James 1:2-8

James 1:2-Ruth : . The paragraph, like its successors, has no special link with its context: it is the writer’ s habit to throw out a series of aphoristic comments on topics, with as much connexion as there is between the essays of Bacon or successive cantos of Tennyson’ s In Memoriam. It is the manner of “ Wisdom” literature ( cf. especially Ecclus.). The paradox with which the epistle opens is an expansion of the Beatitudes ( Luke 6:20-Isaiah :). The tense of the verb, “ when you have fallen,” gives the key. James has not forgotten the Lord’ s Prayer; but when a devout man has been “ brought into trial,” he recognises it as God’ s will, and therefore to be received with joy. He who has inflicted the “ trial” will “ deliver from the evil” which alone makes it distressing. “ A man untried is rejected,” was a saying attributed to Christ. The word “ rejected” is the negative of the adjective here wrongly translated “ proof” : read (as in 1 Peter 1:7) “ the approved (genuine) part”—“ what is sterling in your belief.” “ Faith,” as elsewhere in Jas., means religious belief or creed. Truth which has been “ inwardly digested,” and not swallowed whole, can produce spiritual robustness. “ Endurance” is a great note of Jas. ( cf. James 5:11). “ Let it work thoroughly, and you will be thorough and complete, with nothing wanting.” By a characteristic feature of style, the word “ wanting” suggests the next thought. “ Wisdom,” practical knowledge that informs conduct, is to be had for the asking from the “ only Wise.” God gives to “ all” ( Matthew 5:45) “ bountifully”— Gr. nearly as in Romans 12:8— without reproaches for their failure to attain. Cf. especially 1 Kings 3:9-2 Kings :. Note the echo of Matthew 7:7. The condition of James 1:6 is also from Christ’ s teaching ( Mark 11:23, etc.). “ He who hesitates is lost” when he prays. For the simile, cf. Isaiah 57:20, Ephesians 4:14. The “ two-selfed” man— a trimmer or wobbler, or even one living a double life, a Dr. Jekyll alternating with Mr. Hyde— cannot expect to win the answer that only Faith’ s virile grasp can seize. The man “ has no firm footing, whatever path he treads.”