Many centuries before personal finance YouTubers warned about the dangers of “lifestyle inflation”, James wrote a letter warning of adopting a lifestyle of “luxury and self-indulgence”. 1. Lifestyle inflation Lifestyle inflation is the idea that, over time (and especially if your income goes up) you feel that you need more and more expensive things and…

In James 4, the half-brother of Jesus warns against bad motivations in a couple of big ways. 1. Friendship with the world He says (NIV): “don’t you know that friendship with the world means enmity against God? Therefore, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.” To be…

Chapter three of James’s letter focuses on the things we say. Here are three big ideas from the passage. 1. This affects every Christian We all tend to sin in different ways. Adultery isn’t my problem, but I can think of a long list of other sins that I’m inclined towards. James, however, makes the…

The first half of James chapter 2 is a tough one. I suspect we all use “heuristics” – or rules of thumb – to work out our view of other people. We look at people’s clothes and appearance and work out class or intelligence or job or affluence or likability. If we work a room…