Someone once quipped, “A Christian is well-nigh useless until he has been placed in the crucible of God’s testing.” Before having been placed there myself, I thought a good book-knowledge and proper application of God’s Word was sufficient. I often stepped out on a dangerous limb in suggesting to people applications that, while exegetically accurate, were less than practical when applied to personal experience.
It is quite easy for the untested to look down on a suffering soul from their ivory towers and think the solution to be simple. They see the discouraged and depressed as weak rather than someone suffering. They see the emotionally distraught as lacking faith rather than someone who is under great strain of spirit. I suppose they would have joined Job’s three companions in accusing those who are down of being less than spiritual, when, in fact, God was working a remarkable work in their lives bringing them into a place of maturity.
In the prayer our Lord offered to His disciples after they asked Him to teach them to pray, He included the request: “And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” (Matthew 6.13; Luke 11.4) Notice, He did not say, “Lead us not in to testing,” but rather, “Lead us not into temptation.” Temptation is something from which we must escape (I Corinthians 10.13, while a testing is something that we each must endure (II Thessalonians 1.4; II Timothy 2.3; 4.5; James 5.11).
The art of endurance is a learned process. “Knowing” (“ginoskontes” {present active participle – something that is on-going} – “to come to know, to gain or receive a knowledge of”) suggests a moving forward in our understanding and experience. The knowledge matures as we have applied experience.
When James writes concerning our knowledge, he suggests something that is an on-going process. We must learn with our head – experience the application of God’s Word in our lives – and, continue on lest we become stagnant and ineffective. We cannot rely on yesterday’s grace or blessing if we are to live a satisfying and victorious life in Christ.
The Greek word which translates “trying” (“dokímion”) is found only twice in the New Testament. (James 1.3; I Peter 1.7) It suggests the means of proving, a criterion or test by which anything is proved or tried, as faith by afflictions. In I Peter 1.7 the meaning is slightly different. Here it reflects a sense which means genuine or approved. In New Testament times it was used of metals that were without alloy. Peter uses the word as referring to the genuineness of faith.
Unless our faith is tried, it may be a faith with nothing deeper than intellectual knowledge. Without experience, faith is dead. (James 2.18, 20)
So then, the “trying of your faith worketh patience.” James uses the term “worketh” (katergázomai), which means, “to accomplish, to carry out a task until it is finished.” The verb is a middle deponent which requires personal application. This maturation process cannot be something one inherits or is privileged with at birth. It must be entered into personally and exercised personally.
The result of this testing is patience (hupomonen). It means to bear up under, to have patience as one endures concerning things or circumstances. This is in contrast to “longsuffering” (makrothumía) which applies to long-suffering or endurance toward people. Hupomone is associated with hope and refers to that quality of character which does not allow one to surrender to circumstances or succumb under trial. “Remembering without ceasing your work of faith, and labour of love, and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ, in the sight of God and our Father; Knowing, brethren beloved, your election of God.” (I Thessalonians 1.3, 4) The reason for our steadfast patience is that we understand our election of God. He is the One who keeps us secure within His grasp. (John 10.27-31; Ephesians 1.13)
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