“Is desire good or bad?”

Download discussion questions:  James 1:12-18
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I encourage you to look at the passage in James before you read this Blog entry.  What do you see in the text yourself?  What questions come to your mind?  How would you interpret what the writer says?  After even a few minutes examining and thinking about the text you will be much better prepared to evaluate the comments in the Blog.

After several weeks of not meeting together, it was helpful to note connections in this passage with the beginning of the letter of James.  A quick reading of the first chapter may seem like a haphazard collection of random thoughts.  But more careful study shows multiple threads that continue through the text.

Trials, Tests, and Steadfastness

While most of our studies have used the New American Standard Bible translation (NASB1995[1]), for this passage, we used the English Standard Version (ESV[2]).  For some reason, NASB1995 translates repeated words (or their cognates) with different (though equally valid) English equivalents.  The variety is fine, but it masks some of the continuity in James’s message.  For example, in the NASB, verses 2-3 mention trials, testing, and endurance, while verse 12 comments on trials, perseverance, and being approved.  However, in the two passages, the same Greek words are translated differently in English.

Of course, endurance and perseverance are related English words.  But testing and being approved are not quite as obvious.  In contrast, the ESV consistently uses forms of the same English words in both passages:  trials (πειρασμός, peirasmos), endurance (ὑπομονήν, hypomonē), and testing (δόκιμος, dokimos).  The uniform translation helps the English reader to see the continuity of James’s thinking through the entire extended passage.

This example demonstrates the benefit of looking at different English translations during a study.  As a member of our discussion group pointed out, this evidence of James’s theme from verse 2 to verse 12 might throw new light on the understanding of the intervening verses about doubt and double-mindedness, or rich and lowly.

For example, our group saw that several topics James introduces early in the passage are picked up and expanded later:

• • Joy (v. 2) and blessing (v. 12)
  • Perfect and complete, lacking in nothing (v. 4) and crown of life (v. 12)
  • Doubt (v. 6) and saying, ‘I am tempted by God’ (v. 13)
  • Double-minded, unstable (v. 8) and deceived (v. 16)

Tempting God?

One of the first questions asked in our discussion related back to a previous study of Hebrews.  “How do we reconcile James 1:13, ‘God cannot be tempted’ with Hebrews 4:15 that says Jesus ‘has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin’?  Could this be interpreted that Jesus was not really God?”  Another person pointed out that Jesus had two natures, fully human and fully divine.

That is, in the incarnation, the Son did not surrender any of His attributes. The divine nature is still eternal, infinite, omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent. It manifests all the attributes that belong to deity. God did not stop being God when He took on a human nature in Jesus. At the same time, the human nature retained its own attributes, being finite, contained, unable to be at more than one place at the same time, limited in knowledge, and limited in power. All of those attributes of humanity remained attributes of Jesus’ humanity.[3]

With that in mind, the man Jesus was subject to temptation while His divine nature was not.

This by the way, was a good example of the interaction of inductive Bible study and theology.  Theology should never control our Bible study, forcing a meaning on verses that don’t fit our doctrine.  On the other hand, good theology, developed as the result of deep and wide-ranging study of Scripture, can help tremendously in sorting out seeming problems in a particular passage, as in this example.

Undesirable Desire?

The topic that received most of our attention was the subject that James brings up in verse 14:  desire.

But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire.
James 1:14

Someone asked, “Is desire good or bad?”  Does avoiding temptation require suppressing all desire?  Another member pointed out that Buddhism takes that view, but not Christianity.

The word James uses, ἐπιθυμία (epithumia), is in itself neutral.  The word can be used in either a positive or negative sense, depending on the context.  For example, several uses clearly communicate legitimate, healthy, positive wishes:

• • And [Jesus] said to them, “I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. Luke 22:15
  • I am hard pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better. Philippians 1:23
  • But since we were torn away from you, brothers, for a short time, in person not in heart, we endeavored the more eagerly and with great desireto see you face to face.  1 Thessalonians 2:17

Jesus’ longing to share a final Passover meal with His disciples, and Paul’s longing to be with Christ or with his beloved church are certainly worthy, God honoring desires.

On the other hand, the majority of occurrences of epithumia are used with negative adjectives or in unfavorable contexts, such as:

• • but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word, and it proves unfruitful. Mark 4:19
  • You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s John 8:44
  • Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity. Romans 1:24

These are samples of over thirty verses that use epithumia as evil or sinful desires, sometimes translating it as “lust.”  (In fact, the NASB translation uses “lust” in James 1:14 and 15.)

However, James uses the word without any negative modifier.  He doesn’t connect temptation only with “evil” or “sinful” desire.  Our group considered the possibility that even legitimate, good desires can “lure and entice” us (v. 14) into temptation.

Good Desire Gone Bad

One member of our group referenced John Calvin, “We are all master craftsmen of idols.”  Even good things can become idols when we are more focused on the good thing than on God Himself.

every preference of a small good to a great, or a partial good to a total good, involves the loss of the small or partial good for which the sacrifice was made. … You can’t get second things by putting them first; you can get second things only by putting first things first[4]

Our group has discussed Lewis’s “first and second things” in the past.  But some of us are also familiar with a more recent writer who expresses the same idea:

But idols aren’t made of bad things. They used to be fashioned out of trees or stone, and those aren’t bad, either. Idols aren’t bad things; they’re good things, made Ultimate. We make things Ultimate when we see the true God as a route to these things, or a guarantor of them. It sounds like heresy, but it’s not: the very safety of our family can become an idol.[5]

James describes the beginning of temptation as being lured and enticed by desire – even good desires.  A good question would be, “lured and enticed from what, toward what?”

The context of the letter James wrote is suffering, specifically the persecution of believers.  We discussed the likelihood that persecution (then or now) would produce the desire for relief. That desire could lure and entice us to inappropriate means of ending discomfort.  Relief might come by simply offering incense to the Emperor, or perhaps by going along with the current cultural views on gender and sexuality.  The “second thing” of relief can become Ultimate.  We can craft it into an idol.

Another perspective our group has considered in the past is the contrast between self obsession and God obsession:

Every one of us is determined to make this life work to our satisfaction. We’re all addicted to feeling good, and we’ve learned that something could do the job, so that’s what we’re living for, whatever it is. We’re really obsessed with ourselves, not with God but with using God to get our lives going well enough so that we’re happy, rather than trusting God with our eventual well-being.[6]

In more specific and practical terms:

• • Self obsession is the conviction that I must protect myself from personal pain at all costs. My highest value becomes comfort, security, and a personal sense of well-being at any cost to those around me. I become increasingly dependent on second things for my source of joy.
  • God obsession is the conviction that God is infinitely good and loving. Seeking to know Him and to advance His purposes is the only source of lasting and genuine joy. Drawing near to God as the first thing in my life is my source of joy at any cost to myself.

James’s words, expressed in those terms, suggest that good desires, even God-honoring desires, can “lure and entice” us to sin.  We want a happy marriage, but we can be motivated by the admiration of other couples.  We want successful children, but we can be driven by shame when other parents judge us as failures.  We want good health, but we can be driven by fear of death.  Our deepest motivation is our own comfort or reputation or security.  Our response to our desires can be either self-obsessed or God-obsessed.

A member of our group suggested the picture of a lens used to view our desire, including our desire for relief from suffering.  Does that lens focus on God and how He might be glorified, or do we use a lens that converges on our relief from discomfort or pain?  Does the lens magnify our opportunity to “trust God with our eventual well-being”?  Or does the lens distort our response into managing circumstances and manipulating people?

Our group understands that this is not a painless process, nor does it involve denying the reality of pain in our lives.  One person asked how we move from self obsession to (or at least towards) God obsession?  How do we avoid the lure and enticement that can turn a good desire into a temptation and ultimately into sin?

Do Not Be Deceived!

James warns against deception in verse 16.  What deception is he concerned about?  How did he get from trials and temptation and desire to deception?

At least one part of James’s exhortation could refer to deception in verse 13a:

Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God,”

Our group saw that James is concerned that suffering believers can be deceived about the character of God.

That insight into James’s warning clarifies his intent at the end of this passage:

¹⁷ Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. ¹⁸ Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.  James 1:17-18

The emphasis is on the consistent goodness of God’s gifts, and His ultimate goal of our transformation.  Both of those emphases directly contradict the blasphemous idea that “I am being tempted by God” in verse 13.

God’s sovereign, providential acts are not like the temptations of Satan (Matthew 4:1, ff.) or the tests of the Pharisees (Matthew 16:1, etc.).  God is not working for our failure or to trap us into some defeat.  James describes the end result of everything in our life in glorious terms.

• • Perfect and complete (v. 4)
  • Lacking in nothing (v. 4)
  • Crown of life (v. 12)
  • Firstfruits of creation (v. 18)

Or, in the words of C. S. Lewis, each of us, even “the dullest and most uninteresting … may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship.”[7]

Firstfruits

James wants his readers to avoid the deception of allowing circumstances to distort their understanding of God.  Rather, he wants them (and us) to understand circumstances in light of what we know to be true about God.  Even suffering through trials is designed with the goal transforming us into what James calls “firstfruits.”

Firstfruits is a term full of meaning in Scripture.  In many Biblical contexts, offering firstfruits, the beginning of the harvest, implies absolute trust in God’s continuing provision as a guide to giving (cf. “trusting God with our eventual well-being” quoted above).  However, in the context of the beginning of James’s letter, the important aspect of firstfruits is anticipation:  “firstfruits offered to God under the old covenant anticipated the fuller harvest to come.”^[8]

The work God is doing in training and refining believers is just the beginning of His redemptive plan.

¹⁸ For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. ¹⁹ For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. ²⁰ For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope ²¹ that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. ²² For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now.   Romans 8:18-22

Notice what at first seems a curious word in verse 18, “a kind of firstfruits.”  We are samples or “specimens of His new creation” (Phillips[9]).  We have the glory (John 17:22) of displaying the good gifts and redemptive work of a wise, loving, and sovereign God.  Seeing what He can do with us hints at what He will someday do with the worst, most distressing aspects of His fallen creation.

Desire Delayed

Then our discussion circled back around to the complicated subject of desire.  What happens when our legitimate, God-honoring desire becomes Ultimate, when a good second thing becomes our first thing?

One person in the group asked the question, “Does God sometimes wait to answer our prayers for something we want until we are OK with not having it, and we aren’t seeking it as a first thing?”

That question led to significant sharing from two members of our group about different struggles in the life of each.  There were thoughts of possible past mistakes and related shame.  There was confession of pride and what others might think. There was fear of judgment.  There were regrets of, “If only I had done better in this particular situation.”  In both stories there was a desire for resolution of incredibly difficult and painful circumstances.  And there was recognition of the strong “lure and enticement” to focus more on that hoped-for resolution than on drawing near to God, the pull to make valid second things into Ultimate things.

Our group deeply desires to be more than a Bible study.  Our goal is to live out both of Jesus’ greatest commandments (Matthew 22:36-40).

³⁶ “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” ³⁷ And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. ³⁸ This is the great and first commandment. ³⁹ And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. ⁴⁰ On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”

Serious inductive study helps us to know and love God better.  Significant sharing and soul care growing out of that study helps us to love each other better.

One thoughtful question can turn a good inductive Bible study and insightful discussion into conversations that matter.  There was no answer for the issues, no solution for the struggles.  But we were able to pray for and encourage one another, and to remind one another from the passage of the goodness of the Father of lights.

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[1] https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=james+1%3A1-18&version=NASB1995

[2] https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=james+1%3A1-18&version=ESV

[3] R. C. Sproul, “Does Jesus Have One Nature, or Two?,
https://www.ligonier.org/learn/articles/does-jesus-have-two-natures-or-one

[4] C. S. Lewis, “First and Second Things” in God in the Dock (Grand Rapids, Michigan:  William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1970), 280

[5] Brant Hansen, Unoffendable:  How Just One Change Can Make All of Life Better (Nashville:  W Publishing Group, 2015), 119; Kindle edition location 161.

[6] Larry Crabb, Soul Talk (Nashville, Tennessee: Thomas Nelson, 2003), 164; Kindle edition location 2015; emphasis added.

[7] C. S. Lewis, “The Weight of Glory,” in The Weight of Glory And Other Addresses (New York: HarperCollins, 2009). Kindle Edition, page 45 location 433.

“[8] Firstfruits and Pentecost” Ligonier Ministries
https://www.ligonier.org/learn/devotionals/firstfruits-and-pentecost

[9] https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=James%201:17-19&version=PHILLIPS