James 1

Wed Mar 26, 2008 6:45 pm by Colin

James, the brother of Jesus wrote:1 James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad, greeting.

2 My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations;

3 Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience.

4 But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.

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.

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.

7 For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord.

8 A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.

9 Let the brother of low degree rejoice in that he is exalted:

10 But the rich, in that he is made low: because as the flower of the grass he shall pass away.

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.

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.

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:

14 But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed.

15 Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.

16 Do not err, my beloved brethren.

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.

18 Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.

19 Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath:

20 For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God.

21 Wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls.

22 But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.

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:

24 For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was.

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.

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.

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.

Thu Apr 10, 2008 5:31 am by Colin

I have to do a colometry here, because James is so Greeked--more than that, it's fundamentally not Greek--it's written in an unknown language and then translated into Greek and then translated into English. So the Book of James, as with many books, has been translated at least twice and maybe ten times by the time it gets to us, so it is often hard to read simply on that regard. Compare the book of Isaiah, where all the scholars tell us Isaiah was very straightforward when it was written, and that the hypotaxis of the language, more than the symbology, is what's stopping most people from really enjoying it. Anyway, James 1 is one of the best chapters in the New Testament, yet it takes.

My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations; Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience. But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.

Count yourself lucky that you are tempted, because resisting temptation is the only way to grow, and that growth is required for salvation. It says here action based on faith is required for salvation, which action here is enduring through temptation--not ignoring it, not saying "believers cannot be tempted", not giving in every once in a while because it's still within the statistical norm.

(...)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. 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. For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord (because) A double minded man is unstable in all his ways (and therefore would hurt himself if given spiritual matches.)

As an aside, the greekishness of the text, written by the brother of Jesus, may imply that Jesus spoke a lot, if not primarily, Greek. That is not unusual--Greek was actually more spoken than Latin even in downtown Rome. It is important to recognize that we don't know what language Jesus spoke, and any arguments for any language hold no more weight than this argument here.

James 1

James 1

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