Practical instructions for living out faith, with the argument that faith without works is dead.

The author is usually identified as James, the brother of Jesus and leader of the Jerusalem church. It reads like wisdom literature: controlling the tongue, favouritism toward the rich, patience in suffering. Martin Luther famously called it "an epistle of straw" because it seemed to contradict Paul, but most readers see the two as addressing different errors: Paul says works cannot earn salvation, and James says real faith always produces them.

James 2:17

Hope and endurance for Christians suffering for their faith, described as exiles scattered through what is now Turkey.

Peter calls them "elect exiles": their real home is elsewhere, so they should expect to feel out of place. He urges them to live so well that accusations against them fall flat, and to see their suffering in the light of Christ's. It also calls the church "a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation", applying Israel's titles to the whole church.

1 Peter 2:9

A warning against false teachers and scoffers who mocked the promise of Christ's return.

The scoffers said nothing had changed since the beginning of the world. The reply is that God is not slow as people count slowness, but patient, not wanting anyone to perish. The letter also contains the line that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years.

2 Peter 3:8-9

How to know that you truly belong to God: by believing that Jesus came in the flesh, obeying his commands, and loving one another.

It was written after a split in which some had left the church teaching that Jesus had not really become human. It keeps returning to love, and contains the statement "God is love". It shares so much vocabulary with John's Gospel — light and darkness, truth, abiding — that the same author is traditionally assumed.

1 John 4:7-8

Short notes about hospitality: 2 John warns a church not to welcome false teachers, and 3 John commends a man named Gaius for welcoming true ones.

They are the two shortest books in the New Testament, each small enough to fit on a single sheet of papyrus. Travelling teachers depended on churches to house and feed them, so deciding whom to welcome was a real question. 3 John also criticises a leader named Diotrephes who "likes to put himself first".

3 John 1:5-8

An urgent appeal to contend for the faith against false teachers who were using grace as an excuse for immorality.

Jude is identified as a brother of James, which would make him another brother of Jesus. The letter is known for quoting 1 Enoch, a Jewish writing outside the Bible. It ends with one of the best-known blessings in the New Testament, to him who is able to keep you from stumbling.

Jude 1:24-25

A vision given to John on the island of Patmos, showing the risen Christ, the struggle between God and the powers of evil, and the final renewal of all things in a new heaven and new earth.

It opens with letters to seven real churches in what is now Turkey, several facing persecution. At the centre of the vision is a Lamb who was slain, now on the throne. Evil, pictured as beasts and the city of Babylon, is defeated. It ends with God living among his people, wiping every tear from their eyes, in a city with the tree of life, closing the story that began in the garden of Genesis.

Revelation 21:1-4

It names a kind of writing that reveals God's hidden view of history through visions full of symbols, such as beasts, numbers, and cosmic signs.

The Greek word apokalypsis means "unveiling", not "catastrophe". The symbols were meant to be decoded, not read as a literal forecast of the weather: a beast stands for an empire, a horn for a king. Apocalyptic writing was usually addressed to people under persecution, to assure them that God is in control and that evil will not have the last word.

Revelation 1:1

As describing events of the first century (preterist), the whole course of church history (historicist), events still to come at the end (futurist), or timeless patterns of the struggle between good and evil (idealist).

Many readers combine elements of more than one. Christians also differ over the "thousand years" in chapter 20: whether Christ returns before it, after it, or whether it is a symbol for the present age. What all these readings share is the book's central claim, that the Lamb has already won and will return.

Revelation 20:1-4