James 2
24You see that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone.
Leave it to "brilliant" minds to read this and conclude the truth must be EXACTLY THE OPPOSITE.
You see that man is justified by FAITH ALONE and NOT BY WORKS.
Now James is pretty harsh says folks who don't understand are stupid/foolish. I just think God likes to reciprocate our bad judgement of others on to ourselves to snap out of it, because there is no way anyone can get BACKWARDS unless mentally handicapped or retarded, or by divine intervention
James 2
20But are you willing to recognize, you foolish fellow, that faith without works is useless?
Who is he calling foolish fellow? It certainly ain't the guy who believes he needs to do good works.
This is why Martin Luther wanted to get rid of this book. He KNEW it was flat out against his faith alone doctrine.
Its quoted HE HATES THIS BOOK, how can one hate holy scripture? An "epistle of straw"
This is from wiki for Luther's canon of scripture:
Luther's canon - Wikipedia
Luther made an attempt to remove the books of Hebrews, James, Jude and Revelation from the canon (notably, he perceived them to go against certain Protestant doctrines such as
sola gratia and
sola fide), but this was not generally accepted among his followers. However, these books are ordered last in the
German-language Luther Bible to this day.
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