The author, as already shown, writes in the smooth and easy _Koine_ of a gifted and cultivated Jew of Palestine. One does not have to say with Patrick[46] that James had a wide knowledge of classical Greek. He may never have read a line of "classical" Greek, but he knew well the current Greek of his day and used it with fine skill. It is not a labored production and is in no sense artificial. The author is full of the Old Testament and writes like one of the prophets; yet he has a firm grip upon the essence of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
The book forms a fine link between the Old and New Testaments. James, the brother of the Lord Jesus, understands the Old Testament and loves Moses still. He seeks to interpret Christianity more fully on its ethical and social side to the Jewish Christians of his time, who are in sad need of help, beset as they are by Jew and Gentile, and with an imperfect grasp of the new gospel. They find in this epistle just what they need to make practice correspond to profession, to square life with creed. The lesson is still needed today. There is a peculiar pertinence about the teaching of James that appeals to modern men who are nothing if not practical.
Evidently these early Jewish Christians had their share of trial. Who, alas, does not have his portion? The problem with us all is to learn how to find the spring of joy in the midst of sorrow. There are always perplexities and anxieties. The sea is restless even in its moments of calm beauty.
There is the tone of an elder brother in this epistle, and we see it at the start when James says "my brothers." It is no perfunctory phrase with him. It is "trials," not "temptations," that James here has in mind, though the same word probably means temptation in 1:12. The word in the Greek came to have either sense, though originally it meant only to try, to attempt, just as our English word "tempt" was at first simply "try." But it is a short step from "try" to "make trial of" one when suspicion exists or evil desire arises. Hence all through the Greek we find the old Greek word used in both senses. The New Testament usage varies. There are a half dozen other passages where the word has the idea of trial (Luke 22:28; Acts 20:19; Gal. 4:14; 1 Peter 1:6; 4:12; Rev. 3:10). In 1 Peter 1:6 the identical expression "manifold trials" appears. Oesterley[47] wrongly insists that "temptation" is the meaning in James 1:2 on the ground that "the writer's Judaism is stronger than his Christianity," and he then uses it as an argument against the genuineness of the book.