No, there's no 'contrast' intended here. Paul is stating it very clearly on how it actually is, exactly as Christ is stating it on how it actually is in Luke 10. It wasn't the priest or the Levite who helped the man who had fallen to the robbers. These HAD the law and were HEARERS of the law, yet they DID NOT the law. But, the Samaritan, who neither had the law nor was he a hearer of the law, DID the law by showing compassion on the man who had fallen to the robbers.
13 for
not the hearers of the law are just before God,
but the doers of the law shall be justified:
14 (for when Gentiles that have not the law
do by nature the things of the law, these, not having the law, are the law unto themselves;
15 in that
they show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness therewith, and their thoughts one with another accusing or else excusing them); Ro 2
No problem. I'm very prone to do it myself, I am trying to improve though.
Well, actually I thought the beans not producing tomatoes was a pretty good illustration. Could you please pinpoint to me here where you see that James is 'clearly teaching' that faith is the predecessor to works? I don't see it:
15 If a brother or sister be naked and in lack of daily food,
16 and one of you say unto them, Go in peace, be ye warmed and filled; and yet ye give them not the things needful to the body; what doth it profit?
17 Even so faith, if it have not works, is dead in itself.
18 Yea, a man will say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: show me thy faith apart from thy works, and I by my works will show thee my faith.
19 Thou believest that God is one; thou doest well: the demons also believe, and shudder.
20 But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith apart from works is barren?
21 Was not Abraham our father justified by works, in that he offered up Isaac his son upon the altar?
22 Thou seest that faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect;
23 and the scripture was fulfilled which saith, And Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned unto him for righteousness; and he was called the friend of God.
24 Ye see that by works a man is justified, and not only by faith. Ja 2
You do know that it's works and deeds and doing that we're going to be judged by in the end, don't you?