Who Was King James
The short answer
If you're asking "who was King James," you probably mean King James I of England, the monarch who authorized the celebrated 1611 English translation of the Bible that still bears his name. He was a real king with a real crown. But here's the twist: the Bible he put his name on contains no King James at all. Instead, it gives us two other Jameses—and their stories are about what happens when the desire for a crown collides with a very different kind of kingdom.
The first is James the son of Zebedee, one of Jesus' inner circle. In Mark 10, he and his brother John ask Jesus for the top seats in his coming glory—one at his right hand, one at his left. They were picturing thrones. Jesus answers that greatness in his kingdom looks like service, and that the way to his kind of glory runs through suffering, not status. James would learn that lesson the hard way: he became one of the first apostles to die for his faith.
The second is the James traditionally linked to the New Testament letter that bears the name—a leader in the early church who writes not as a man grasping for position but as "a servant of God." His letter warns the wealthy that they have stored up treasure "in the last days," because he believed God's new world had already begun in Jesus. The kingdom the sons of Zebedee wanted to cash in on had actually arrived—just not in the form anyone expected.
Put the two together and you get a quiet, powerful arc: a disciple's hunger for royal rank gets remade into a servant's confidence that God already reigns. Anyone arriving here expecting a crown finds a cross instead—and then, surprisingly, a kingdom.
What scholars say
In these two passages, N. T. Wright captures both ends of the arc: first the sons of Zebedee imagining royal thrones as their reward, then the James of the letter warning the rich because he believed that in Jesus, God's kingdom—and the long-awaited last days—had already begun.
“But when Jesus told James and John that the places they wanted had already been booked, they must have been puzzled. What did he mean? They were thinking, of course, of something approaching royal thrones. Jesus would be in the middle, and they would be on either side of him: the Galileans have come to town, Zebedee’s boys have made it to the top at last! Now we’ll sort things out – especially those people who have been getting in the way, trying to stop Jesus launching his kingdom. We’ll show them! (Compare Luke 9.54.) And, who knows?”
“And now we come to the second fresh perspective on the whole letter, here unveiled in verse 3. ‘You have stored up riches’, warns James, ‘ in the last days ’. This, too, is based on what James believed about Jesus. With Jesus, God’s new world had begun! He had launched God’s kingdom , on earth as in heaven : this is ‘the age to come ’ for which Israel had longed and prayed! These are, in that sense, ‘the last days’, the great new time in which everything would be set right at last.”
What it means for you
It's easy to read the sons of Zebedee and wince, because their ambition looks so familiar. Most of us angle, in small ways, for the seat beside power—recognition at work, influence in our circles, credit for what we've done. The two Jameses suggest another path: not the suppression of ambition, but its redirection. If God's new world has genuinely begun, then the question shifts from "how do I get to the top?" to "how do I serve within a kingdom that's already here?" That reframe touches money, status, and how we treat people who can't advance us. Greatness, on this reading, is something you give away.
In context
The throne request comes in Mark 10, immediately after Jesus has predicted—for the third time—his own suffering and death in Jerusalem. The timing makes the disciples' misunderstanding painfully clear: Jesus speaks of a cross, and they hear a coronation. The letter of James sits at the other end of the story. Written to scattered early believers, its fifth chapter confronts rich oppressors with the news that history has turned a corner: hoarding wealth makes no sense if the long-awaited "last days" have already dawned in Jesus.