- 6/29/2025
The Common Sense Bible Study crew discusses James 1:1-18, which sets the topic and tone for the rest of the book. Trials, troubles, riches, poverty, faith, and steadfastness.
From Jay Carper at Common Sense Bible Study (https://CommonSenseBibleStudy.com) and American Torah (https://www.AmericanTorah.com).
This content is free, but I accept contributions via Paypal at https://jaycarper.com/paypal.
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From Jay Carper at Common Sense Bible Study (https://CommonSenseBibleStudy.com) and American Torah (https://www.AmericanTorah.com).
This content is free, but I accept contributions via Paypal at https://jaycarper.com/paypal.
Send me a friend request on The Torah Network: https://jaycarper.com/ttn
Follow me on X: https://jaycarper.com/twitter
Follow me on Facebook: https://jaycarper.com/fbat
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LearningTranscript
00:00:00All right, so we are here to talk about the epistle of James.
00:00:07And in our previous sessions, we talked about kind of general things about the book, who
00:00:13likely wrote it from out of four possible Jameses.
00:00:19James, the just, the half brother of Yeshua, seems the most likely candidate.
00:00:23There are some other possibilities and the book itself doesn't really say, but there's
00:00:28some internal evidence that helps support that, you know, the language and the style
00:00:33of writing, the topics.
00:00:35We talked about some of the major themes of James, who he seems to be writing to and why.
00:00:45Just all the, you know, the general metadata about the letter.
00:00:50So today we're going to continue a little bit of that, and then we're going to get into
00:00:54the text itself.
00:00:55And the first thing I want to talk about are the people of James.
00:01:01James writes about, well, first off, it's James.
00:01:05And we talked some about his life history, you know, his experiences and why we believe
00:01:11that James, the just wrote this book.
00:01:13Um, but there's also the people that he wrote it to.
00:01:19And we can tell right off the bat, you know, the very, very first verse says James to the
00:01:2712 tribes in the dispersion.
00:01:29So it's kind of ambiguous.
00:01:34Uh, is he talking about the, the actual people of the nation of Israel who are scattered around
00:01:41the world by the Assyrians and Babylonians, or is he talking about, um, you know, all of
00:01:48those people plus the Gentiles who have been grafted into Israel.
00:01:52So a lot of people really do believe that James was only writing to Jews so that this book
00:01:59isn't really written for Gentiles.
00:02:01Well, I don't, I don't really think that that makes a lot of sense since, uh, I'm, I certainly
00:02:09believe that a Jew is still a Jew and, uh, Gentiles who are grafted into Israel don't become
00:02:16Jews in the ethnic sense.
00:02:18We become Jews in the metaphorical sense that Paul used in Romans where, uh, we are to be
00:02:23Christ-like and we are to live a life that glorifies him, that brings praises to him, which
00:02:29is the meaning, the root meaning of the word Jew from Yehuda.
00:02:35Um, but I don't believe that we just become Jews, whether that means members of the tribe
00:02:42of Judah or citizens of the Southern kingdom of Judah, or all the many different definitions
00:02:48that people use for that word.
00:02:49That's not what I think that, that happens.
00:02:53And so when James is writing a letter of advice, even if he addressed it only to Jews, people
00:03:01that he thought of as Jews at the time, that doesn't mean that it's not also for us because
00:03:06God's rules are the same for everybody.
00:03:11I mean, you know, within certain limitations, obviously, if you're not a priest, then rules
00:03:16about priests don't apply to you.
00:03:18If you're not a woman, rules about women don't apply to you, things like that.
00:03:22But if you're a person, rules that apply to people apply to you, whether you are a Jew
00:03:27or a Gentile grafted into Israel, you're still a citizen.
00:03:31And all of God's rules about how people are to behave applies to everyone.
00:03:37If they didn't apply to everyone, then there'd be no such thing as sin because Paul and John
00:03:44both define sin as violations of the law.
00:03:49So if the law doesn't apply to Gentiles, then Gentiles can't sin.
00:03:52So whether or not James is addressing this letter to the native descendants of Jacob, you know,
00:04:03the natural Jews, or whether he means Judah and the 10 lost tribes, no matter where they
00:04:11are, or all of these Gentile believers who are grafted into Israel, whichever group of these
00:04:18people he's talking to, we can still learn from this book.
00:04:22It might have some impact on how we understand what he's saying, because if he's writing to
00:04:29people who have never heard of Abraham and Rahab and Job before, then we have to understand
00:04:37his words a little bit differently than if he's talking to people who grew up learning the
00:04:42Torah and the scriptures all their lives, because they're just going to have a different
00:04:45perspective.
00:04:47And so James is going to expect them to understand his words differently.
00:04:51So it will have a little bit of an impact on how we understand this letter, but it won't
00:04:56change the underlying meaning that James is trying to get across.
00:05:00It's the same whether the letter was written to Jews or Gentiles, converts or Levites.
00:05:08It doesn't really matter.
00:05:10Welcome, Scott.
00:05:12Hello.
00:05:15So, and James, of course, doesn't explain himself.
00:05:20We just have to make some assumptions and everybody does.
00:05:23We're really good at that.
00:05:26He's talking to people who are tempted, whether that's tempted by wealth or tempted to be bitter
00:05:34from poverty or whatever, whatever difficulties life throws at you.
00:05:41These are the things, these are your trials and your temptations.
00:05:46He's talking to people who are persecuted, not necessarily persecuted politically, you know,
00:05:51by Rome, but by their fellow believers frequently or by their next door neighbors, people who are
00:05:57just abused in general in life, not necessarily because they're believers, but just because they're
00:06:01people and people can be cruel to each other.
00:06:04He specifically addresses the poor and the rich.
00:06:13And then he talks about people.
00:06:16So some of the people that he talks about in the letter, well, I think these are all of them
00:06:21that I could find, Abraham, Isaac, Rahab, Job, and Elijah.
00:06:28He mentions all of these people and he talks about them as if he believes his audience already
00:06:34knows who they are and why he's bringing them up.
00:06:37So he's assuming that his audience knows the scriptures.
00:06:40Anybody have any thoughts about who James was writing to and why, especially this idea of
00:06:54the 12 tribes and diaspora?
00:06:55I know we talked about it a little bit before, but if anybody has any other thoughts on that
00:07:00or any questions about it, this would be a great time to bring them up.
00:07:10If not, then let's move on to the pericopes of James.
00:07:16Does everybody remember what pericope means?
00:07:20If not, a pericope is a kind of a logically discrete unit of text.
00:07:27So if I write a book about gardening, since we were talking about that earlier, and I have
00:07:35a chapter on tomatoes, that could be a pericope.
00:07:38A single unit about tomatoes.
00:07:41But then I also, within that chapter, I have a few paragraphs about dealing with tomato hornworms.
00:07:50Well, this could also be a pericope.
00:07:52Pericope is really kind of subjective.
00:07:55In any block of text that can be talked about within itself, within its own context, can be
00:08:01considered a pericope.
00:08:02Now, of course, we really can't understand any section of James without understanding
00:08:07the whole thing, and we can't fully understand James without understanding the whole Bible.
00:08:12But within that, you know, we can more or less chop up the text into pieces and talk about
00:08:17those pieces as units.
00:08:19We just always have to remember that they're not, they don't exist in a vacuum.
00:08:25They're part of a bigger whole.
00:08:27So before we talk about the pericopes that I identified in here, has anybody spent any time
00:08:36over the last couple of weeks looking through James and identifying any sections or points of
00:08:44divisions in the text where James changes topics?
00:08:54You can just unmute yourself if you've got something to say.
00:09:01Or if not?
00:09:02I didn't actually do that, but I happen to know that you might have.
00:09:08I might have.
00:09:11Okay.
00:09:14So, yeah, go ahead.
00:09:17I'm trying to recall.
00:09:18I apologize.
00:09:20But at one point, he switches to, I think it's a class of people that he's talking about
00:09:26near the end.
00:09:26Yeah, it's a different flavor.
00:09:32I think at the end, that's, that's my, my recollections.
00:09:36So I don't have the specifics, but.
00:09:39Yeah, he, he, at the end, I think he kind of switches to a solution sort of thing where
00:09:45he's talking about, here's all your problems and here's what you're doing wrong.
00:09:48And then at the end, it's like, but you know, the key is patience and humility and, you know,
00:09:55praying for each other, these kinds of things.
00:09:58He, he, he takes several chapters describing the sickness and then about a half a chapter
00:10:04or most of a chapter describing what it should look like.
00:10:08So, yeah, there's definitely a change of tone at the end.
00:10:15I divided up James into, let me count them here, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10,
00:10:2111, 11 possible pericopes, but really divided into four bigger ones.
00:10:29So we're probably going to end up talking about the smaller ones as individual units,
00:10:34but let me give you the bigger framework here first.
00:10:37Uh, the first section is about faithfulness, trials, and good works.
00:10:43And the way that those things are related is that when you have trials, your faithfulness
00:10:51is proved by your good works, if that makes sense.
00:10:55So within that, the first part, oh, yeah, I guess I'm going to talk about all four of these
00:11:03divisions before I talk about the subsections, because that's the way I understand.
00:11:07I set up the slide.
00:11:09So the second part is conflict and selfish pride.
00:11:12These are the sources of some of the problems.
00:11:15In the next section, abuses of the wealthy and powerful.
00:11:19I should have said abuses by the wealthy and powerful.
00:11:21Uh, and then finally, patience and humility.
00:11:26And you can kind of see a structure here.
00:11:28He begins by talking about perseverance through hard times.
00:11:35And he ends by talking about perseverance through hard times and how to help each other through
00:11:39it.
00:11:39And in the middle, he talks about all the things that we do to each other that create problems.
00:11:46So James is not a random book.
00:11:48I know that a lot of teachers will, will treat James as if it's a collection of proverbs, but
00:11:56he does have a plan.
00:11:58He's not just randomly throwing things out there.
00:12:01So going back to that first section, would you not say it's somewhat class oriented, especially
00:12:08that third section?
00:12:09I find it that way.
00:12:10Yeah, he is talking into specific groups of people at different points in the book.
00:12:15And he does tend to focus on the conflicts between rich and poor or between powerful and
00:12:21weak, because they're usually the same groups of people.
00:12:25Um, and it is those two groups of people have their own peculiar sense.
00:12:32You're not necessarily a bad person because you're rich or because you're poor, but if
00:12:36you're rich and powerful, then your temptations are different than if you're poor, your temptations
00:12:42are to abuse the power that you have to treat people poorly.
00:12:48No pun intended there because you can.
00:12:51Um, whereas if you're poor, then your temptations are more likely to be bitterness, uh, maybe
00:12:58a petty crime instead of embezzlement, uh, same kinds of things, but for different reasons,
00:13:04or maybe I should say same, same sin of theft, but for different reasons and definitely done
00:13:13in different ways.
00:13:14Um, and James doesn't spend a lot of time talking about the sins of the weak and poor
00:13:21in this letter, he's really focused on the sins of the rich and powerful.
00:13:26So this first section, the faithfulness trials and good works, I've kind of divided up into
00:13:35four sections, uh, chapter one versus one through 18 is the initial greeting, which doesn't really
00:13:41fit into that category, but I don't want to talk about it by itself.
00:13:45And talking about faithfulness under pressure, are you, you are, uh, having trials or temptations
00:13:56or whatever it is in standing firm through those things.
00:13:59And then verses 19 to 27, kind of the same way, but instead of, um, resisting temptations,
00:14:07it's persistence in good works through trials, which is a more active approach in chapter two
00:14:15versus one to 13, he's talking about favoritism toward the rich.
00:14:19So these aren't necessarily rich people, but they are people who want to cozy up to the rich
00:14:25people, want to give them things just because they're rich, you know, instead of treating
00:14:30everybody the same, uh, versus chapter two, verse 14 to 26, uh, talking about faith without
00:14:38works, which is the opposite, sorry, the opposite of verses 19 to 27 in the previous chapter.
00:14:46There, he was talking about the good works that come from your faith.
00:14:49And now he's talking about how can you have faith without good works?
00:14:53If you have faith, that means faithfulness and that means doing good things.
00:14:59So, and then in the next section, chapter three begins with talking about the untamed tongue
00:15:06and how dangerous it is to let our speech get away from us versus 13 to 18 is talking about
00:15:13spiritual wisdom and selfish ambition, uh, or I should say spiritual wisdom versus selfish ambition.
00:15:20And, uh, uh, chapter four versus one to two, sorry, chapter four versus one to 12, talking about
00:15:30submission to God, which is sort of an antidote to the selfish ambition.
00:15:36And when talking about the abuses of the wealthy and powerful chapter four versus 13 to 16 is a
00:15:44rebuke against the pride of being successful in business, you know, relying on yourself instead
00:15:52of on God.
00:15:53And then verse 17 through chapter five or six is talking about, um, pride against your fellow
00:16:01man because of what you have, or simply because what you have lets you forget about the little
00:16:10people, so to speak.
00:16:12And finally, at the end, chapter five, verses seven to 12, talking about patience and humility
00:16:18as the antidote to pride and then prayer for the sick and the wayward at the end in verses 13 to 20.
00:16:26So that's how I am dividing up the book of James.
00:16:29Um, and if you want to, I mean, this video is going to be uploaded later, um, but if you want
00:16:37to take a screenshot of that so you can have those sections for you, uh, and then as we're
00:16:43preparing, you're, you're nowhere, you're going to know where we're going, where we're
00:16:46at, and, uh, you'll know which section to focus on as you're studying.
00:16:54So I'll give you a couple more seconds to do that if you want.
00:16:59Okay.
00:17:10So the epistle of James, faithfulness, trials, and good works.
00:17:16Let's take a look at the, at part one, James chapter one, verses one to 18.
00:17:22What I want to do here is read through this slowly.
00:17:25And as we're reading, what I want you to do is to take note of any significant words and ideas
00:17:33as we're reading, just listen for what's the main thought in this sentence.
00:17:38What are significant words?
00:17:40And just, you know, jot them down as much as you can.
00:17:43And then after we've read this, we'll go back and we'll talk about what words you found in,
00:17:51in, uh, patterns in the things that James is saying.
00:17:55How often is a particular word repeated?
00:17:58What kinds of ideas does he seem to be focusing on?
00:18:04So let's see.
00:18:05Um, does anybody want to volunteer to read for us?
00:18:18I think Paula just volunteered, but it's got to unmute our microphone.
00:18:22I got it.
00:18:22There you are.
00:18:23I got it.
00:18:24I'm here.
00:18:25Okay.
00:18:25James one, one through 18.
00:18:28Correct.
00:18:28And kind of go slowly so people can take notes if they want to.
00:18:31Okay.
00:18:32I'm trying, but for some reason, my stuff's not responding.
00:18:35I'm using my.
00:18:37Give me a second to get my, grab my real Bible.
00:18:42Oh, there it is.
00:18:43Sorry.
00:18:51See if it actually works now.
00:18:53Okay.
00:18:53Okay.
00:18:53Uh, James, a slave of God and the Lord, uh, and, and of the Lord, Yeshua, the Messiah
00:19:03to the 12 tribes in the diaspora, Shalom, rejoice in trials, consider, sorry, that's not actually
00:19:11written.
00:19:12That's a title.
00:19:12Consider it all my, all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that
00:19:18the testing of your faith produces endurance and let endurance have its perfect work.
00:19:24So that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
00:19:30But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God who gives to all without hesitation and
00:19:37without reproach, and it will be given to him.
00:19:41But let him ask in faith without any doubting for the one who doubts is like a wave of the
00:19:46sea blown and tossed by the wind.
00:19:48For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord.
00:19:55He is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.
00:19:59But let the brother in humble circumstances boast in his, in his high position and the rich
00:20:09person in his humble position, because like the flower of the grass, he will pass away.
00:20:15For the sun arises with the scorching heat and withers the grass, and its flowers fall
00:20:21off, and the beauty of its appearance is destroyed.
00:20:25So also the rich man in the midst of his pursuits will wither away.
00:20:28Happy is the one who endures testing, because when he has stood the test, he will receive
00:20:35the crown of life, which the Lord promised to those who love him.
00:20:39Let no one say when he is tempted, I am being tempted by God, for God cannot be tempted by
00:20:46evil, and he himself tempts no one.
00:20:51But each one is tempted when he is dragged away and enticed by his own desire.
00:20:57Then when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin, and when sin is full grown, it brings
00:21:02forth death.
00:21:03Do not be deceived, my dear brothers and sisters, every good gift and every perfect gift is from
00:21:10above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting
00:21:15shadow.
00:21:17By his will, he brought us forth by the word of truth, so that we might be a kind of first
00:21:22fruits of all he created.
00:21:27All right, thank you.
00:21:30Good job.
00:21:33All right, so hopefully some of you were taking some notes there.
00:21:39I'm bringing my notepad over so we can share some notes together.
00:21:51So who'd like to tell me some words that they noticed or some ideas that James seems to be
00:21:57focused on in this pericope?
00:21:58Stiles, Endurance, and Temptations.
00:22:06Okay, yeah.
00:22:12Anyone else?
00:22:15Faith and Works.
00:22:19Faith and Works.
00:22:20Okay.
00:22:20Status and Position.
00:22:32Status and Position.
00:22:32The, um, that phrase, double-minded and unstable.
00:22:55Any other thoughts?
00:23:11Anything else that stands out to you?
00:23:17You just want things that stand out to us?
00:23:19Mm-hmm.
00:23:20Okay.
00:23:23So, Father of Lights?
00:23:27Like, I just don't know.
00:23:30Yeah, that's when he was talking about the crown of life.
00:23:34Yeah.
00:23:35Yeah.
00:23:36Well, he says, um...
00:23:38Yeah, and then he also says First...
00:23:44Wait, is that...
00:23:45He says Firstfruits, too?
00:23:46Okay.
00:23:47Um, from the Father of Lights.
00:23:52Yeah.
00:23:53Mm-hmm.
00:23:54Yeah, and Gifts.
00:23:55Gifts from the Father of Lights.
00:23:56Um, yeah.
00:24:08And then, I mean, Firstfruits of his creatures?
00:24:13Yeah, that's an interesting phrase.
00:24:16Yeah.
00:24:21You mentioned the rich and the poor a couple of times.
00:24:25Yeah.
00:24:26There was several verses in the middle where he's talking about the grass and flowers and fading away, the sun.
00:24:45Mm-hmm.
00:25:07Okay.
00:25:08I have a metadata thought real quick on the...
00:25:11Mm-hmm.
00:25:11Mm-hmm.
00:25:12It's...
00:25:12For that whole chapter, it seems like a bunch of patches of kind of sections of wisdom that are kind of sewn together.
00:25:20Mm-hmm.
00:25:20He's not talking to somebody specifically.
00:25:22He sure has specific topics kind of laid out one after the other.
00:25:28Yeah, it does seem like he's jumping from one topic to another, but there is a pattern here.
00:25:35Mm-hmm.
00:25:36And can anybody guess what form that pattern takes?
00:25:45Is it a chiasm?
00:25:47I was waiting.
00:25:50Yes.
00:25:50Okay, let me see if I can...
00:25:59Sorry, trying to get this into a view that I can pull over on the screen.
00:26:10I'm just going to create a brand new Word doc and copy and paste this in there.
00:26:20Now, this is...
00:26:22Chiasms are kind of funny in that sometimes it's hard to tell if it's real.
00:26:26Well, there's definitely a pattern in the way that James is talking here, but is this a deliberate chiasm?
00:26:34Well, I'm kind of doubtful about that, whether he actually was intending to create a chiasm.
00:26:41But there's definitely a pattern to the way that this is laid out.
00:26:46You know, he begins with a greeting.
00:26:49He's talking to the 12 tribes in dispersion.
00:26:51So, in verse 18, he says that we were created by his Word as a kind of firstfruits.
00:26:58Well, he talks about Israel as his firstfruits, his firstborn son.
00:27:04And this is one of the things that he says to Pharaoh when he's taking them out of Egypt.
00:27:09He says, you know, because you abused my firstborn son, I'm going to take yours.
00:27:14So, in this was by God's Word, Israel was created.
00:27:18And he promised it, and then he made it happen, not just because, not just through his promise, but because of the things he said.
00:27:28He spoke the ten plagues into existence.
00:27:33He told Moses, you know, do this, and this is going to happen.
00:27:37And then when they got to Sinai, he spoke the Ten Commandments to Israel.
00:27:41He spoke the initial words of covenant.
00:27:46I will be your God, and you will be my people.
00:27:48And so, he created a people for himself, a firstfruits out of the nations by his Word.
00:27:55And then Yeshua comes as his Word, and through his death and resurrection, enables all of the world to become part of that nation.
00:28:05So, again, through his Word, we become a kind of firstfruits out of the world, out of all the nations.
00:28:11So, that's why I'm linking 12 tribes in dispersion to created us as a kind of firstfruits.
00:28:19And then in verses 2 to 5, he talks about, you know, taking joy in trials, because these things are used by God.
00:28:30Even if God doesn't necessarily tempt us, he does put difficulties in our way to give us opportunities to exercise our faith and to grow and to prove who we are.
00:28:43And he uses these things to help us into maturity.
00:28:48And then in verse 16 and 17, on the other end, everything that comes from God is good and perfect.
00:28:54All of these gifts that he gives us.
00:28:57Back to the beginning, verses 6 and 8.
00:28:59Ask God in faith without duplicity, or you'll get nothing out of these trials.
00:29:03In verses 13 and 15, if you cooperate with God's trials, you will win.
00:29:11Otherwise, you'll just get what you deserve.
00:29:13You can get mad at God and blame him and give in to temptation, and it's all for nothing.
00:29:21But if you trust him, if you endure and you resist temptation, you will win in the end.
00:29:26And in the first half, verses 9 through 10, rejoice in the trials that come with your circumstances.
00:29:34Whether you're rich, God will exalt you in the end.
00:29:38Whether, I mean, God will humble you and thereby mature you if you are poor, then through your faithfulness, God will exalt you.
00:29:47So rejoice in that.
00:29:49And then on the other side, in verse 12, blessed are those who endure their trials.
00:29:53In the top half, the other half, the last part of verse 10, the rich will pass away like a flower.
00:30:01Opposite to the last half of verse 11, which is the rich will fade away.
00:30:07And in the middle, the sun rises, scorches, and kills the flowers.
00:30:12So it doesn't matter who you are, rich or poor, powerful or weak.
00:30:17In the end, the sun rises, scorches, and kills everything.
00:30:21We're all going to die.
00:30:22We're all going to face judgment.
00:30:24So rejoice in the trials that God gives you in this life, because this life really is nothing compared to what's coming.
00:30:31What comes after this life will be joy beyond anything we can imagine here, no matter how wealthy, no matter how great your life was, or no matter how awful your life was.
00:30:43It will seem like nothing.
00:30:44So although it seems like James might be stringing together just some random proverbs, he's doing it in a logical train of thought.
00:30:57It's just not quite the logic that we would normally use in our Western literature.
00:31:01His thoughts are structured in a different way, in a definitely a more Hebraic kind of thinking.
00:31:08So does that make sense to everybody?
00:31:18I know on some of your screens, that's probably a little hard to read.
00:31:21Is that a rabbinical kind of struct, or is that just Hebrew?
00:31:30Well, chiasms are pretty universal, especially in ancient literature, but they are very common in the Bible.
00:31:36Yeah, there's actually a course in chiasms in the portal.
00:31:47I've got some things I'm going to say about that later after the recording, but we'll get there.
00:31:52But a chiasm is, sometimes it's called a literary inversion or an inclusio, depending on who you're talking to.
00:32:01And what it is, is you start with one point, and then you go through like point A, point B, point C, and then you go backwards through the same sequence, point B, point A.
00:32:14So that whatever is in the middle is either a pivot point, or it's the most significant point, or something about the middle is important to the entire thing.
00:32:25But the points on opposite ends are meant to connect with each other in meaning, or to contrast, to illustrate how things are either the same or very different from each other.
00:32:38So if both sides are equivalent, like they are here, this side equals this side, it's called a sympathetic chiasm.
00:32:46If they're opposites, like this side is the opposite of this one down here, then it's called an antithetic chiasm.
00:32:57Oh, there was one on Facebook I saw just yesterday.
00:33:05Oh, yeah, this is one everybody knows.
00:33:10Father Abraham had many sons, many sons had Father Abraham.
00:33:13Father Abraham, that's a basic chiasm, about the simplest form you can get.
00:33:20One I've used before is, don't ask what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.
00:33:29That's another chiasm.
00:33:30So they're fairly common in kind of poetic or slogan kind of speeches.
00:33:37But in ancient literature, they tend to get bigger and more complicated, and the Bible really is full of them.
00:33:44And sometimes, because our brains are just hardwired to look for patterns, sometimes you have to be careful with this kind of thing, because you might be seeing a pattern that's not really there.
00:33:54And I think, possibly like in this case, it's not a pattern that James meant to write.
00:34:01It's just the way that he thinks, he thinks in this same pattern, because it's just the way that he grew up, and it was the way he was taught.
00:34:10So he may not necessarily be trying to create a literary chiasm.
00:34:14It's just the way that it came out on paper.
00:34:17Okay, any questions about that, or any other thoughts?
00:34:28So the overall point here seems to be, whatever your circumstances, it's going to present trials.
00:34:45Whether you're rich or poor, healthy or sick, whatever it is, you're going to have trials, difficulties in life that are going to bring you temptations that you're going to have to struggle with.
00:34:57And if you remain faithful through them, then God will use them to mature you into the perfect person he needs you to be.
00:35:06And by perfect, I don't mean totally flawless, never makes a mistake.
00:35:10In Bible speak, perfect usually means mature for whatever purpose God has for you.
00:35:17So that's what trials are for.
00:35:18They are there to make us into the people God needs us to be.
00:35:22So it's not necessarily that we should go and seek them out, but we shouldn't run from them either.
00:35:28We should be glad that God puts obstacles in our path so that we have the opportunity to overcome them and become stronger by them.
00:35:40Okay, now what are we going to talk about for the rest of the night?
00:35:50All right, so I don't have a whole lot else to put on the slides here.
00:35:53I don't want to go into the next pericope yet.
00:35:57So what we can do is maybe we can just go through the, start going through this passage.
00:36:03Does anybody else have any thoughts about just the theme that James is working on?
00:36:12Let me bring our list of terms back over here.
00:36:16Anybody have any impressions about, you know, what James is really on about or anything to add to what I already said?
00:36:23Sort of a toughen up buttercup type of speech.
00:36:32I think, you know, you're going to go through stuff.
00:36:34How you handle it is what he's looking at.
00:36:37Yeah.
00:36:41Yeah.
00:36:41And there's another thing that I noticed as I was studying this is that I don't think it's wrong to classify this letter as wisdom literature because James really is giving advice.
00:36:53He's not giving laws, you know, this isn't Torah.
00:36:59He's, this is more practical application of Torah.
00:37:02How do you do this in real life?
00:37:04But he's approaching it like a wise counselor, somebody that everybody respects and recognizes his authority.
00:37:14And there are connections all through this letter to the Proverbs.
00:37:18And there's a big section in the middle from the middle of chapter three into the first half of chapter five.
00:37:32So it's most of the second half of the book is he.
00:37:38I'm just about convinced that he was deliberately working off of Proverbs chapter three in writing that.
00:37:45So I'm going to bring another thing over here on my screen.
00:37:58Yeah.
00:37:59Shrink this one.
00:38:03So these are the different sections in James that I had kind of mapped out.
00:38:08And you notice next to each one of them, there's some references from Proverbs.
00:38:12And this is the only one, I think I just ran out of time and didn't have time to, to connect that with anything in Proverbs, but I suspect it's, it's the same.
00:38:23It's going to be the same there.
00:38:24You know, anytime you're going to give people good, sound wisdom from God, it's going to connect Proverbs because this Proverbs is just ton.
00:38:34It's just full of a ton of good, sound wisdom from God.
00:38:37But see these ones that are bolded starting in chapter three, verse 13, this whole section is very tightly aligned with Proverbs three, verses one to 24.
00:38:50This section, Proverbs three, 30 to 35, down here in the last half of chapter four, in the beginning of five, chapter three, verses 25 to 29 in Proverbs.
00:39:05And then at the beginning of chapter five, it's the first part of Proverbs chapter three, again, there are so many themes in common with Proverbs chapter three that I don't know how he could not have had that in mind as he was writing.
00:39:25And it's not in the same order as Proverbs three, but the entire chapter is included in his advice here.
00:39:40All right.
00:39:40So let's look at where my Bible go.
00:39:47So we already talked about chapter one, unless anybody wanted to talk about that some more.
00:39:55But I'm going to put verses one to four on the screen here.
00:40:08So count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness and let steadfastness have its full effect.
00:40:18You may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.
00:40:23Lost my dog pad.
00:40:25So count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds.
00:40:36There's the word here, trials.
00:40:39It is.
00:40:42I find it in my notes.
00:40:43Sorry.
00:40:44The word trials is parosmos, and it can refer to hardships, persecution, or temptation.
00:40:57And the King James Version actually translates it here as temptations.
00:41:03When you fall into diverse temptations.
00:41:06And I think that the problem is that we have, in English, we tend to make a very distinct division between trials and temptations.
00:41:19But I don't think that the Hebrew mind, especially someone who was steeped in the Hebrew scriptures, would have had such a distinct definition that trials and temptations are frequently the same thing.
00:41:38But if you are experiencing temptation, then this is a trial.
00:41:42It's an obstacle, something that you need to overcome.
00:41:45And what James says later in the chapter is that God doesn't send you temptations.
00:41:51Temptations, it's the same word, though.
00:41:53So is it talking about trials or temptations?
00:41:56Well, both kind of.
00:41:57But we know that God does send trials.
00:41:59He does put obstacles in your way and things for you to overcome.
00:42:02I mean, just look at the life of Abraham.
00:42:04God put trials in Abraham's life for him to overcome.
00:42:10In part, this tells the world and God who the person is.
00:42:16If you test Abraham, if Abraham comes through with flying colors, it shows the world who he is.
00:42:23Think of the trials of Job.
00:42:28Satan came to God and said, you know, you give favors to this guy and that's why he's faithful to you.
00:42:34But if you took all that away, he would stop being faithful.
00:42:38And God said, you want to bet?
00:42:40So he let Satan test him to reveal who Job really is.
00:42:44And in so doing, gave us a fantastic lesson in faithfulness.
00:42:51And I think that James, in using this word that can mean either trial or temptation, depending on context,
00:42:59shows us that he doesn't have much of a difference in his mind between these two things.
00:43:04Except that there's kind of a spectrum of meaning in the word.
00:43:11Because at one point he says, or he very strongly implies that God gives you tests to help mold your character.
00:43:20And we know from scripture that he does to either mold you or reveal you.
00:43:24And then he turns around and says, but God doesn't tempt anybody or test anybody.
00:43:29Same word.
00:43:31And, but he turns around and, and he talks about how you tempt yourself, your own evil inclinations cause your temptations.
00:43:40So that James is using the same word to do double duty here, to mean both tests and temptations, depending on the context.
00:43:48The trials that you face in your life, bring the temptations and what you do with those temptations is what either creates sin or good character.
00:43:59And so James is saying, God gives you trials, but the trial of overcoming the trial, that's on you.
00:44:07You either pass the test or you fail the test.
00:44:11And it's your evil inclination that makes you want to fail.
00:44:15God gives you the opportunity through an obstacle and you prove yourself for how you react to the obstacle.
00:44:25Am I making sense there?
00:44:29Yeah, I mean, Yeshua went through plenty of temptations, right?
00:44:36And trials, so can't get much more of a example than that.
00:44:47Yeah.
00:44:47Verse, um, Philip put in the comments that, uh, at verse 12 at the end, it seems to say that the outcome is based on loving Adonai.
00:44:58Okay, so, um, here's verse 12.
00:45:10Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him.
00:45:18Well, I think this goes back to, uh, what John says in 1 John 5.
00:45:23Um, all right, let me bring that up on the screen.
00:45:281 John 5.
00:45:29Uh, okay, no problem, Scott.
00:45:36We'll see you again soon.
00:45:38For this is the love of God that we keep his commandments, and his commandments are not burdensome.
00:45:44How do we show love for God?
00:45:46By doing what he said.
00:45:47So, when we have trials in our life that arouse our flesh and cause temptations to sin, we prove our love for God by obeying him in spite of those temptations, in spite of the trials.
00:46:00So, that's why James can say that those who pass the test will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him.
00:46:13There's another controversial thing there, but we'll get to that here in a little bit.
00:46:18Um, so, let's steadfastness have a full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
00:46:31All right, let's go on to verses 5 and 6.
00:46:33I should have put verses, uh, 7 and 8 in there, too.
00:46:59Let me grab all four of those.
00:47:11Is he talking about, is he talking about generic wisdom or wisdom to know the strategy of what the trial he's gone through?
00:47:19Well, yeah, I think it's, in this context, he's talking about wisdom in dealing with this trial.
00:47:24Um, I think it, it is true that, you know, if you lack wisdom, ask God and, and he will, he will help you gain wisdom.
00:47:32I don't think that God necessarily just waves a magic wand and zaps you with it.
00:47:37I think that we gain wisdom through trials.
00:47:41But in the midst of that trial, if we ask God for wisdom in dealing with it, I think that he will, his spirit will guide us through those things.
00:47:50And give us insight in how to meet the challenges, uh, he, you know, he makes all kinds of tools available.
00:47:57Um, if you have a tendency to anger in, you know, I am posting online a lot.
00:48:05I'm, I'm on X.
00:48:06I've got it running in a window pretty much all day long.
00:48:09Um, and some people say the most ridiculous things that really get under my skin.
00:48:13And I am frequently tempted to respond with anger.
00:48:18And sometimes I let my, my, not my mouth, my typing get away with me.
00:48:24Um, I try to keep that under control, but God has given us tools to deal with that.
00:48:29And, you know, one tool that is great for almost any kind of temptation is to praise God.
00:48:36Um, you know, some worship songs, you've start feeling that temptation, start, start praising God.
00:48:43It's really hard to be mad at people when you are singing a praise.
00:48:49Um, and through that, you know, just backing off from the anger or the emotion, whatever it is that is causing your temptation,
00:48:59it's taking a step back, helps you to get some perspective on it.
00:49:05And once you get that perspective without the emotional charge, then you'll have some better ideas on how to deal with it, how to approach these problems.
00:49:15And what James is recommending here is prayer, which is, you know, a very similar kind of thing.
00:49:22If you are faced with some, whatever your temptation is, pray.
00:49:26Pray and pray for like, God, how do I deal with this?
00:49:32Then between you and the spirit of God, you are likely to find some solutions.
00:49:39They may not be easy.
00:49:40If they were easy, then it wouldn't really be a trial, would it?
00:49:43Um, but there will be options and he will help you.
00:49:46And through that, you will gain experience for the next time.
00:49:51Um, and that's what real wisdom is, is the, the, the ability to apply good advice or good practice to real life.
00:50:00That's what, that's what real wisdom is about.
00:50:06So, yeah, good question.
00:50:08And context is important.
00:50:11We, we really do love to take verses like this and apply them to everything.
00:50:18Um, I can do all things to Christ who strengthens me.
00:50:22I always want to say, all right, well, let's put you in some chains in a dungeon and we'll see how that goes.
00:50:28Cause that, cause that's the context of what Paul was saying that in, you know, whether I'm, I'm rich or poor, I'm from in chains or I'm free.
00:50:35I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.
00:50:39Um, and here, if any of you, if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God who gives generously to all without reproach.
00:50:47He's not saying that, you know, if you want to be the wisest man on earth, just pray and ask God and God will zap you with wisdom.
00:50:54Well, God's going to help you figure out your trials and through overcoming trials, you will, you will gain in wisdom.
00:51:05Okay.
00:51:08What about the next part?
00:51:10Let him ask in faith with no doubting for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind.
00:51:18So if the first part is asking God for wisdom in overcoming your trials and temptations,
00:51:24what does it mean to, to ask in faith with no doubting?
00:51:31It's expectation.
00:51:34Yeah.
00:51:34Like it's, it's a single mindedness, which he does end up talking about right at the end.
00:51:42Yeah.
00:51:42If, if you approach God and say, God, please help me with this trial.
00:51:47Help me figure out how to deal with this.
00:51:49I know you're not going to, I don't, I don't think you're going to give me any help here.
00:51:53This is, I'm all on my own, but God, please help me.
00:51:55I mean, how much more double-minded can you get?
00:51:58And I think that we probably all struggle with this to some extent.
00:52:02I know that, that I do, especially when it comes to prayers for healing.
00:52:06Uh, I have, I have known people who have experienced miracles, physical healing miracles, but I don't see it often enough in my life to really internalize it.
00:52:19I'm like, I know God heals.
00:52:21I know he has risen people from the dead.
00:52:22He's healed cancer.
00:52:24He has healed all kinds of whatever malady a person can have.
00:52:30He has healed it.
00:52:31I know that, but I don't see a lot of it.
00:52:34And so it's hard for me to overcome that expectation, you know, God heal me.
00:52:40And I prayed many times for healing before and I haven't got it.
00:52:43So I'm not really expecting anything this time.
00:52:47And every time I pray that, and I think that, I think, why am I even praying if I don't expect God to do anything?
00:52:53And so I try to get myself into the right mindset to believe what I'm praying.
00:52:58And that's a very difficult thing.
00:52:59It's not as easy as it sounds, or I don't know if it sounds easy to you.
00:53:03It doesn't sound easy to me, I guess.
00:53:04Yeah, there's also layers of that, too.
00:53:19So, like, the first layer is God is good.
00:53:22And in this situation, he has my, you know, best, he's going to take care of me.
00:53:28You know, like Psalm 78, they need to trust that God is good.
00:53:31He's going to see him through Israel, through everything he's going through.
00:53:35And then there's higher levels of faith built on top of that.
00:53:38And sometimes the other ones get stripped back and you're just sitting on that one, you know, building back on top of those things, too.
00:53:46Yeah, I think just the acceptance that God is good is there's a balance of prayer and faith going on that's kind of difficult to achieve.
00:53:58And James is going to address this later, too.
00:54:00So, if you're praying for healing or relief from oppression or debt or whatever the problem is, if you know that God is good and God wants good things for you, well, good health is a good thing.
00:54:15And wealth is a good thing, even if it brings its own temptations in itself, it's a good thing that can be used for lots of good.
00:54:23But that doesn't mean that that's what God wants for you.
00:54:26It doesn't mean that this is the best thing for you personally or for the kingdom as a whole.
00:54:31God may need you to be in a bad situation for the benefit of somebody else.
00:54:36So, there's this balancing thing going on.
00:54:42God, this is what I want to happen and I pray for this, but I recognize that your will may be something different and I have to trust that whatever it is that you desire is the best thing.
00:54:53So, sometimes that can be an excuse in prayer.
00:54:58Yeah, I don't expect God to do this, but that's probably for the best anyways.
00:55:02But is that doubting God or is that accepting God's goodness?
00:55:08Kind of hard to tell.
00:55:13Anybody else have any thoughts on that?
00:55:16I think, too, it also goes back to the expectation of God being good to us and God taking care of us.
00:55:25And going back to that expectation of, like, this is what the word says about God's intentions for us.
00:55:36And then when we look at the testing or the trials and being tempted, it's the temptation is to not trust God.
00:55:48Whatever the desire is that you have, the temptation is to trust, to follow that path.
00:55:54And so, it's being able to have the awareness of, like, what does that kind of look like in our lives?
00:56:02And I think one of the things James is doing is he's kind of drawing a picture of that.
00:56:05It's almost like he's saying, hey, it almost looks like in this whole chapter, it's like he's saying, hey, you're a Christian now.
00:56:12So, let me tell you what you can expect.
00:56:17And, like, painting a picture of it so that nobody's surprised, you know.
00:56:24And so, I think, like, a lot of what, at least in our modern culture, this kind of book can help us with is, like, reminding us and giving us some truth of, like, this is what it looks like.
00:56:39And all the other things that we might have expected are been told by other people who are maybe selling a false gospel that those things aren't true.
00:56:54Or maybe we've been led to expect certain things based on about life, based on the way we were raised.
00:57:01And, you know, we become a Christian, and maybe we think that'll change.
00:57:07Or maybe we have expectations that are more faithless that we grew up with, and now we're having to shed those.
00:57:17So, there's just a lot that goes into how this plays out.
00:57:22But I do think he's giving kind of some patterns of and drawing a picture for us with his words.
00:57:32Yeah, I think a really important thing about that is that people may be believers, and they may be, I mean, perfectly faithful to God, and their circumstances might not show it.
00:57:52But we can't judge somebody else's circumstances, I mean, we can't judge somebody else's spiritual state based on their circumstances.
00:58:01There's a large segment of religion that says, you know, if you have faith, you won't have sickness.
00:58:09You won't, you will be healed.
00:58:11You will have prosperity, because that's what God wants for you.
00:58:15He wants his people to be prosperous and healthy and wise.
00:58:18Well, on the whole, I think that's true, but that doesn't mean that God wants all of those things for you at any given time or ever, because he may have a different purpose for you to serve.
00:58:32And that purpose requires that you be in a bad situation so that you can help other people, or that you can learn from it, or that you can become a certain kind of person that God needs you to be.
00:58:43It goes back to Paul's analogy of, all of us has a body.
00:58:53The body needs toes and hair.
00:58:57The body needs nose hairs.
00:58:59Somebody's got to be a nose hair.
00:59:01So we can't all be the heart and the brain and, you know, all of these great vital body parts.
00:59:08We're all important.
00:59:09We're all part of the functional body.
00:59:11And if we get out of our lane, so to speak, then we're going to create a problem.
00:59:17We're going to become a cancer or a growth in the body that's not supposed to be there, not doing the right thing.
00:59:23So there is a time or a way in which we just have to be content with the trials or the low state or the high state, whatever it is that God has given us.
00:59:33And trust God that he knows what he's doing.
00:59:37And, you know, if God tells you someday, well, this is the way it's supposed to be, then you can stop praying for that.
00:59:43But, you know, I'm not saying that if you're sick or if you're poor, that you shouldn't pray for relief from that.
00:59:48And I'm just saying that that's not necessarily an indication that you are unworthy or that you don't have faith because God has a purpose for all of the trials he gives us.
01:00:00And sometimes this sounds trite, but it's true that God gives his biggest mountains to climb to the people who have the biggest task to accomplish.
01:00:11He needs you to be bigger and stronger than the next guy.
01:00:14So he gives you a bigger and tougher challenge to overcome.
01:00:17And I think this came up in our study recently that Paula reminded me of something that I frequently say is that this life, this world is a sorting machine that God puts us all in here.
01:00:33We're like, you know, we're, we're stones in one of those tumblers that polishes.
01:00:44I don't remember.
01:00:45I knew somebody who was kind of a hobby of making gemstones or jewelry and, you know, take a pretty rock, stick it in the tumbler and, you know, run it for a little while and it out comes all nice and polished.
01:00:58And you can do the same thing with, uh, uh, spent brass.
01:01:02If you're a reloader, same basic idea.
01:01:06Um, but God needs you for a task.
01:01:10And so he puts you in the tumbler and what tumbler and what kind of abrasives go in there depends on what kind of task God has for you.
01:01:18And that task might be in this life or it might be in the next life because we don't know what's going to happen in the new heaven and new earth.
01:01:24We don't really know what it's going to be like, but I don't think that we're going to be purposeless.
01:01:28We have something to do in this life.
01:01:31This existence is training us, shaping us for whatever that's going to be.
01:01:37So sometimes we just have to be content with what, what we're going through.
01:01:41Just be faithful through it.
01:01:44Go ahead, Kevin.
01:01:45Yeah.
01:01:47Yeah.
01:01:48So didn't, uh, Solomon wasn't like out of all the things he asked for, wasn't it wisdom?
01:01:56Mm hmm.
01:01:58All right.
01:01:59So I guess my, I don't know if you guys went over this, but what is biblical wisdom?
01:02:04Um, yeah, that's, that's probably a little more difficult to define.
01:02:15Um, cause Joe, I mean, obviously there's others before us that have been through these things as examples.
01:02:27Um, we know that Thomas doubted, we know what that looks like.
01:02:33And I think I read where, whenever you doubt that's unbelief.
01:02:38So whenever we are doubting, it is unbelief and unbelief is.
01:02:47Wouldn't you call it a sin?
01:02:49I mean, I think I would unbelief if I don't believe, like, I believe God is God, but not
01:02:59at this point in time because he's not answering my prayers or he's, you know, like, those are
01:03:09the things that happen.
01:03:11Um, but yeah, I mean, I guess my question and it doesn't have to be answered right now,
01:03:17but I would love to know what true biblical wisdom is.
01:03:22And I guess on top of the biblical wisdom, I know theology gets a bad name among antinomianism,
01:03:35uh, uh, uh, people like, and, and I, I, I, so when I study God, I get to know his character,
01:03:50I get to know his attributes.
01:03:51And I think the attributes of God are very important for us to know and to understand because
01:04:01we are not God.
01:04:04We don't like from a human level, we don't understand his divine nature, but we're given
01:04:15access to that in the scriptures.
01:04:19Um, and so I don't know if you, I don't know if wisdom would be correlated with that, but
01:04:25I would say that knowing his, um, his divine, like knowing his divine nature, his attributes
01:04:33can really help us as believers.
01:04:37When we go through these trials to be certain and not doubt, because we know, we know our
01:04:48God, our God very intimately and knowing him, uh, in, in his ways.
01:04:56So for example, if something happens to me, right.
01:05:00And where, you know, if you have a believer and an unbeliever.
01:05:05There, there's two, there's two ways of thinking with the believer and the unbeliever, the believer
01:05:13is, if you take one situation, one scenario, both of them are going to have a difference
01:05:19of, of a view on that scenario.
01:05:22And, um, so I would say that given, given the fact that if we know his attributes were
01:05:31like, like, like I pray that, you know, I have a good life and stuff, but you know, what,
01:05:39what, what happens when death comes, you know, death is going to come one way or another, but
01:05:45how do we deal with that from a biblical standpoint?
01:05:49And I think that's important.
01:05:50I don't know what your thoughts are, but I know that's a lot.
01:05:52I just, I'm, I'm really just trying to grapple the wisdom and, uh, the, uh, it's a great
01:06:00question and it's definitely applicable to our study.
01:06:04So that's good.
01:06:06Um, yeah, what you're saying about how, um, knowing the under understanding who God is
01:06:12knowing his attributes is an important part of wisdom.
01:06:15And that reminded me of Proverbs nine, 10, where the fear of Yahweh is the beginning
01:06:19of wisdom and the knowledge of the Holy one is understanding.
01:06:23You know, we, we tend to confuse knowing stuff with wisdom.
01:06:27And I think we all, we all really know that that's not the same thing that you've heard
01:06:32the saying that, you know, knowledge is, is knowing that tomato is a fruit and wisdom
01:06:38is knowing that tomatoes don't go in fruit salad.
01:06:40Um, wisdom is really more about the application of knowledge to real life.
01:06:47How do you, now that you know stuff, what do you do with it?
01:06:50But a big part of that is understanding who God is and who you are in relation to God.
01:06:55And if you don't know that you don't really have any wisdom because you can't really apply
01:07:01your knowledge without that understanding first.
01:07:04You can, you know, look at scientists who have all kinds of knowledge about how the world
01:07:10works, uh, especially by, um, cellular biologists, this, these miraculous nanomachines packed
01:07:21full of other miraculous nanomachines.
01:07:23And they still insist, yeah, it all just happened.
01:07:27That's insane.
01:07:28How does a person get there?
01:07:30Well, they get there by refusing to understand who God is.
01:07:33If you run from God, if you just refuse to believe that he is who he says he is, you can
01:07:39convince yourself of anything because that's just nuts already.
01:07:43So just understanding the power and the nature of God is the first step to true wisdom.
01:07:51Now you can take all this knowledge of cellular biology and chemistry and apply it to the real
01:07:58world.
01:08:00Uh, one of the problems that, that we're all facing, I watched a video the other day that
01:08:06I, I might share with you guys, but I don't want to, I don't want to upset too many people,
01:08:11but, uh, it was talking about, um, what they call forever chemicals in our environment.
01:08:16You know, things that go out there and they don't degrade, they just stay there and they
01:08:20build up over time.
01:08:22And you can find traces of these in everybody.
01:08:24You know, people have been talking about, uh, microplastics lately, but that's only
01:08:29the tip of the iceberg.
01:08:30There's so many other chemicals out there that we've just been dumping into the world
01:08:33because these people have no clue who God is.
01:08:40Chemistry in, you know, industry can be a really great thing.
01:08:45And I'm not certainly not a tree hugger or, you know, anything like that, but the world
01:08:52is delegated to us by God.
01:08:54It belongs to him.
01:08:56And if we really understood who he is and who we are in relation to him, we would treat
01:09:02everything he gave us with the utmost care and respect.
01:09:05We would not treat other people like, you know, somebody to just sell stuff to without
01:09:13thinking about the consequences to them or their children or their grandchildren.
01:09:18Uh, we have filled our environments with poison and just dump it everywhere and think this is,
01:09:24this isn't, this isn't going to hurt anybody.
01:09:26You know, it's a big world.
01:09:27It'll just like fade away into the background, but it's, it doesn't.
01:09:32And it's because people don't fear God.
01:09:34It's not about worshiping nature or, um, or, or anything like that.
01:09:39It's just about showing respect to your neighbor and to God.
01:09:44So that is a, an example of wisdom applied to, you know, industry and science.
01:09:50You know, you could, you can create all kinds of great technology and great inventions, but
01:09:58they should be implemented in such a way that they're not going to cause more harm, even
01:10:04generations down the road than all of the good you think you might be doing.
01:10:10Um, yeah, that's kind of a tangent, but hopefully that would, would, would you say that though,
01:10:19that these people are placing themselves as God, especially the scientists that are doing these
01:10:28things and God has been very clear in his word, you know, that this is unacceptable.
01:10:37Mm-hmm.
01:10:38Yeah.
01:10:39I think once, once a person, once somebody convinces themselves that there is no God and that they
01:10:46have the right to do whatever they want, there are no moral boundaries.
01:10:49They are essentially making themselves God and they can become, you know, the more power
01:10:56we give them, they'll take advantage of it, become complete monsters.
01:11:02The only thing that keeps people from becoming the most, I mean, somebody like Bill Gates, just,
01:11:10you know, killing off billions of people just outright is his fear of other people.
01:11:15Instead of fear of God, if he feared God, he wouldn't do probably 90% of the stuff that
01:11:22he's done.
01:11:22And I'm sure he's done a lot of good stuff too.
01:11:25I'm not saying that he's just a totally evil person.
01:11:28He's no evil, no more evil than anybody else out there in the world who doesn't believe
01:11:32in God.
01:11:32He just has more power at his disposal at his disposal to make unwise decisions.
01:11:41Um, I can't remember what your question was now.
01:11:44Oh yeah.
01:11:44People, uh, becoming God or acting like they're God.
01:11:48Yeah.
01:11:49That is the end result of not understanding who you are in relation to God is you start
01:11:54acting like you are God.
01:11:56Like there are no, there's no real accountability for anything.
01:11:59Nobody's ever going to come back to you, make all you make all the money you can in this
01:12:03life because you won't have to deal with it.
01:12:06I think that's going to be a bad place to be someday.
01:12:17All right, let's move on to the rest of this chapter here.
01:12:19I've got a few more minutes.
01:12:22Um, um, verse 12.
01:12:28Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial for when he has stood the test, he will
01:12:40receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him.
01:12:44This, this sounds wonderful and it is wonderful, but it's also full of controversy.
01:12:52The crown of life, Peter talks about it.
01:12:54Paul talks about it.
01:12:56Uh, Yeshua talks about it in revelation.
01:12:57The crown of life is what you get after the resurrection and the judgment.
01:13:02This is your ultimate reward.
01:13:05If you, if you endure to the end, you will be resurrected, judged past, you know, your name
01:13:14will be found in the book of life.
01:13:15You will go on into the new earth and the new heaven, but this implies that you have to
01:13:20do something to get there.
01:13:22So how does that conflict with, uh, salvation by faith?
01:13:27Um, I know that this conversation could go on for another hour, so I'm going to short
01:13:32circuit that here real quick.
01:13:34And, um, and I know this will, will be controversial, but what, what would one of these nights be
01:13:40without a little bit of controversy or a little bit more controversy?
01:13:44When you, when you make your initial repentance, you profess faith in Yeshua, you repent from your
01:13:52sins and say, I'm going to do your thing.
01:13:55I'm, I'm done doing all that stuff.
01:13:56Nobody expects you to become perfect overnight.
01:13:59I mean, that's what the Jerusalem council in Acts 15 was about that overnight.
01:14:03You're not going to become perfectly obedient to the law.
01:14:06And, you know, if, if that was your goal, then the law is your master and the law is not our
01:14:11master.
01:14:12Yeshua is our master.
01:14:14The law is a tool to help us become like Yeshua.
01:14:17And this is one of the big lessons in the middle of the book of Romans that we spent so
01:14:20much time talking about, but once you have passed that initial point of repentance, now
01:14:28you have an obligation to keep studying and keep learning to remain faithful.
01:14:33And if you, at some point you say, all right, I'm done with this.
01:14:37I'm not going to be faithful anymore.
01:14:38I'm doing my own thing from now on.
01:14:41Well, your salvation, there's nothing you could ever do to earn your salvation.
01:14:45It is my faith in God's mercy alone.
01:14:50It doesn't matter.
01:14:51You know, once you've sinned, once you could keep the law perfectly for the rest of your
01:14:55life and you're still never going to earn your salvation.
01:14:57So no matter what you do, it is not salvation by works, but you can reject it.
01:15:04You have been saved by God's decree and by the removal of your sins, which was enabled
01:15:11through Yeshua's blood, but now you're on the road, you know, once you make that profession
01:15:17of faith and repentance, if you die in the next hour, like that thief on the cross, Yeshua
01:15:22carries you the rest of the way to, you know, wakes you up at the, uh, at the judgment day
01:15:28and you're in, but if he doesn't, if he lets you live, you've got a purpose on this earth
01:15:35and you have to serve that purpose.
01:15:37And if you reject it, if you say, I know, this is what God wants me to do.
01:15:42I refuse.
01:15:43I'm not doing that.
01:15:45Well, when did you repent?
01:15:47I thought, you know, you repented from sins and now you're saying, I'm just going to sin
01:15:51anyways.
01:15:52Well, now you're out.
01:15:55You have rejected the free gift.
01:15:57That doesn't mean that you can earn it, but that does mean that you can reject it.
01:16:02So if you stand the test, that doesn't mean if you're perfect, you will fail.
01:16:06Everybody does, but if you reject it and say, I don't believe God is going to get me through
01:16:13this.
01:16:14I don't believe there's anything after it and I'm done with trying.
01:16:19Well, you have forfeit that crowd of life.
01:16:22You've told God, you don't want it.
01:16:24And he's going to honor that choice.
01:16:25So that's not salvation by works.
01:16:30It's rejecting your salvation by refusing to work, which I know some people will argue
01:16:35that it's amounts to the same thing, but it's not because it doesn't matter how much
01:16:38works you can, you do, you can never earn salvation.
01:16:40And I probably can't say that often enough because somebody's still going to misunderstand
01:16:47what I'm saying.
01:16:49Nobody here, I don't think, but somebody else will hear, will watch this video someday and
01:16:55still get it wrong.
01:16:58All right.
01:16:59Does that make sense?
01:17:00Yeah, that's a good summary.
01:17:09All right.
01:17:10So we already talked about this a little bit, but I'm going to pull it up here anyways.
01:17:18Verses 13 to 15, let no one say when he has tempted, I am being tempted by God for God
01:17:28cannot be tempted with evil and he himself tempts no one, but each person is tempted when
01:17:32he is lured and enticed by his own desire, then desire when it has conceived, gives birth
01:17:38to sin and sin when it is fully grown, brings forth death.
01:17:42There are also, it's not just connections between James and Proverbs, but James in the
01:17:46book of Romans and people like to put James and Romans like as if they're opposed to each
01:17:52other.
01:17:52But James is saying so many of the same things that Paul said in Romans, he's just saying
01:17:58it in a different way with a different, different emphasis.
01:18:01So there's this, all of chapter seven in Romans talks about how we have this evil inclination
01:18:08and it's always trying to get us to do the wrong thing.
01:18:10And Paul calls it the flesh and you have to resist the flesh and, you know, subject it.
01:18:16To you and, or to your spirit, to the spirit of God, to the law of God, because the flesh
01:18:22cannot obey the God's law and it refuses, but you have to make it.
01:18:28You have to, your, your spirit, your reborn spirit has to be in charge of your life.
01:18:35And, um, when James here is saying that each person is tempted when he's in Lord enticed by
01:18:43his own desire, he's talking about that evil inclination.
01:18:46And if we let that desire have its way, if we start thinking that, yeah, that would, that
01:18:52would be really nice.
01:18:53I'd like to have that, whatever it is that my neighbor's got.
01:18:56I wonder how I can take that from him.
01:18:59Well, if we keep letting that thought go, eventually it gives birth to sin.
01:19:04And, you know, already the sin is in our heart.
01:19:06And this is one of the things that Yeshua talked about so much is that when, when something
01:19:11comes out of you, when you finally get around to sinning indeed, well, you've already sinned
01:19:15in your heart.
01:19:16If you hate your brother in your heart, you've already committed the murder that you're planning.
01:19:20I mean, even if you're not really going to do it, if you're thinking about it all the
01:19:24time, there's murder in your heart.
01:19:25I mean, you're already there.
01:19:30So we have to kill that desire.
01:19:32We have to kill the thing that leads to doing the thing.
01:19:37And remember how I said that, that the word that James is using here for tempt and trial,
01:19:43it's the same word in Greek.
01:19:45So let no one say that he is subjected to trials and say, I am being tried by God for God cannot
01:19:52try with evil and he himself tries no one.
01:19:56Well, this is true and not true at the same time.
01:20:00So you have to look at how did James mean this in verse 15 or rather verse 14 and 15 tells
01:20:07you what he means.
01:20:09The initial trial can be put there by God, but the trial of your reaction to it, the trial
01:20:15of the temptations that are inside of you, that's all on you.
01:20:19God didn't do that to you.
01:20:20You did that to yourself.
01:20:21So God puts this really rude stranger or this really slow driver in the fast lane in front
01:20:30of you to test, to see how you will react or to teach you patience, your reaction with
01:20:37anger and to honk your horn and ride up on his bumper.
01:20:41Well, that's all you.
01:20:42He didn't make you do that.
01:20:43Your job is to crucify the flesh, to subject it to the spirit and not to let your flesh
01:20:52run your life.
01:20:53Adam sinned and through that sin brought death, brought the evil inclination into the world
01:21:07and brought death to all mankind because all men sin.
01:21:12Am I making sense?
01:21:13I'm kind of rushing through this here because it's already past 830 and I want to, I want
01:21:20to get to verse 18 before we wrap up.
01:21:25Since we won't have to go through the whole list of pericopes next time, I think it should
01:21:30be a little, shouldn't be as challenging to get through it and notice that I'm also not
01:21:34going word by word like I did through Romans.
01:21:39We'll do that sometimes, but not every time.
01:21:45Okay.
01:21:45And the last part here, do not be deceived.
01:21:49My beloved brothers, every good gift and every perfect gift is from above coming down
01:21:53from the father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change of his
01:21:59own will.
01:21:59He brought us forth by the word of truth that we should be a kind of first fruits of his
01:22:04creatures.
01:22:07Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above.
01:22:10Perfect.
01:22:11That's probably the same word used for maturity.
01:22:17Let me see.
01:22:18Where is that?
01:22:21Yeah.
01:22:22The word can also mean it's teleos and it can mean complete or aged ready.
01:22:30So the gifts that God gives, whether he gives you wealth or good health or knowledge, intelligence,
01:22:39all of these things can also be sources of temptations in those temptations are trials.
01:22:46God gives you opportunities and opportunities are trials in themselves.
01:22:51All of these things are good.
01:22:53The bad part of it comes from us where we are tempted to do the wrong thing with the
01:22:58trial that God has given us.
01:23:00Remember, same word in Greek, just two different sides of it.
01:23:03The trial can come from God.
01:23:05The temptation comes from within ourselves.
01:23:07But God himself, he is always true.
01:23:15He is always pure.
01:23:17He is never tempted to do the wrong thing.
01:23:20He defines the right thing.
01:23:22Anybody else have any thoughts on this passage here or any questions?
01:23:33I was just going to comment.
01:23:35It's a little bit of a paradox because you're going through tough things, learning how to
01:23:40endure and grow in your patience and become more like God.
01:23:45And then on the flip side of it, it's a lot of pain and whatever, but then he's there with
01:23:52you in it.
01:23:54He's not just telling you, you're in it on your own and tough it out and whatever.
01:24:00The point is, if you made it out on your own, you didn't make it.
01:24:04You made it out trusting him and knowing that he's there with you.
01:24:08You can rely on him, lean on him.
01:24:10Yeah, and that's what the trials are really all about is not just maturing us so that
01:24:16we have better capabilities.
01:24:18I mean, that is an important part, but to mature our relationship with God and faith,
01:24:24trust in him.
01:24:25It's like any other muscle or cognitive ability.
01:24:30You get better the more you use it.
01:24:33And so that's one of the purposes of those trials is so that we can learn to trust him
01:24:37more.
01:24:40All right.
01:24:45I don't really have anything else to say there.
01:24:49Any last questions or thoughts before we wrap up?
01:24:58All through the book of Romans, we were fortunate to get through two or three verses in a night,
01:25:02but we've gone through 18 and it's really the method of study that we're using.
01:25:09I mean, if we really wanted to get into it, we definitely could go verse by verse still.
01:25:14But the idea of the study method that I'm encouraging you to use is like, think of it like a target.
01:25:25You know, first you aim for the big target and then you aim for the smaller target and a smaller one and a smaller one.
01:25:32Well, first we looked at the book of James.
01:25:34Then we were, you know, we, we looked at who James was and who is he writing to in the historical circumstances, all that kind of stuff.
01:25:43And then we look at the pericope and then inside the pericope, we look at the major ideas, the, the idea of trials and temptations and perseverance and our life circumstances and how that reflects on our faith.
01:25:59And then if we wanted to, we could get down into the individual words and take everything apart.
01:26:06But I think we did enough of that with Romans for now.
01:26:10So with James, we're going to stick with the pericopes and the themes and the ideas.
01:26:16We're trying not to get too bogged down in individual words and phrases.
01:26:22So we'll see that, how that goes.
01:26:26And I think it will be a nice change from what we were doing before.
01:26:30After, I think it was 20 months we spent studying the book of Romans.
01:26:36Needed to do it a little bit differently this time because I can't do that every time.
01:26:43All right, let me stop the recording.
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