Testing of Our Trust [1] (Faith) ~ Part 2

⁹ Let the brother in humble circumstances boast about his high position.

The rich don’t undergo economic trials. They experience temptation, while it is the poor who pass through economic suffering and trials. Their wealth too easily removes any sense of need or commitment to God and leads to total dependence on the things of the world. The social stratification that stood between rich and poor was even more pronounced in the Roman world than it is in our modern world. Ya’akov emphasizes here that people are not superior just because they inherit wealth, but many of us act as if that is the case and deep down actually believe it is so. The teaching of all of Scripture is that before God all people are equal and must equally place their dependence on God rather than on their earthly resources. However, that is more easily said than done for the wealthy, who have so much of the world’s resources at their disposal.

¹⁰ But let the rich brother boast about his being humbled; since, like a wildflower, he will pass away. ¹¹ For just as the sun rises with the sharav and dries up the plant so that its flower falls off and its beauty is destroyed, so too the rich person going about his business will wither away.

The sharav is the hot, dry wind that blows across Isra’el from the deserts east of the Land in the spring and (less often) in the fall. Weather like this made Jonah faint and want to die (Jonah 4:8). Compare Isaiah 40:7 (The grass withers, the flower fades when a wind from Adonai blows upon it.); Psalm 102:4, 11.

The poor boast in the fact that Yeshua has exalted them above their earthly station. The boasting of the wealthy should rejoice in the opposite, that Yeshua will remove earthly glory and introduce justice. How can they rejoice in being humbled or brought low? They know that they are first Believers and only secondarily are they rich, and so they are thrilled that evil is destroyed and the poor people of God exalted to their true and proper estate. No wealthy person wants to lose riches, but all should want to use their riches to alleviate the suffering of the poor. Their goal is not to glory in their superiority but to use their advantages to help others.

In the previous ten verses (1:2–11) Ya’akov introduced the key motifs of his letter – the fact of trials, the need for wisdom in overcoming them, and the basic trial behind so many of the difficulties – namely, poverty. Now in the rest of the chapter, he will expand his coverage and develop them further. He begins with trials. In 1:2–4, he showed that trials were tests of trust designed by God to teach endurance; now we will see that trials are also temptations that can seriously harm us spiritually.

¹² How blessed is the man who perseveres through temptation! For after he has passed the test, he will receive as his crown the Life which God has promised to those who love him.

When you face trials and temptations, if you stay close to the Lord, you will hear Him say, “Well done, good and faithful servant,” (see Matthew 25:21) and you will receive the crown of life specifically reserved for those who don’t walk away from Him in trials or temptations.

¹³ No one being tempted should say, “I am being tempted by God.” For God cannot be tempted by evil, and God himself tempts no one.

HaSatan tempted Job (Job 1–2) and Yeshua (Mt 4:1–11), but God tempts no one.

As mentioned in our previous post, peirasmos also means temptation, and trials become temptation when we approach them in our own strength rather than relying on God. When we accept them as God-given tests and address them through prayer and trust in God, they lead to spiritual victory and divine approval. When we encounter them in our own strength and blame God for them, we fall into temptation and sin. Every trial has two possible responses, and we must make our choice. Think of a pilgrim on a quest suddenly faced with an obstacle. They can turn to God for wisdom or to themselves in order to get around the obstacle on their own.

A primary temptation in difficult trials is to blame God for our misfortune. So the first thing we must realize is the truth that God is not tempting us. The last line of the Lord’s Prayer is best translated, “Don’t let us yield to temptation” rather than “Lead us not into temptation” (Matt 6:13). God never tempts his followers. He sends trials and tests but not temptation. Rather, the trials become temptation when we fail to seek God’s wisdom in handling them. In Yeshua’s confrontation in the wilderness (Matt 4:11), He was tested by God but tempted by Satan.

Regarding the entire arena of trials and temptations, understand this: God will allow a trial; HaSatan will come with a temptation. The trial may be financial; the temptation may be cocaine to escape the pressure. It’s not God who brings the cocaine your way. It’s not God who tempts you with pornography. No, God simply allows the trial to come. It’s HaSatan who brings the temptation.

Never, ever be mistaken on this point. The trial of our trust is to prove the faithfulness of God. It is never a temptation or an enticement to sin. Therefore, if you’re half-drunk in a bar, the guy offering you free drugs is not God’s way of saying, “I’m going to prove how faithful I am by sending this guy your way.” No! That’s a temptation you brought on yourself by placing yourself in that situation in the first place.

¹⁴ Rather, each person is being tempted whenever he is being dragged off and enticed by the bait of his own desire.

His own desire, known in Judaism as the Yetzer ra˓ (“evil inclination”). “One who commits a transgression has been seized by lust and incited thereto by the evil inclination.”

¹⁵ Then, having conceived, the desire gives birth to sin; and when sin is fully grown, it gives birth to death. ¹⁶ Don’t delude yourselves, my dear brothers. (CJB)

Sin gives birth to death, an example of Ya‛akov’s striking manner of expression. Sin always brings forth death. Every time. Sin will kill relationships. It will destroy happiness. It will ruin health. When you want to tell kids how serious sin is and what sin does, the best thing you can do is take them to the Cross of Calvary and say, “Look at this wonderful, perfect, loving Person and see Him on the Cross in agony and pain and blood. It was when Jesus became sin for us that He died, for sin always brings death.”

Don’t delude yourselves, Ya’akov says. Sin always results in death and tragedy. Sha’ul would put it this way: Don’t delude yourselves: no one makes a fool of God! A person reaps what he sows. ~ Galatians 6:7 (CJB)

We will learn a little more about Ya’akov as we dig into what he has to say about the Testing of Our Trust ~ Part 3.

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[1] Recall that the Complete Jewish Bible translates the Hebrew word for faith as trust.