Yesterday, in summarizing Luke’s Sermon on the Plain, I kept thinking about how similar Luke’s version of the Sermon is to the book of James. I want to show you a connection I saw this morning that substantiates this idea.

Luke’s Sermon on the Plain and James’s whole letter are both pushing readers to become whole/prepared people, like Jesus. Much attention is drawn to the way James is drawing from Matthew’s Sermon — and rightly so — but Luke is totally in on the party, too. There’s reason to think Luke’s version of the Sermon might behind some of James’s thinking — not just Matthew.

James’s τέλειος ἀνήρ

I spent a couple days with a friend recently reading James and working on the structure and purpose of the book. All of James’s exhortation drives at leading his community towards becoming a whole person (τέλειος ἀνήρ, 3:2). This rhetorical goal shows up explicitly in the opening of the letter. James wants his readers to endure the hardships of life so that they can become whole (τέλειοι) and complete, lacking in no way (1:4).

James’s τις/τίς Silhouettes

Scattered throughout James are almost twenty uses of τις/τίς. Several uses of this root are rhetorically significant. They serve as “silhouettes” — “If anyone …” or “Who is the person that …” James uses τις/τίς to offer the reader hypothetical life circumstances that they can step into and try on, all in service of moving them towards becoming a whole person, like Jesus.

Luke’s prepared person

Luke’s version of Jesus’s sermon works similarly. The way I summarized it yesterday focused on Luke 6:40:

There is no disciple who is better than his teacher. Any disciple who is prepared will be like his teacher. (Luke 6:40)

This little verse is the foundational idea of Jesus’s Sermon. It shows you that imitation of Jesus is the heart of the matter. Everything else that Jesus says in the Sermon pushes readers towards becoming a “prepared” (κατηρτισμένος) person, like their teacher, Jesus. Luke is using. the idea of being prepared (καταρίζω), like James uses τέλειος.

Luke’s πᾶς Silhouette

I find it striking, too, that Luke has a parallel to James’s τις/τίς. In 6:40 he uses πᾶς to accomplish the same rhetorical function. Jesus says, “Everyone (πᾶς) who is prepared (κατηρτισμένος) will be like his teacher” (Luke 6:40). Or if you take the participle as adverbial, “Once prepared, every (πᾶς) [disciple] will be like his teacher.” With the use of πᾶς, Luke is doing the same thing James is doing over and over with τις/τίς.

A Contextual and Lexical Connection

In Luke 8, there is a connection that seals the deal in my mind. The context and the vocabulary show that Luke’s implied reader, his “prepared person,” is parallel to James’s “whole person” (τέλειος ἀνήρ).

As Luke tells the story of the Parable of the Sower, and we come to the part where Jesus gives his disciples the interpretation of the parable, listen to how Jesus talks about the seed that falls into the midst of thorns:

The seed that fell into the thorns — These are those who hear and, as they go about their life, they are choked out by other concerns, wealth, and the pleasures of life. Their fruit bearing is not whole (τελεσφοροῦσιν, Luke 8:14).

First, note the similar context: This seed did not produce lasting fruit because of other “concerns, wealth, and the pleasures of life.” That is exactly the context in James. James calls those same circumstances “various trials” in the opening of his letter. He even uses verbiage fitting for talking about seed, which falls from the hand of the sower to the ground:

When you fall into various trials … (ὅταν πειρασμοῖς περιπέσητε ποικίλοις, James 1:2)

Second, note the lexical connections. James urges readers to endure various trial so that they can move towards becoming τέλειος (1:4; 3:2), and Luke uses the same root in the same context. Luke describes the seed that fell into the midst of thorns as choked out and lacking “whole fruit bearing” (οὐ τελεσφοροῦσιν).¹

Conclusion

There is good reason to see Luke’s version of Jesus’s Sermon behind James’s conceptual world and word choice. Perhaps in James’s mind the Matthew and Jesus version are one, and he’s therefore pulling from both. James and Luke are undoubtedly driving at the same goal. They are both pushing readers to become like Jesus. Disciples of Jesus must endure the various trials of life and thereby become prepared and whole, like their teacher, Jesus. No disciple is greater than the one τέλειος ἀνήρ, Jesus, the Lord incarnate. There’s no shortcuts or alternate paths.

☩ Lord, help us because we are not sufficient on our own. ☩

Footnote

1. I find it striking that in this connection, Luke is the one that makes explicit that the “prepared person” is “like his teacher.” He makes the connection to Jesus explicit, whereas it’s implied (but clear enough) in James. Several years ago, I wrote a post about how Luke States What Others Imply. That’s the same dynamic here. ↩