“Joy is not a passing sensation of pleasure, but a pervasive sense of well-being.”

Download discussion questions:  James 1:1-8
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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.

The handout included the first eight verses of the letter of James, but our group discussion focused on just the first four.  Verse 5 implies that there might be an immediate need for wisdom. We concentrated on those four verses to see just where we “lack wisdom” before moving on.

The Letter of James to ….

After spending some time exploring the verses on our own, the first question asked by a member of our group was, “Who was this written to?”  The questioner pointed out that knowing something about the audience will be important in understanding the rest of the document.

“The twelve tribes who are dispersed abroad” certainly sounds like a literal description of Jewish believers (James calls them “brothers” in verse 2).  We discussed the possibility that the “twelve tribes” could be metaphorical, especially in light of the later use of figurative language in the letter.

People suggested it might be a reference to the twelve Apostles or to the church in general.  However, other examples of James’s symbolic comparisons are illustrations of specific points he has just made: the fading flower like the rich man (1:11), forgetting the image in the mirror like not obeying God’s Word (1:23), a body without spirit like faith without works (2:26)…the list goes on.  James uses clear, familiar illustrations to clarify his weighty teaching.  Inserting an ambiguous metaphor in the opening of the letter would not fit that pattern.

The recipients are described as “dispersed abroad” or “in the Dispersion.”  In the first century there were likely more Jews living in that dispersion than there were living within Palestine.  “For hundreds of years before the birth of Christianity, a majority of Jews had lived in the Diaspora, and there, the Jewish tradition developed distinctly.”[1]  “Addressed to ‘the twelve tribes of the dispersion’ it is most naturally understood as written to Jewish Christians outside of ancient Palestine by someone living within that land.”[2]

A member of our discussion summarized the book of James as “a circular letter to a vast group.” An inference from that description would be that rather than addressing specific issues in a particular congregation, James was writing to instruct believers in problems common to Jewish believers living in a Gentile world.

A Counter-Intuitive Instruction

James began his letter with a surprising (and often misunderstood) instruction.  “Consider it all joy when you encounter various trials.”  Our group pointed out a few things that James did not say. He did not say, “Feel joy” or “Have joy” or “It is joyful.”  Instead, we discussed what it means to “consider” or “count” (ESV, KJV) trials as James says.  “Look at it this way” or “Change your perception” were offered, as well as “Renew your mind” from the example in Romans 12.

We agreed that certainly James was not saying to pretend that trials – hardships, difficulties, sufferings – are not painful.  Instead, he describes an active choice of attitude, a conscious decision on where to focus our attention.  James’s use of the word for “consider” (ἡγέομαι, hēgeomai) as an active choice of attitude fits with other New Testament uses.

• • In Acts 26:2, Jews were calling for Paul’s death; the apostle is facing King Agrippa, and he “considers” himself fortunate.
  • In Philippians 2:3 believers are told to “consider” others more important.
  • In 1 Thessalonians 3:15 we are told not to “consider” a disobedient believer as an enemy

In each case there is a conscious choice made that is not necessarily our natural reaction to circumstances.  Likewise, James is calling believers to a deliberate decision.  We are to make a conscious choice of our attitude during trials.

James does not, then, suggest that Christians facing trials will have no response other than joy, as if we were commanded never to be saddened by difficulties.  His point, rather, is that trials should be an occasion for genuine rejoicing.[3]

Someone asked about being sad and joyful at the same time.  A description of joy from Dallas Willard was helpful.  Joy is “not a passing sensation of pleasure, but a pervasive sense of well-being.”^[4]

Even in times of deep sadness or pain, we have the option of choosing to focus on that “pervasive sense,” on the knowledge that our loving, wise, sovereign God is controlling our circumstances.

Desiring the Outcome

James assumes his readers understand the point of trials, “knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance.”  Someone commented that James does not argue or defend God’s providence in our circumstances.  James assumes a common understanding of God’s sovereign rule that his Jewish audience would share.

Our group agreed that we all may “know” that trials produce endurance, but the question becomes, “How much do we want endurance?”  Do we value endurance enough to see trials as opportunities for rejoicing?

The trials we encounter certainly get our attention.

God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pain: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.[5]

Our problem is that we tend to look at the megaphone.  But the function of a megaphone (or pain in Lewis’s illustration) is to draw attention to something else.

James says that our attention should be on the intended outcome of the trials.  Trials “test” or “refine” (δοκιμάζω, dokimazō) faith into endurance.  The word implies a test that is intended to demonstrate authenticity or genuineness (refining gold in 1 Peter 1:7 or testing spirits in 1 John 4:1).  Trials are the refining process that contribute to our spiritual formation.  One person in our group compared trials to athletic training, uncomfortable, even agonizing in the process, but focused on a desired outcome.

We discussed why we fail to see endurance as an outcome that justifies trials. Why are we not naturally drawn to joy in the refining process?  When we face a trial, we primarily want relief.  But endurance itself is hard.  Someone suggested another athletic analogy comparing a sprint to a marathon.  A sprint race takes effort, but we can see the finish line.  We can anticipate the difficulty ending.  But marathons are about endurance, keeping on when it seems impossible.  The idea of growing in endurance is not immediately “an occasion for rejoicing.”  The implication is that more endurance just means more trials.  There must be something more that would stir joy in us.

Perfect and Complete…

Perhaps that is why James continues.  Even endurance is not the ultimate outcome, the intended focus that can generate joy.  “Let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete…”

A person in our discussion paraphrased that part of the passage as, “trials will improve your life.”  We want immediate relief from the trials, but James says there is something even better.  Endurance promotes spiritual formation, moving us toward being perfect and complete.

These two English words, perfect and complete, almost sound like synonyms, just a way of saying the same thing for emphasis.  But even in English there are subtle differences.  Perfect indicates finished or mature.  Complete suggests whole, with nothing missing.  Various translations[6] use the words “mature” and “entire” as alternative ways of expressing the ideas.  A jigsaw puzzle is complete if it has all the pieces in the box, but it is only finished when it is put together.

A nineteenth-century Greek scholar summarized the words well.

The [complete] is one who has preserved, or who, having once lost, has now regained, his completeness: the [perfect] is one who has attained his moral end, that for which he was intended, namely, to be a man in Christ; however it may be true that, having reached this, other and higher ends will open out before him, to have Christ formed in him more and more. In the [complete] no grace which ought to be in a Christian man is deficient; in the [perfect] no grace is merely in its weak imperfect beginnings, but all have reached a certain ripeness and maturity.[7]

Endurance enables us to recover aspects of our trust in God or our spiritual formation that may have waned in the past.  Endurance expedites further maturity, approaching the character of Christ that will be finally and ultimately “perfect and complete” in eternity.

…Lacking in Nothing

Another participant drew attention to the end of verse 4, where James summarizes “perfect and complete” as “lacking in nothing.”

He suggested that a major obstacle to joy is a sense of lack.  Something is missing in our life that seems necessary for joy.  In the words of a member of a previous group several years ago, “I need this ____ for life to be OK.”  Without that [job, relationship, health, money, comfort, absence of pain,…] joy seems unattainable.  On the other hand, Paul defined what he need for life to be OK:  “For to me, to live is Christ.” (Philippians 1:21).

The so-called “prosperity gospel” would teach that “lacking in nothing” means that God will certainly give us that job, relationship, comfort, etc., whatever we think joy requires.  But the teaching of Scripture and the experience of virtually every Biblical character consistently contradict that expectation.

Instead, the comment from our current group member suggested that the trials are God’s loving, wise, sovereign method of showing us that all we need is Him.

Everyone has noticed how hard it is to turn our thoughts to God when everything is going well with us… While what we call ‘our own life’ remains agreeable, we will not surrender it to Him. What, then, can God do in our interests but make ‘our own life’ less agreeable to us, and take away the plausible sources of false happiness? It is just here, where God’s providence seems at first to be most cruel, that the Divine humility, the stooping down of the Highest, most deserves praise…. Let me implore the reader to try to believe, if only for the moment, that God, who made these deserving people, may really be right when He thinks that their modest prosperity and the happiness of their children are not enough to make them blessed: that all this must fall from them in the end, and that if they have not learned to know Him they will be wretched.^[8]

The obstacle to joy often is our focus on the painful circumstances, “God’s megaphone.”  We focus on what we consider to be the lack in our life.  But if we genuinely desire joy above all else, trials that refine our faith become “an occasion for rejoicing.”  The refining process distills our desires closer and closer to the ultimate desire for God Himself.

The refining process of trials can expose our false view of life.[9]  We can unconsciously replace Paul’s “to live is Christ” with our own substitute, “to live is _____ “ – putting something else, even something good, in that blank.  Sometimes those legitimate second-thing blessings become coping mechanisms we depend on instead of trust in God.  When trials threaten that substitute – the job or health or finances or comfort – the anger or frustration or despair become red flags, warnings that we desire something more than we desire joy in God.

Now God designed the human machine to run on Himself. He Himself is the fuel our spirits were designed to burn, or the food our spirits were designed to feed on. There is no other. That is why it is just no good asking God to make us happy in our own way without bothering about religion. God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing.[10]

When we need a certain job or relationship or comfort or anything other than God “for life to be OK,” those distractions may need to be removed so God can give us Himself as the only genuine, satisfying source of joy.

Habakkuk provides a powerful example, as shared by the group member.  The prophet knew disaster was imminent.  He dealt with his own dread of coming events. He knew that unimaginable trials were upon him:

I heard and my inward parts trembled,
At the sound my lips quivered.
Decay enters my bones,
And in my place I tremble.
Because I must wait quietly for the day of distress,
For the people to arise who will invade us.
Though the fig tree should not blossom
And there be no fruit on the vines,
Though the yield of the olive should fail
And the fields produce no food,
Though the flock should be cut off from the fold
And there be no cattle in the stalls,
Yet I will exult in the Lord,
I will rejoice in the God of my salvation.
Habakkuk 3:16-18

Habakkuk’s trust and rejoicing in God sounds a lot like James’s call to “Consider it all joy….”

Accommodation and Compromise

James recognized the dangers facing his brethren, “the twelve tribes who are dispersed abroad.”  Like us, they faced difficulties that seemed to outweigh the joy found only in God.  Jews living in a predominantly pagan culture were separated from the temple at Jerusalem and the Jewish culture that permeated Palestine.  Instead, the Diaspora “enabled an engagement with Greek culture that was more positive and persuasive” and “invited modes of assimilation that did not threaten [their] separate identity as a people.”[11]

James’s audience lived in a tolerant environment.  They were separated from temple rituals.  Their social interactions with Gentile neighbors provided much more diversity than Jews living in Palestine.  Greek language and education and philosophy were accepted parts of life in the dispersion. Spiritual and moral expectations were pretty low.  Unlike the environment in Palestine, assimilation into the worldly culture could happen silently and subtly.

In the book of Hebrews, the writer warned believers against depending on their Jewish roots of animal sacrifices, compromising the gospel in an attempt to avoid trials.  James addresses an audience with an opposite temptation, equally compromising the gospel by accommodation to and blending into their pagan environment to avoid trials.  Both in Hebrews and in James there are parallels to our culture and to pressures to compromise the gospel.  The goal of our study will be to discover how James helps us overcome those pressures.

Remaining Questions

We discussed only four verses, and our discussion went noticeably longer than usual.  Even then, some of the unresolved questions suggest the “lack of wisdom” that James brings up in verse 5.  For example,

• • What about those circumstances that we simply cannot endure, when things are just too painful. How do we “Consider it all joy” then?
  • Facing trials in our own life is one thing. How do we “Consider it all joy” when the trial consists of watching a loved one suffer?
  • Trials are often about second things – broken relationships, failing health, financial disaster, family difficulties. But what about trials regarding the First Thing, our relationship with God Himself, when He seems distant or even completely absent?  What about when we struggle with doubt and lack of trust in Him?  How are those times occasions for joy?
  • What about trials that we know will not end this side of glory, chronic health issues or a handicapped child? What does the joy of “perfect and complete” look like then?
  • Why are “small trials” often more difficult than major disasters? How can we learn to recognize occasions for joy in day-to-day matters?
  • How do we apply a command that is so contrary to our human nature? How do we get past just pretending to “Consider it all joy”?
  • And how do we help each other to grow in these directions?

It would be easy to continue our study of James and move on to the next verse.  On the other hand, we will profit more by exploring these questions.  What is the practical effect of James’s command to “Consider it all joy”?  Hopefully our next discussion time can show us more clearly where we “lack wisdom” in this area.

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[1] Luke Timothy Johnson, Early Christianity: The Experience of the Divine, The Great Courses Video Series (Chantilly, Virginia: The Teaching Company, 2002), course guidebook, 39.

[2] Luke Timothy Johnson, Brother of Jesus, Friend of God (Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2004), 24.

[3] Douglas Moo, The Letter of James (Grand Rapids, Michigan:  William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company. 2000), 53.

[4] Brant Hansen, Life Is Hard. God Is Good. Let’s Dance.: Experiencing Real Joy in a World Gone Mad (Nashville:  Thomas Nelson, 2024) Kindle Electronic Edition:  Location 287 (p. 6); quoting Dallas Willard, The Allure of Gentleness: Defending the Faith in the Manner of Jesus (San Francisco: HarperOne, 2016), 31..

[5] C. S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain (HarperCollins e-books, 2009), 6; Kindle location 1017, page 58.

[6] https://www.biblegateway.com/verse/en/James%201:4

[7] From Trench’s Synonyms, substituting [complete] for ὁλόκληρος (holoklēros) and [perfect] for τέλειος (teleios)
Richard C. Trench, Synonyms of the New Testament (Grand Rapids, Michigan:  Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1975), 77; Originally published in 1854.
cf. https://www.studylight.org/lexicons/eng/trench/p/perfect.html

[8] C. S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain (HarperCollins e-books, 2009), Kindle Edition, location 1068, page 61.

[9] See “Soul Care – A Brief Introduction” for a short description of False Views of Life and Death
http://www.goodnotsafe.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Soul-Care-A-Brief-Introduction.pdf#:~:text=False%20Views

[10] C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis Signature Classics (New York: HarperCollins Publishers Inc., 2021) Kindle Edition, location 759, page 49.

[11] Luke Timothy Johnson, Early Christianity: The Experience of the Divine, The Great Courses Video Series (Chantilly, Virginia: The Teaching Company, 2002), course guidebook, 39, 40.