Acts 12:2

A GREAT APOSTLE

‘James the brother of John.’

Acts 12:2

Within the broad circle of the Apostles’ characters, their lives, histories, examples, the follower of Christ finds experiences which he, to some extent at all events, walks amongst and shares in.

James and John, sons of Zebedee and Salome, known better as the sons of thunder, from their zeal and fiery faith, had been called by Christ from fishing on the blue waters of the Galilæan lake to fish for the souls of men. And how close to the side of their beloved Lord were they on great occasions, admitted to see what prophets and kings had not beheld!

We think now chiefly of St. James.

I. He had to learn much about his hidden life.—Partly ignorant yet of the new law of love, which taught men to bless their persecutors, the eager disciple was ready to ask for fire from above to consume the graceless Samaritans who refused hospitality to Jesus. But the patient and gracious Master bade His mistaken follower to suspend his erring zeal, perhaps reminding him that such ideas could only go to prove St. James’s ignorance of his own heart. ‘Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of.’ (A.V.) How long does it take to convince us of the deceitfulness of our hearts! Much did the afterwards mighty Apostle need at that time the influence of the Holy Spirit, to add to his faith virtue, and to virtue knowledge, to knowledge temperance, to temperance patience, crowned with godliness, and overshadowed by brotherly kindliness and charity.

II. St. James was to have his character formed bit by bit.—Each circumstance, each temptation, each danger, each spiritual advantage was to be the means, under God, of raising up within him a complete structure of holiness.

(a) If he had not wished to call down fire from heaven, he would never have received the timely rebuke of his dear Lord; and if he had not received that he would not have learnt so well his own mistaken zeal. He had to learn that though the Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence, and the violent, the earnest, take it by force, yet the servant of God must not strive in violence with his fellow-men to their hurt or loss or pain.

(b) He had to grasp another lesson from the Saviour’s answer to Salome, when for her sons, James and John, she begged a very high place in Messiah’s kingdom. St. James needed to learn that ambition is not a fruit of pleasant savour in a servant of Christ. Truly has it been said of the ambassadors of Jesus that ambition in their order is apostasy against their Lord.

III. History is constantly repeating itself—the great and good taken away when they seem most wanted. Only the earnest faith and Divine support of the little Christian band could have prevented its utter collapse in such a crisis as the martyrdom of St. James. Yet, as we know, it grew and flourished, proving thereby that it had a strength which must be supernatural. He Who loved His Church and gave Himself for it, would thus develop out of its midst new ventures of courage, new launchings forth of faith.

—Rev. C. G. H. Baskcomb.

Illustration

‘The Bible, as a rule, does not dwell so much upon the persons of those who worked with the Lord as upon the work which they were instrumental in bringing out. The author of the Acts of the Apostles reminds us that, in the former treatise which he wrote, he set forth all that Jesus began to do and to teach until the day He was taken up; and surely this second book might be described as having for its theme all that Jesus intended to do and to teach after He was taken up. The theme of the remainder of the books of the New Testament is the life, and the work, and the personality of the eternal, the Incarnate Son of God, and so it matters not very much by whom or through whose instrumentality the work was carried on. James and the other ten Apostles appear, perhaps, every now and then, as elements and factors in that work—they are not really the persons by whom that work was accomplished. Oh, if we could only remember that we are, after all, but instruments of the Hand of God! If we could lose sight of individual human personality, and make much of that work which through human agents our Lord Jesus Christ continues to do!’