While our book of James is written in a letter form, there are no personal messages contained in it, for it is actually another literary form popular in the ancient world, a paracnesis or moral instruction. Proverbs in the Old Testament is also a moral instruction, and although other books have sections of such instruction, these are the two best examples in Scripture of this form. James does borrow from other writers in his letter, however. He has several quotations from the “Holiness Chapter” of Leviticus 19, he takes from two Apocryphal books, and he also relates freely from the Sermon on the Mount.

In the chart below, you can see the Leviticus references:

The two Apocryphal books that influenced James’ thinking are the books Ecclesiasticus, written c. 180 B.C. (sometimes called Sirach) and the Wisdom of Solomon, written c. 30 B.C. The Apocrypha is a collection of books not accepted as Canon by either Jews or Protestants, but which must have been familiar to James. In the chart below is a list of James verses that bear strong resemblance to these two works:

James’ use of these references is interesting in that he doesn’t formally quote any of them as inspired Scripture, but instead uses them more as time honored traditions of wisdom within a very loose structure. As a consequence, it is very difficult to identify any real theme or outline as we might expect to do in other New Testament writings.