The Perfect Law of Freedom

James calls himself a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, writing to the twelve tribes in the Dispersion. He opens with trials. He tells them to count it all joy, because the testing of their faith produces endurance. He says, Let endurance have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. Wisdom for hard times is available: if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach. But the request must be made in faith, for the doubter is like a wave of the sea, driven by the wind and tossed, a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.

James then separates testing from temptation. 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. Temptation grows from a person’s own desire, and desire left unchecked gives birth to sin. In contrast, 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. God gave his people new birth by the word of truth.

The rest of the chapter is about responding to that word. Be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger. Receive with humility the implanted word, which is able to save your souls. But be doers of the word, and not only hearers, deluding your own selves. A hearer who does not act is like a man looking at his face in a mirror who walks away and forgets. The one who looks into the perfect law of freedom and continues will be blessed in what he does. True religion includes a controlled tongue, care for the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and a life unstained by the world.