James 1:3Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

Although temptations, as we have said, are of two kinds, patience is useful in each kind. In temptations from God, it is useful because through them we receive glorification, as Abraham and Job received it. In temptations from ourselves, it is useful because, by bearing them with thanksgiving, we make a kind of recompense for our sins. For whoever acknowledges his sins has laid the beginning of his salvation and has acquired for himself the mark of a righteous man, since the righteous man first accuses himself.

Therefore I think that the Lord and God, teaching His disciples how they should pray, says that one must pray for the removal of temptations according to the will. By the words, “And lead us not into temptation” (Mt 6:13), He teaches His disciples to pray not to experience hedonistic temptations, that is, those that are willed and voluntary. But the great James, the so-called Brother of the Lord, teaches those who struggle for the truth not to shrink from involuntary temptations.

The Apostle says, "For this reason you are subjected to temptation by enemies: that you may learn the virtue of patience, and through it show and prove that you have firm faith in your heart in the future recompense."

Here there is no contradiction, but rather agreement with what the Apostle Paul says: "Knowing that tribulation produces patience, and patience experience" (Rom 5:3-4).

Patience produces experience because the one whose patience cannot be conquered is acknowledged to be perfect. This is also said further in this verse: "And let patience have its perfect work."

Conversely, "The testing of your faith produces patience." This statement shows that believers are trained through patience, so as to show in patience how perfect their faith is.

From where, then, does patience in temptations come? From the knowledge that this is sent for the testing of faith in God, so that temptations become a means of proving the faithful. Therefore James, the Brother of the Lord, after exhorting us to rejoice when we encounter temptations, adds, “The testing of your faith produces patience.”

Here the brother of the Lord clearly shows what benefit and acquisition for the soul are obtained by temptations for those Christians who bear them courageously, without murmuring, and with thanksgiving.

This applies both to those temptations that come by permission and testing, solely from God, for crowns and praises to those tested, as happened with Abraham and Job. It also applies to those that overtake us by another permission because of our sins, as a penance for correction.

He goes on to say that the faith of those being tested becomes skilled through such temptations. In other words, it becomes tested, discerning, and pure.

The Apostle indicates why a Christian should relate to temptations in this way. Their great significance lies in the perfection of Christian moral life. This significance is that temptations produce patience, and patience leads to perfection.

"Knowing" means: you must know and be assured. Or it means: knowing already from the oral instructions of the preachers of the Gospel, from Christian teaching in general, or from your own moral experiences.

"That the testing of your faith," and so forth: here, as throughout the epistle, the speech is brief and abrupt. For greater clarity it must be supplied.

The sequence of thought is this: rejoice in temptations, knowing that temptations are the testing of your faith, and that the testing of your faith produces patience.

Temptations are a test of the strength of faith. Having endured temptations, a man can become more patient, and this can lead him to the fulfillment of the work of salvation, to complete perfection and spiritual wealth. This makes the Christian capable of every good work and also worthy of all the good things prepared for those who endure everything for Christ. Or, as the Apostle Peter says, “that the tested genuineness of your faith may prove more precious than gold which perishes though it is tested by fire” (1 Pet 1:7).

In order to explain the essence of the Christian moral law, the Apostle James, in the first chapter of his epistle, exhorts us to bear patiently the trials sent by God.

Trials temper our faith and morally perfect us. If in the struggle with temptations a man feels his weakness, he must not grow despondent or fainthearted.

He must ask God for wisdom to overcome temptations, and it will be given to him. But let him ask in faith, without doubting at all, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind.

Let such a man not think that he will receive anything from the Lord. A man of divided thoughts is unstable in all his ways (vv. 5-7).

One filled with truly Christian wisdom joyfully bears all trials and reversals of fortune, whether he is rich or poor.

Those who are tested by sorrows for the faith must sustain a joyful disposition by the awareness, or conviction, that testing produces patience, that is, it teaches patience. The worth of our devotion to the holy faith is revealed in firmness of faith, in constancy, and in steadfastness despite every obstacle. We must rejoice that testing by sorrows for the faith gives us the opportunity to attain this worth and to be strengthened in faith by the ascetic labor of patience. The holy Apostle Paul says the same thing (Rom 5:3).