[ZNPaaneah]

Originally Posted by Drake

Of course doings and not just hearings are needed....the question here is what compels the doer and does the compelling force instigate anything else.

For instance, if I were to ask you to describe American football and you told me it consist of tens of thousands of fans screaming and yelling, eating hotdogs, popcorn, nachos, drinking beer and players trying to hurt each on the field then I would say you know something about American football but only on the surface... in reality you don’t really know the essence of football.

I wouldn’t go as far as afazio appeared to go in the main forum in finding fault with James, but she had a point that many problems in the early church could be sourced back to James and those he was shepherding because he was devoid of proper explanation (and presumably an understanding) of the essence of American football.

Thanks for the conversation... it really was civil and thought provoking rising above the usual canned speeches in the main forum.

Drake

I agree that the account of James in the book of Acts and inferred from Galatians is indicative of an error in the early church.

However, none of that is evidence of an error in the epistle of James. Instead the book of Acts also clearly depicts the error of Paul yet no one infers from that that his epistles are also in error. Likewise, the gospels reveal Peter's error and again no one then infers this error is in his epistles. You need to do much better than pointing out that James was involved in error in Acts to discredit his epistle.

Going to your Football analogy: one aspect of American football is its value for fans (big money maker), one aspect is the coaching of the game (strategy and tactics), one aspect is the players training and health, and one very critical aspect is the referees. You cannot ignore any one of these aspects. If James is identifying where to "throw the flag" then that also is part of the game.