The General Epistle of James

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- Chapter 1 -

(Jude 1:1–2)

I, James, serve God and am bound to God through the Lord Jesus Christ. I am writing this letter to the twelve Jewish tribes who trust in Messiah and who are scattered throughout the world. I greet you all.

Rejoicing in Trials

(Philippians 1:12–20)

My fellow believers, consider it something to greatly rejoice over when you experience various kinds of hardships.

Understand that as you trust God in hardships, they help you to endure even more hardships.

Endure hardships to their very end, so that you may follow Messiah in every way. Then you will not fail to do well.

If anyone of you needs to know what to do, let him ask God, who gives generously and is not angry at anyone who asks.

But when you ask God, trust him to answer you. Do not doubt that he will answer and always help you, because people who keep doubting God cannot follow him, like a wave of the sea that is blown back and forth by the wind and thus cannot continue in the same direction.

Indeed, people who doubt should not think that Lord God will do anything that they request him to do.

For they are people who cannot decide whether they will follow Jesus or not follow Jesus. These people do not do what they say they will do.

Believers who are poor should be glad because God has honored them.

And believers who are rich should be glad that God has humbled them, which helps them trust in Jesus Christ, because they and their riches will pass away, just as wild flowers wither.

When the sun rises, the scorching hot wind dries the plants and causes the flowers to fall and no longer be beautiful. Like the flower that dies, rich people will die while they are earning money.

God honors those who endure hard trials, because God will reward them by making them live forever, as he has promised to do for all who love him.

Good and Perfect Gifts

When we are tempted to sin, we must not think it is God who is tempting us, because no one can persuade God to do evil, and he never tries to persuade anyone to do evil.

But everyone wants to do evil, and so they do it, just as if they are falling into a trap.

After that, their evil thoughts lead them to commit sin, and this sin takes over their minds until it destroys them. Then, when evil desires come together, sin is born, which means the person commits sin and can only be forgiven by Jesus. And when sin produces its final result, death comes, both the death of the body and the death of the spirit, meaning the sinner is separated from God forever. Only Jesus can save us from this final death.

My fellow believers whom I love, stop deceiving yourselves.

Every truly good and perfect gift comes from God the Father, who is in heaven. He is the true God who gives us light. God does not change like created things change, like shadows that appear and disappear. God never changes and He is always good!

God chose to give us spiritual life when we trusted in his true message. So now believers in Jesus have become the first people to have true spiritual life, which only Jesus can give.

Hearing and Doing

My fellow believers whom I love, you know that every one of you should be eager to pay attention to God’s true message. You should not quickly speak your own thoughts, nor quickly get angry,

because when we get angry we cannot do the righteous things that God wants us to do.

So stop doing all kinds of evil, and humbly accept the message that God planted in your inner beings, because he is able to save you if you accept his message.

Do what God commands in his message. Do not only listen to it, because people who only listen to it and do not obey it think wrongly that God will save them.

Some people hear God’s message but do not do what it says. They are like someone who looks at his face in a mirror.

Although he looks at himself, he goes away from the mirror and immediately forgets what he looks like.

But other people look closely at God’s message, which is perfect and which sets people free to voluntarily do what God wants them to do. And if they continue to examine God’s message and do not just hear it and then forget it, but do what God tells them to do, God will bless them because of what they do.

Some people think that they worship God rightly, but they habitually speak evil talk. Those people are wrong in thinking that they worship God rightly. The fact is that they worship God in vain.

One of the things that God has told us to do is to take care of orphans and widows who suffer hardship. Those who do that, and who do not think or act immorally like those who do not obey God, truly worship God, who is our Father, and God approves of them.

(Jude 1:1–2)

James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ,(a) to the twelve tribes which are in the Dispersion: Greetings.

Rejoicing in Trials

(Philippians 1:12–20)

Count it all joy, my brothers,(b) when you fall into various temptations,

knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance.

Let endurance have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him.

But let him ask in faith, without any doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, driven by the wind and tossed.

For that man shouldn’t think that he will receive anything from the Lord.

He is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.

Let the brother in humble circumstances glory in his high position;

and the rich, in that he is made humble, because like the flower in the grass, he will pass away.

For the sun arises with the scorching wind and withers the grass; and the flower in it falls, and the beauty of its appearance perishes. So the rich man will also fade away in his pursuits.

Blessed is a person who endures temptation, for when he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord promised to those who love him.

Good and Perfect Gifts

Let no man say when he is tempted, “I am tempted by God,” for God can’t be tempted by evil, and he himself tempts no one.

But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own lust and enticed.

Then the lust, when it has conceived, bears sin. The sin, when it is full grown, produces death.

Don’t be deceived, my beloved brothers.

Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom can be no variation nor turning shadow.

Of his own will he gave birth to us by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of first fruits of his creatures.

Hearing and Doing

So, then, my beloved brothers, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, and slow to anger;

for the anger of man doesn’t produce the righteousness of God.

Therefore, putting away all filthiness and overflowing of wickedness, receive with humility the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.(c)

But be doers of the word, and not only hearers, deluding your own selves.

For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man looking at his natural face in a mirror;

for he sees himself, and goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was.

But he who looks into the perfect law of freedom and continues, not being a hearer who forgets but a doer of the work, this man will be blessed in what he does.

If anyone among you thinks himself to be religious while he doesn’t bridle his tongue, but deceives his heart, this man’s religion is worthless.

Pure religion and undefiled before our God and Father is this: to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.

Footnotes

(a)1:1 “Christ” means “Anointed One”.

(b)1:2 The word for “brothers” here and where context allows may also be correctly translated “brothers and sisters” or “siblings.”