Charles Spurgeon Commentary James 1

James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad, greeting.

"Where are the lost ten tribes?" asks somebody. They never were lost. That is a mere piece of nonsense. There were, and there are still, twelve tribes of Israel, as much one as the other. Ask any Jew if it is not so. James writes to all his compatriots by nature, and to all the fellow-citizens of the saints by grace, and greets them.

What a strange greeting it is!

My brothers, count it all joy when you fall into divers temptations;

Or "trials." Do not be sorry about it; be thankful for it. The gold should be glad to be put into the crucible; the Christian should rejoice to be tested and tried. Not only count it joy, but count it all joy when you fall into divers temptations.

James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad, greeting.

The apostle James evidently believed in no lost ten tribes, as some today do. They never were lost; the Israelites whom we see nearly every day belong to the company of all the twelve tribes, so James addressed his Epistle To the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad, greeting.

James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad, greeting.

According to the teaching of some in the present day, the apostle should have said, "To the two tribes, and the ten that are lost," but he does not say so, nor does Scripture say so. To the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad, greeting.

James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad, greeting.

James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ. He was an apostle, and he was the Lord's brother, yet he does not mention these greater things, but he takes the lowly title, in which, no doubt, he felt the highest honour, and calls himself "a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ." Happy is that man who serves the Lord, whose whole life is not that of an independent master of himself, but of one who is fully submissive to the divine command.

Where is the fiction of the ten lost tribes? He writes to the twelve tribes that were scattered abroad, and gives them greeting, so that this Epistle is first directed to the seed of Israel, and then, as in all things, to all the Church of God, since all the saints of God are the true seed of believing Abraham, the father of believers.