NOTES for Jam 1:13
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: |
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At times, the very encounter with the word "temptation" in the Bible becomes a temptation. Many times Scripture speaks of certain temptations that God sends to a person, beginning perhaps with Gen. 22:1. At the same time, we read in the Lord's Prayer: "Lead us not into temptation." And today's verse says something else as well. So does God tempt us or not?
The point is that the word has two different meanings, which in modern language can be described as "testing" and "provocation." The difference lies in the goal of the event. Tests can be given to us, and in a certain sense all our life is a test, so that we pass through them and acquire the experience necessary for our maturing and growth in our relationship with God. It is not fitting for us to run away from such "temptations."
The goal of evil provocations is different. It is that we fall, move away from God, and take the path of self-will, lovelessness, and violence. "Temptations" of that kind never come from God; we ask God to deliver us from them. And, as the Lord Jesus says, when you ask, believe that you receive. Then only the tests sent by God will remain in our life, tests for which we can only thank Him.
Other notes
For Jam 1:1-15
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. |
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