Reading the Epistle of James as a Mystical Text

….mysticism is an existential attitude, a way of living at a greater depth. 

Jean-Caude Barreau in his Preface to Clément, Olivier. The Roots of Christian Mysticism: Texts from the Patristic Era with Commentary, published by New City, London, 2nd edition 2017

Mysticism is simply living with the mystery of God's love. It is what the Christian life is all about! It's about deep living in God.

“..... the mystery that has been hidden throughout the ages and generations but has now been revealed to his saints. To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.”
Colossians 1.25-26 NRSV

The paraphrases are all by me. It's very much a work in progress. Some American spelling might creep in too!

My paraphrase of James Chapter 1

James, a servant of God and of Jesus, who is the Christ, the Lord. I write to God’s own people dispersed in a dozen places. I greet you all.

Count it all joy my brothers and sisters when you stumble into motley challenges because you know that testing your faith produces patience. And let patience have its end, so that your end may be wholeness, wanting nothing.

Are you lacking in wisdom? Ask God who is a generous giver, he doesn’t grudge sharing himself with you. Ask for wisdom in simple faith – but not if you are at odds with yourself - not if you want to think this and that - for then you are odds with with yourself and you’re like the wind-blown waves of the sea – just crashing spume. Such folk shouldn’t think  they will take hold of anything from the Lord – those with a vacillating mind, lacking in simplicity  but, being changeable, complicated they are constantly changing their path.

Those of us who are have no social status can boast because God has raised us up and in the same way those with power and influence can also boast - because God brings them down to size. As the Psalmist says about the rich… they will vanish like flowers in a field. The blistering sun rises high and scorches the field and the flowers dry and shrink, their beauty evaporates. So with the rich, whilst they are busy, busy, busy, making money they shrink to nothing and are gone.

Blessed are those who stay on top of experiences that prove them. They will be approved and will receive from the Lord what he promised: the crowning honour of life itself but these proving experiences don’t come from God… so don’t pretend they do. God himself doesn’t need to be proven in this way… and this isn’t how God proves us. We prove who we are by our own lusts when we allow them to lure us away and entrap us. When we cohabit with our lust it breeds a litter of sin… and sins grow up fast and in turn breed death. So don’t be taken in… that’s how it is with lust. Lust can’t give you the good gifts, the gifts that are complete in themselves - they can only come from the one who truly sits above - these good things come down to us from  the one who illuminates us, the Father who is not fickle and does not turn this way and that in the shadows. The Father is always true to his own purpose and so, when he gave birth to us it was by the Word of Truth, and in this way we are prototypes of the new creation.

So, I speak to those I love: this has consequences for our behaviour: be always ready to hear, but be slow to say anything, and slow to aggressive passionate desire, because, no matter how justified you feel your aggressive passionate desire  to be, it can’t fashion the uprightness of God. So then, drop  those little grubby habits as well as the big malign moments. Instead, in humility, receive the Word engrafted into you and which has the power to save your very souls. But let that Word become the script from which you perform your life. Don’t just hear it read as in a rehearsal. What nonsense!

To perform this Word, look at yourself in the mirror before you go on stage.  But then remember who you are, because if you forget your  character you will not perform honestly. Look: there in the mirror you reflect the perfect law of love - yes, you, and this is both a freedom and a demand for stickability. Don’t hear and forget the script, but learn it by heart and act it out. Then your performance will be a blessing.

If anyone thinks their performance is true piety, yet they can’t stick to the script but ad lib to get cheap laughs, they are only fooling themselves. They are just ham actors.

The best performance is both art and craft - with God the Father in the royal box.  It is to take the performance into the street and choose to take the pressure off those most at risk - the orphans and the widows - since this is the only way to keep clean from the world’s deluded promise of 15 minutes of fame.

Wyn Beynon © 2026