Much attention has been given to the question of whether or not James and Paul contradict each other within the New Testament. Specifically, James 2:24 and Romans 3:28 seem to be in verbal conflict with one another because Paul, in Romans, says that a person “is justified by faith apart from works,” and James holds that a person “is justified by works and not by faith alone.” James and Paul may have been reacting and responding to each other, but most likely not directly, but rather “on the basis of hearsay and recollections.”[1] They may have misunderstood each other, because there is far more on which they would agree than disagree. Where the misunderstanding comes in is the way in which they were using certain words, namely, “faith,” “works,” and “righteous.” Brosend posits that the “starting point for a meaningful discussion about James and Paul is faith…”[2] The difference in the way in which the authors use the term “faith” has to do with the difference between a mere profession of faith versus a dynamic possession of faith.[3] Paul is referring to a “living faith,” an “active faith…that results in appropriate works.” Contrasting this, James refers to a dead faith, “which is only an intellectual assent” versus a living faith that produces works. In Paul’s writings, it’s the living, active faith that justifies a believer. James is talking about “people who are already Christian and intellectually believe in Jesus…but have not translated that belief into life practice…”[4]

James insists that works must correspond to faith, but what does he mean by works? Brosend says that James and Paul “simply do not mean the same thing when they write of ‘works.’”[5] According to Jenkins, the word “works,” itself can “refer broadly to any deeds, or it can have a more restricted sense as a reference to the specific works that the law commands.”[6] James is not referring to “ritual works prescribed by the Law, but behavior that reflects love.”[7] These works are “the fruit of the Christian faith,” and include “such matters as the care of widows and orphans, respect for the poor, feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, and control of the tongue.”[8] Paul, on the other hand refers to “works of the law” and includes such matters as “compliance with food laws, circumcision, purification rites, and ritual prescriptions.”[9] These are not things by which one is justified. However, Paul would agree that behavior which reflects love must correspond to a person’s faith. Paul upholds the connection between faith and love, saying that “the only thing that counts is faith working through love.”[10] He also says in First Corinthians that faith without love gains nothing. Paul also believes that faith requires obedience to God’s will and that people should be “doers of the law” and not “hearers of the law.”[11]

The word “righteous” can also have different meanings dependent on context. It can have a declarative connotation, meaning “justified,” or it can have a demonstrative connotation, meaning “to prove or demonstrate something to be true or just.”[12] Paul talked about the believer being justified by their living faith, and not by works of the law, whereas James says that the actions demonstrate that one’s faith is not merely intellectual assent, but a “genuine faith…producing…works as the fruit of obedience.”[13] Paul and James were addressing different struggles, and any if their views are held to be complementary, rather than contradictory, it must be posited that there are “different uses of the same terms by the authors.”[14]