Five-minute study · Day 44 · James 1
James 1:2
A word worth stopping on: trials πειρασμός peirasmos
Count it all joy when you fall into various trials. James writes this as his second sentence. No warmup. No easing into it. And the Greek word he uses for 'trials' is the same word that shows up in the Lord's Prayer when Jesus teaches his disciples to pray 'lead us not into temptation.' Same word. Two contexts. The tension between them is the entire point.
Word study: trials
- Greek
- πειρασμός
- Pronounced
- peirasmos
- Strong's
- G3986
- Definition
- A trial, a test, a temptation. Can refer to external hardship that tests character or internal enticement toward sin.
Peirasmos holds two meanings in a single shell. In James 1:2, it means trials: external circumstances that press against your faith and reveal what is underneath. James says count these as joy because the testing produces endurance (1:3-4). Twelve verses later, in James 1:13-14, he uses the same root (peirazo) for temptation: the internal pull toward sin. 'God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone.'
The Lord's Prayer uses peirasmos in Matthew 6:13: 'Lead us not into peirasmon.' Is Jesus teaching you to pray against trials or against temptation? Douglas Moo, in his commentary on James, argues the answer is both. The word deliberately spans both experiences because they often arrive together. An external trial (job loss, illness, betrayal) becomes the occasion for internal temptation (bitterness, despair, compromise).
James does not ask you to enjoy the pain. The verb hegeomai ('count') means to consider, to evaluate, to make a judgment call. He is asking you to assess the trial differently than your instincts suggest. The fire is real. What it produces is worth more than the comfort it burned away.
Historical context · Mid-first century AD
Who James Was Writing To
James addresses his letter 'to the twelve tribes scattered among the nations' (1:1). These are Jewish believers in Jesus living outside Palestine, likely displaced by the persecution described in Acts 8:1 following Stephen's death. They had lost homes, businesses, and community standing because of their faith.
The letter is dated by most scholars to the mid-40s AD, making it possibly the earliest document in the New Testament. James, the brother of Jesus and leader of the Jerusalem church (Acts 15, Galatians 2:9), is writing to people whose peirasmos was specific and material. They were being hauled into courts by the wealthy (2:6). Their wages were being stolen (5:4). They were facing social ostracism from the synagogue communities they had grown up in.
'Count it all joy' is written to people who have already lost things. The letter does not theorize about suffering. Every instruction lands on concrete circumstances its readers were living through. When James says peirasmos produces endurance and endurance produces completeness, he is describing a process his audience was already inside. The testing was underway. His letter meets them in it.
For reflection
James uses a word that means both trial and temptation. Think about a difficulty you are facing right now. Where inside that difficulty is the temptation hiding? The external pressure and the internal pull are often the same event.
Hegeomai means to make a deliberate assessment. Joy in trials is a decision, made with your mind, before your emotions agree.
Sources: BDAG Lexicon; Moo, 'The Letter of James' (PNTC); McCartney, 'James' (BECNT)