The General Letters: Standing Firm in Suffering

The last lesson ended: salvation is not of works, yet we are “created in Christ Jesus for good works” (Eph 2:10). There are other New Testament letters that also speak of faith and works; in this lesson we read them.

Many who received these eight letters were going through hard days. Peter wrote “to the chosen ones who are living as foreigners in the Dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia” (1 Pet 1:1); James wrote “to the twelve tribes which are in the Dispersion” (Jas 1:1). They were far from home and persecuted; some were troubled by false teaching, and some were tired and wanted to turn back. These letters say the same thing again and again: stand firm, don’t turn back.

Hebrews calls itself “the word of exhortation” (Heb 13:22). Step by step it shows that Jesus is greater than the angels, than Moses, than the priests of the Old Testament: he is “the radiance of his glory, the very image of his substance” (Heb 1:3); he is a high priest, and “we don’t have a high priest who can’t be touched with the feeling of our infirmities” (Heb 4:15), so “Let’s therefore draw near with boldness to the throne of grace” (Heb 4:16). It urges its readers: “But we are not of those who shrink back to destruction” (Heb 10:39). Chapter 11 is a long line of forerunners in faith, and it begins, “Now faith is assurance of things hoped for, proof of things not seen” (Heb 11:1); the ‘cloud’ of witnesses in our reading together are these very people.

James is very practical. It speaks about trials: “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you fall into various temptations” (Jas 1:2); about the tongue: “See how a small fire can spread to a large forest!” (Jas 3:5); about faith and works: if a brother or sister has nothing to eat or wear, and you only say to them ‘Go in peace’ but don’t give them what the body needs, “what good is it?” (Jas 2:16). “Even so faith, if it has no works, is dead in itself” (Jas 2:17).

Here we set two verses side by side. Paul says: “We maintain therefore that a man is justified by faith apart from the works of the law” (Rom 3:28). James says: “You see then that by works a man is justified, and not only by faith” (Jas 2:24). Both men speak of Abraham and quote the same Old Testament line: “Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him as righteousness” (Jas 2:23); Paul quotes it too in Rom 4:3, which we read in Lesson 5. How to read these two verses together is something churches understand differently; please ask your own church.

Peter writes to people who are suffering, and he begins with hope: God raised Jesus from the dead and gave us “a living hope.” (1 Pet 1:3) He says, “don’t be astonished at the fiery trial which has come upon you” (1 Pet 4:12); “casting all your worries on him, because he cares for you” (1 Pet 5:7). 2 Peter warns them to watch out for false teachers; when some mocked that the Lord had still not come, Peter said, “The Lord is not slow concerning his promise, as some count slowness; but he is patient with us, not wishing that anyone should perish, but that all should come to repentance” (2 Pet 3:9).

John’s three letters speak of love. “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us the sins” (1 John 1:9); “God is love” (1 John 4:8); “We love him, because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19). Love cannot be only talk: “let’s not love in word only, or with the tongue only, but in deed and truth” (1 John 3:18). 2 and 3 John are only one chapter each—short letters to a family and to a brother named Gaius.

Jude is a single chapter. It urges believers to “contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3), and at the end places its readers in God’s hands: “Now to him who is able to keep them from stumbling … to God our Savior, who alone is wise” (Jude 24–25). The last book of the New Testament was also written to a suffering church—next lesson, Revelation.