12. What Happened to James
It was about this time that King Herod arrested some who belonged to the church, intending to persecute them. He had James, the brother of John, put to death with the sword (Acts 12:1-2). James was clearly one of the leading apostles of the early Church. Along with Peter and John, he was one of the three leading disciples during the ministry of Christ. In fact, throughout the Gospels, James is always mentioned before his brother John when the two are mentioned together, and he was frequently called James the Greater or James the Great to distinguish him from James, the son of Alphaeus (James the Lesser), and James, the brother of Jesus (the author of the Epistle of James).
So we might ask why the death of this leading apostle of the early Church at the hands of Herod Agrippa is related in only one verse (Acts 12:2) – the death of Judas is described in more detail (Matthew 27:3–10) – when the death of Stephen, a relatively unknown deacon, is covered extensively (over two complete chapters, Acts 6 and 7), including complete details of his final speech. It cannot be simply that Stephen was the "first Christian martyr," as his death was, in reality, only one of the long line of martyrs recorded throughout the Old and New Testaments.
On the other hand, James was apparently the first of the twelve apostles to be martyred for his faith, and the only apostle whose death is recorded in the New Testament – would we not expect to be told more of the details of his martyrdom?
The answer to this apparent imbalance is found in a better perception of what the Book of Acts really is. Although we all know Luke's volume on the early Church as the "Acts of the Apostles" (Greek Praxeis Apostolon), this title was first used by the Church Father Irenaeus late in the second century, and it was not a title given to the book by Luke. Instead, as we have seen, Luke reminds us at the very outset of the book that his purpose in writing Luke-Acts was to record "all that Jesus began to do and to teach" (Acts 1:1). If we keep Luke's purpose in mind, we see Acts not as the acts of the apostles, but rather as the continuing acts of Christ himself.
Seen this way, the scant details given regarding the death of James – and the total lack of any mention of the deaths of the other disciples – show us that Acts is not really about the apostles, but about the One who worked through them and others, like Stephen and Philip, as well.
While the death of James may well have been carried out unseen and undocumented in one of Herod Agrippa's prison cells, the speech and subsequent death of Stephen was more visible and thus a major witness to the religious authorities of Jerusalem – the Sanhedrin before whom he was tried. In that sense, Stephen's death was a turning point in the spreading of the Gospel – it was after his witness and martyrdom in Jerusalem that Christians and Christianity began to spread outward.
Seen from this perspective, the death of James was actually insignificant. That does not mean that it was trivial or meaningless, but although James and the other disciples may have died deaths that were martyrdoms of faith, their deaths were apparently not as directly part of the unfolding plan and purpose that Luke shows was being worked out in the early Church – the spreading of the Gospel outwards throughout the world (Acts 1:8).
The deaths of James and Stephen were, of course, equally important in the eyes of the God who called them and worked great things through them both. However, the lives of James and all of the twelve disciples – which are recorded in detail – accomplished far more than their deaths, even though they later suffered martyrdoms which evidenced their great faith.
If there is a lesson in the limited details we are given regarding what happened to James, it is that what we do in our lives is usually far more important than what we can accomplish in death. As successors of those called to serve God in the early Church, we should strive to follow their example in never fearing the possibility of death for our faith – only the possibility of not accomplishing what we have been given to do in our lives.