applications–something one often does not find in an academic commentary, but which reflects her wide experience in urban work. Among these are “Who Are the Poor Today?” and how “Employers Still Withhold Wages from Workers.” Some of the latter include using bankruptcy laws to avoid paying workers, complaining of substandard work from contractors with otherwise excellent reputations, not passing along tips, withholding overtime wages, insisting on “off the clock” hours, or other off-hour work without pay.
I’m glad to add this commentary to my shelves. It is scholarly, thorough, accessible and embodies the author’s thesis verse for James, showing a humble acceptance of the word planted in us. We’re challenged in how we confront suffering, embrace wisdom, and deal with wealth. Aida Besancon Spencer models exegetical rigor and pastoral integrity.
________________________________
Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher. The opinions I have expressed are my own.
February 18, 2025
Somewhere, I read a quote that went something like this: "Don't waste your time on good books, there are too many great ones out there." Well, this is one of those good books.
In the world of biblical commentaries, there are many, many, terrible books. There are also many, many good books, and even quite a few great ones. One of the greatest questions to ask of a commentary is "why read THIS book?" What makes it distinct, unusually helpful or especially clear? After reading this entry in the Kregel Exegetical Library, this book came up dry. Nothing stands out. While not a bad volume, the busy pastor/teacher would be better serviced elsewhere.
While other commentaries abound with pithy sayings, or address the depth of the text, or greatly aid in relevance, or even cackle with energy and enthusiasm, Aida's writing style feels flat and boring. Many of her sentences fall into the same tired structure, with the subject beginning the sentence and a passive state-of-being verb landing in the middle. (From Page 22: "James' language is direct." "His letter has many imperatives: sixty-seven" and "His use of imperatives is similar to Paul's use in the letter to the Philippians") They also tend to be devoid of emotion or passion. This makes for a boring read, compounded by the fact that the introduction doesn't even try to excite readers or assure them of the importance of James' epistle. Her opening sentence is quite literally "Determining authorship is a foundational issue for the letter of James." (Page 21)
At times, she does offer solid insights, noting on Page 28 that James probably heard particular words of Jesus and how that may have affected the letter. However, such notable insights are rare. P. 79 was the first quote of any real length in the book, which was unusually empty of quotations and illustrations. Overall, the curt sentence style and flat writing caused the commentary to feel empty, brief, and light, even if the depth of the material itself was roughly on par with the average New American Commentary entry.
Some unusual features of the commentary worth mentioning are the list of illustrations/graphs on Page 9. If one is searching for a particular graph of visual, that is handy. Oddly, there is also a list of "definition of terms in grammatical analysis" on Page 17 before the commentary proper, with all other lists (like a "glossary of stylistic terms," "unusual words and phrases in James" and even a list of all the imperatives in James) placed at the end, after the textual analysis. While some are mildly helpful, it's confusing that they are split up and shuffled around like that.
That leads into this book's worst flaw: the formatting is simply terrible.
While most commentaries today split the text into either preachable units/pericopes, or into smaller paragraphs, Aida chose instead to comment one chapter at a time, without any sort of subheadings denoting paragraphs divisions or even when her comments shifted to the next verse. This made hunting for information on a particular phrase incredibly difficult.
Within each of these five divisions she split the material under five subheadings "translation and grammatical analysis," "outline," "literary structure," "exposition," and "theological and homiletical topics." I wish I could have included a picture of the unusual and frankly unreadable formatting of the "translation and grammatical analysis." While the formatting of the lines, lack of distinguishing fonts, and similar spacing at once demphasizes everything and makes looking for details difficult, this problem is made especially clear when compared to the brilliant formatting of an identical feature in the Zondervan Exegetical commentary on the same book.
Within the "exposition" section, there are, as mentioned, no headings or formatting marks to help clarify when comments move verses, which verses belong together, or any extra sidebars or extra insights. Besides the footnotes, there is only one formatting convention used. Often, Aida bolds a single word, which is usually followed by a quick definition, and regularly, how many times it appears in either James, or the NT as a whole. Now, while it's strange enough that that alone is the only formatting difference used, it's also used a lot. Over and over and over again, words were highlighted, defined, and commented on briefly, then moved past. Little was done to show how those words affected the context (or vice versa) and the entire effect was one of extreme atomization, not just missing the forest for the trees, but missing even the trees for the individual leaves. Her strength obviously lies in the analysis and explanation of individual words, rather than actual exegesis of passages.
Moving to the "theological and homiletical topics," Aida begins by very briefly noting some of the themes before moving to a couple pages tackling one of the themes at random. For example, nearly the entirety of the theological section for Chapter 1 was simply explaining why NT writers often used male pronouns generically. ("brothers" for "brothers and sisters") Rather than comment on any of the rich theological themes, or even try to reveal which was the main theme of James, she instead zoomed in on a seemingly small point that could have easily been dispatched in a few sentences elsewhere. It almost seemed like she had an ax to grind on that subject, as she also spent an unusual amount of space bringing up the arguments for women being teachers and leaders in the church in James 3, to the neglect of the actual content James was writing about.
These formatting and focus problems persist in every one of the five major divisions.
In the end, the writing keeps it from being a fun or passionate read, while the formatting prevents easy reference. There are few unique insights, though some of the graphs are helpful. Unless you have an abundance of study time and extra money, there's no reason to purchase this book. You're much better off with the Zondervan Exegetical commentary of James which excels this book in every category imaginable.
While certainly not terrible, nothing stands out in this commentary except the poor writing style and unhelpful formatting. Without any striking positive features, I cannot recommend this. As my opening quote detailed, there are too many great books out there to waste your time on good ones.
For hearing such good things about the Kregel Commentary on Psalms, this book has severely lowered my expectations of the series.
In the world of biblical commentaries, there are many, many, terrible books. There are also many, many good books, and even quite a few great ones. One of the greatest questions to ask of a commentary is "why read THIS book?" What makes it distinct, unusually helpful or especially clear? After reading this entry in the Kregel Exegetical Library, this book came up dry. Nothing stands out. While not a bad volume, the busy pastor/teacher would be better serviced elsewhere.
While other commentaries abound with pithy sayings, or address the depth of the text, or greatly aid in relevance, or even cackle with energy and enthusiasm, Aida's writing style feels flat and boring. Many of her sentences fall into the same tired structure, with the subject beginning the sentence and a passive state-of-being verb landing in the middle. (From Page 22: "James' language is direct." "His letter has many imperatives: sixty-seven" and "His use of imperatives is similar to Paul's use in the letter to the Philippians") They also tend to be devoid of emotion or passion. This makes for a boring read, compounded by the fact that the introduction doesn't even try to excite readers or assure them of the importance of James' epistle. Her opening sentence is quite literally "Determining authorship is a foundational issue for the letter of James." (Page 21)
At times, she does offer solid insights, noting on Page 28 that James probably heard particular words of Jesus and how that may have affected the letter. However, such notable insights are rare. P. 79 was the first quote of any real length in the book, which was unusually empty of quotations and illustrations. Overall, the curt sentence style and flat writing caused the commentary to feel empty, brief, and light, even if the depth of the material itself was roughly on par with the average New American Commentary entry.
Some unusual features of the commentary worth mentioning are the list of illustrations/graphs on Page 9. If one is searching for a particular graph of visual, that is handy. Oddly, there is also a list of "definition of terms in grammatical analysis" on Page 17 before the commentary proper, with all other lists (like a "glossary of stylistic terms," "unusual words and phrases in James" and even a list of all the imperatives in James) placed at the end, after the textual analysis. While some are mildly helpful, it's confusing that they are split up and shuffled around like that.
That leads into this book's worst flaw: the formatting is simply terrible.
While most commentaries today split the text into either preachable units/pericopes, or into smaller paragraphs, Aida chose instead to comment one chapter at a time, without any sort of subheadings denoting paragraphs divisions or even when her comments shifted to the next verse. This made hunting for information on a particular phrase incredibly difficult.
Within each of these five divisions she split the material under five subheadings "translation and grammatical analysis," "outline," "literary structure," "exposition," and "theological and homiletical topics." I wish I could have included a picture of the unusual and frankly unreadable formatting of the "translation and grammatical analysis." While the formatting of the lines, lack of distinguishing fonts, and similar spacing at once demphasizes everything and makes looking for details difficult, this problem is made especially clear when compared to the brilliant formatting of an identical feature in the Zondervan Exegetical commentary on the same book.
Within the "exposition" section, there are, as mentioned, no headings or formatting marks to help clarify when comments move verses, which verses belong together, or any extra sidebars or extra insights. Besides the footnotes, there is only one formatting convention used. Often, Aida bolds a single word, which is usually followed by a quick definition, and regularly, how many times it appears in either James, or the NT as a whole. Now, while it's strange enough that that alone is the only formatting difference used, it's also used a lot. Over and over and over again, words were highlighted, defined, and commented on briefly, then moved past. Little was done to show how those words affected the context (or vice versa) and the entire effect was one of extreme atomization, not just missing the forest for the trees, but missing even the trees for the individual leaves. Her strength obviously lies in the analysis and explanation of individual words, rather than actual exegesis of passages.
Moving to the "theological and homiletical topics," Aida begins by very briefly noting some of the themes before moving to a couple pages tackling one of the themes at random. For example, nearly the entirety of the theological section for Chapter 1 was simply explaining why NT writers often used male pronouns generically. ("brothers" for "brothers and sisters") Rather than comment on any of the rich theological themes, or even try to reveal which was the main theme of James, she instead zoomed in on a seemingly small point that could have easily been dispatched in a few sentences elsewhere. It almost seemed like she had an ax to grind on that subject, as she also spent an unusual amount of space bringing up the arguments for women being teachers and leaders in the church in James 3, to the neglect of the actual content James was writing about.
These formatting and focus problems persist in every one of the five major divisions.
In the end, the writing keeps it from being a fun or passionate read, while the formatting prevents easy reference. There are few unique insights, though some of the graphs are helpful. Unless you have an abundance of study time and extra money, there's no reason to purchase this book. You're much better off with the Zondervan Exegetical commentary of James which excels this book in every category imaginable.
While certainly not terrible, nothing stands out in this commentary except the poor writing style and unhelpful formatting. Without any striking positive features, I cannot recommend this. As my opening quote detailed, there are too many great books out there to waste your time on good ones.
For hearing such good things about the Kregel Commentary on Psalms, this book has severely lowered my expectations of the series.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews