*James 1:2-27
James instructs believers to consider trials as opportunities for growth, explaining that perseverance produces maturity and faith that is complete.
- Joy in Trials:
- Believers are encouraged to consider it pure joy when facing trials of various kinds.
- Trials are seen as a testing of faith, which produces perseverance, and perseverance must finish its work so that the believer may be mature and complete, lacking nothing.
- Wisdom from God:
- If anyone lacks wisdom, they should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to them.
- However, when asking for wisdom, one must ask in faith, without doubting, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind.
- Humility and Exaltation:
- The humble circumstances of the poor should be a cause for boasting in their high position.
- Conversely, the rich should take pride in their humiliation—since they will pass away like a wild flower.
- Enduring Temptation:
- Blessed is the one who perseveres under trial because, having stood the test, that person will receive the crown of life that the Lord has promised to those who love Him.
- Believers are warned not to say they are tempted by God, for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone.
- Source of Temptation:
- Each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed.
- After desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.
- Listening and Doing:
- James emphasizes the importance of not merely listening to the word, and so deceiving yourselves, but doing what it says.
- Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like.
- True Religion:
- True religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.
1:2 My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations; 1:3 Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience.
1:4 But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.
1:5 If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.
1:6 But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed.
1:7 For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord.
1:8 A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.
1:9 Let the brother of low degree rejoice in that he is exalted: 1:10 But the rich, in that he is made low: because as the flower of the grass he shall pass away.
1:11 For the sun is no sooner risen with a burning heat, but it withereth the grass, and the flower thereof falleth, and the grace of the fashion of it perisheth: so also shall the rich man fade away in his ways.
1:12 Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him.
1:13 Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man: 1:14 But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed.
1:15 Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.
1:16 Do not err, my beloved brethren.
1:17 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.
1:18 Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.
1:19 Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath: 1:20 For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God.
1:21 Wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls.
1:22 But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.
1:23 For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass: 1:24 For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was.
1:25 But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed.
1:26 If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man’s religion is vain.
1:27 Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.