Contradiction?

This Sunday we get to what is probably the most well-known passage in James because it has caused so much confusion over the years.

I don’t recommend going down this rabbit hole, but if you Google “Bible contradicts itself”, this is one of the passages I can almost guarantee you’ll be pointed to, because James says, in several different ways, that we are “justified” by what we do and not by faith alone. Which sounds like a direct contradiction of Romans 3 & 4 and Ephesians 2 where Paul emphatically insists that we are made righteous in God's eyes by grace alone through faith alone...and not by anything we can do.

Houston, we have a problem. Obviously, this is the end of Christianity. Google has single handedly brought 2,000+ years of redemptive history crumbling to the ground.

But what if I told you that James and Paul are complimentary and there’s no contradiction here at all but rather rich, vibrant, and infallible teaching about how we “justify” justification?