JAMES never suggested to his readers that Christianity would be for them an easy way. He warns them that they would find themselves involved in what the Authorized Version calls divers temptations. The word translated as temptations is peirasmos, whose meaning we must understand fully if we are to see the very essence of the Christian life.
Peirasmos is not temptation in our sense of the term; it is testing (trial in the Revised Standard Version). Peirasmos is trial or testing directed towards an end, and the end is that anyone who is tested should emerge stronger and purer from the experience. The corresponding verb peirazein, which the Authorized Version usually translates as to tempt, has the same meaning. The idea is not that of enticement into sin but of strengthening and purifying. For instance, a young bird is said to test (peirazein) its wings. The Queen of Sheba was said to come to test (peirazein) the wisdom of Solomon (1 Kings 10:1). God was said to test (peirazein) Abraham, when he appeared to be demanding the sacrifice of Isaac (Genesis 22: 1). When Israel came into the promised land, God did not remove the people who were already there. He left them so that Israel might be tested (peirazein) in the struggle against them (Judges 2:22, 3:1, 3:4). The experiences in Israel were tests which contributed to the making of the people of Israel (Deuteronomy 4:34, 7:19).
Here is a great and uplifting thought. F. J. A. Hort, the New Testament scholar, writes: ‘The Christian must expect to be jostled by trials on the Christian way.’ All kinds of experiences will come to us. There will be the test of the sorrows and the disappointments which seek to take our faith away. There will be the test of the seductions which seek to lure us from the right way. There will be the tests of the dangers, the sacrifices and the unpopularity which are so much a part of the Christian way. But they are not meant to make us fall; they are meant to make us soar. They are not meant to defeat us; they are meant to be defeated. They are not meant to make us weaker; they are meant to make us stronger. Therefore we should not complain about them; we should rejoice in them. Christians are like athletes. The heavier the course of training they undergo, the more they are glad, because they know that it is preparing them all the better for victorious effort. As Robert Browning said in ‘Rabbi Ben Ezra’, we must ‘welcome each rebuff that turns earth’s smoothness rough’, for every difficult experience is another step on the upward way.
THE RESULT OF TESTING
James 1:2–4 (contd)
JAMES describes this process of testing by the word dokimion. It is an interesting word. It is the word for sterling coinage, for money which is genuine and absolutely pure. The aim of testing is to purge us of all impurity.
If we meet this testing in the right way, it will produce unswerving constancy (or steadfastness as the Revised Standard Version translates it). The word is hupomonē, which the Authorized Version translates as patience – but patience is far too passive. Hupomonē is not simply the ability to bear things; it is the ability to turn them to greatness and to glory. The thing which amazed the non-Christians in the centuries of Christian persecution was that the martyrs did not die grimly they died singing. One smiled in the flames; they asked him what he found to smile at there. ‘I saw the glory of God,’ he said, ‘and was glad.’ Hupomonē is the quality which makes people able not simply to suffer things but to overcome them. The effect of testing borne in the right way is strength to bear still more and to conquer in still harder battles.
This unswerving constancy in the end makes those who are tested three things.
(1) It makes them perfect. The Greek is teleios, which usually has the meaning of perfection towards a given end. A sacrificial animal is teleios if it is fit to offer to God. A scholar is teleios if he or she is mature. A person who is fully grown is teleios. This constancy, which comes from a positive response to testing, makes each one of us teleios in the sense of being fit for the task we were sent into the world to do. Here is a great thought. By the way in which we meet every experience in life, we are making ourselves either fit or unfit for the task which God meant us to do.
(2) It makes them complete. The Greek is holoklēros, which means entire, perfect in every part. It is used of the animal which is fit to be offered to God and of the priest who is fit to serve him. It means that the animal or the person has no disfiguring and disqualifying blemishes. Gradually, this unswerving constancy removes the weaknesses and the imperfections from a person’s character. Daily, it enables us to conquer old sins, to shed old blemishes and to gain new virtues, until in the end we become entirely fit for the service of God and of one another.
(3) It makes them deficient in nothing. The Greek is leipesthai, and it is used of the defeat of an army, of the giving up of a struggle, of the failure to reach a standard that should have been reached. If we meet our testing in the right way, if day by day we develop this unswerving constancy, day by day we will live more victoriously and reach nearer to the standard of Jesus Christ himself.
GOD’S GIVING AND OUR ASKING
James 1:5–8
If any of you is deficient in wisdom, let him ask it from God, who gives generously to all men and never casts up the gift, and it will be given to him. Let him ask in faith, with no doubts in his mind; for he who oscillates between doubts is like a surge of the sea, wind-driven and blown hither and thither. Let not that man think that he will receive anything from the Lord, a man with a divided mind, inconstant in all his ways.
THERE is a close connection between this passage and what has gone before. James has just told his readers that, if they use all the testing experiences of life in the right way, they will emerge from them with that unswerving constancy which is the basis of all the virtues. But immediately the question arises: ‘Where can I find the wisdom and the understanding to use these testing experiences in the right way?’ James’ answer is: ‘If you feel that you do not have the wisdom to use aright the experiences of this life – and no one truly possesses that wisdom – request it from God.’
One thing stands out. For James, the Christian teacher with the Jewish background, wisdom is entirely practical. It is not philosophic speculation and intellectual knowledge; it is concerned with the business of living. The Stoics defined wisdom as ‘knowledge of things human and divine’. But, in his commentary, J. H. Ropes defines this Christian wisdom as ‘the supreme and divine quality of the soul whereby man knows and practises righteousness’. F. J. A. Hort defines it as ‘that endowment of heart and mind which is needed for the right conduct of life’. In the Christian wisdom there is, of course, knowledge of the deep things of God, but it is essentially practical; it is such knowledge turned into action in the decisions and personal relationships of everyday life. When we ask God for that wisdom, we must remember two things.
(1) We must remember how God gives. He gives generously and never calculates the gift. ‘All wisdom’, said Jesus the son of Sirach, ‘is from the Lord, and is with him forever’ (Sirach [Ecclesiasticus] 1:1). But the Jewish wise men were well aware how the best gift in the world could be spoiled by the manner of the giving. They have much to say about how the fool gives. ‘My child, do not mix reproach with your good deeds, or spoil your gift with harsh words . . . Indeed, does not a word surpass a good gift? Both are to be found in a gracious person. A fool is ungracious and abusive, and a gift of a grudging giver makes the eyes dim’ (Sirach 18:15–18). ‘A fool’s gift will profit you nothing, for he looks for recompense sevenfold. He gives little, and upbraids much; he opens his mouth like a town crier. Today he lends, and tomorrow he asks it back; such a one is hateful to God and humans’ (Sirach 20:14–15). The same writer warns against ‘abusive words before friends’ (Sirach 41:122). There is a kind of giver who gives only with a