James

James (the English form of Jacob, Greek Iakōbos) is the name of several men in the New Testament, three of whom are prominent. The name carried the weight of the patriarch Jacob/Israel, and its bearers stood near the center of the early church — among the Twelve and at the head of the Jerusalem congregation.

(1) James the son of Zebedee, brother of the apostle John and, with him, called by Jesus from his fishing nets (Matthew 4:21–22). With Peter and John he formed the inner circle of three admitted to the most intimate moments of Jesus' ministry: the raising of Jairus's daughter (Mark 5:37), the Transfiguration (Matthew 17:1), and the agony in Gethsemane (Matthew 26:37). He and John, whom Jesus nicknamed "Boanerges, that is, Sons of Thunder" (Mark 3:17), once asked to call down fire and sought the chief seats in the kingdom — for which Jesus foretold they would drink His cup (Mark 10:39). That prophecy was fulfilled when James became the first of the apostles to be martyred, killed with the sword by Herod Agrippa I about AD 44 (Acts 12:2).

(2) James the son of Alphaeus, another of the Twelve (Matthew 10:3), often identified with "James the younger" (Mark 15:40), about whom little else is recorded.

(3) James the brother of the Lord (Matthew 13:55; Galatians 1:19), the most historically significant. During Jesus' earthly ministry he did not believe (John 7:5), but the risen Christ appeared to him personally (1 Corinthians 15:7), and he became a pillar of the Jerusalem church (Galatians 2:9). It was James who summed up the decision of the Jerusalem Council, ruling that Gentile believers need not be circumcised (Acts 15:13–21), and to whom Paul reported on his final visit (Acts 21:18). Known to tradition as "James the Just" for his devout, prayerful life, he is generally regarded as the author of the Epistle of James, with its searching insistence that "faith apart from works is dead" (James 2:17) — a complement, rightly understood, to Paul's gospel of justification by faith. He was martyred in Jerusalem about AD 62. Together these men illustrate the diverse paths of discipleship: the apostle who drank the cup of martyrdom first, and the once-unbelieving brother who became a shepherd of the mother church.