Just saying.....: James 1

I LOVE to read a passage from a different translation than my normal. Actually, I love to read a passage out of multiple of translations while studying. It usually keeps me from getting very far, because I'm perusing through different verbiage and gleaning a greater and more detailed picture of what it's saying and what I'm learning.

I was doing the new Beth Moore bible study on James months ago. As soon as it hit the book store, I ran to grab a book in order to jump right into it. I'd been anticipating it's arrival for months. I couldn't wait.

I can't tell you how much even that first chapter said to me. James had already been a favored book of mine, but I've grown even fonder of it since. I read The New International Commentary on the New Testament: The Epistle of James while engrossed in the study. And I was so blessed by it's version of chapter one, so much of it just had a brighter light shining upon it as I turned the pages that it still reverberates and speaks to me still.

If you'll be so kind to bear with me.... I felt so compelled! I felt I HAD-TO share it! May you be as blessed as I was. May you enjoy... and bask in The Bread with me!

James, a bond slave of God and the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes of the Dispersion, salutation.
Deem it nothing but an occasion for joy, my brothers, whenever (on each occasion when) you encounter trying assaults of evil in their various forms.
You must realize that your approbation is accomplished by constancy in endurance.
But let that constancy perfect its work, so that you may be perfect, and complete in every part, lacking in nothing (but able to withstand any kind of assault of evil by which you may be tried).
But if any of you is lacking knowledge (of God's way and will), let him ask of God, who gives it to all as a simple (unconditional) gift and chides not (the petitioner for previous ignorance).
But let him ask in faith, with no halting between two opinions: for the man who halts between two opinions is like a sea of waves, the way it is blown and beaten under the winds.
Let not that (sort of) man imagine that he will get anything from the Lord.
A man who is of two minds is unsteady in all his ways.
(In the equality of Christian brotherhood) let the brother of humble degree exult in his being made high,
and the rich (brother) in his being made low: for he (in his being-only-rich) shall pass away like the flower among the grass.
For the sun arises, with the scorching wind, and parches the grass, and the flower among it falls off, and the beauty of its appearance perishes: so he who is (only) rich shall wither in his ways.
Happy is the man who with constancy endures trying assaults of evil; for when (upon trial) he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love Him.
Let no one under trying assault of evil say, "My trial by assault of evil comes from God." For God is invincible to assault of evils, and Himself subjects no one to assault of evil.
But each man is tried by assault of evil by his own lust, as he feels the pull of its distraction and the enticement of its bait.
Then his lust having conceived gives birth to sin; and when sin is full grown it brings forth death.
Make no mistake, my beloved brothers (I'm not arguing, I'm telling you):
Every good gift, yes, every perfect gift, is from above, coming down from the Father of lights of heaven, whose nature (unlike those lights) suffers neither the variation of orbit nor any shadow.
He of His own wish begot us by the Word of truth, for us to be a kind of firstfruits of His creation.
Wherefore, my beloved brothers, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath:
for a man's wrath (or "anger") does not express in action the righteousness of God.
Wherefore strip off all filthiness and prodigality of vice, and with meekness accept the implanted Word (implanted by those who have preached the gospel to you), which is able to save your souls.
But be doers of the Word and not merely hearers of it, deluding yourselves.
For if anyone is a hearer of the Word and not a doer of it, he is like a man observing the face of his mortal, physical birth (created being) in a mirror.
For he observes himself, and is gone, and immediately forgets what he was like.
For he who has bent over to look into the perfect law of liberty, and has stayed by it, since he has not been a hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he shall be blessed in his doing.
If anyone among you thinks he is a model of piety, and is one who does not bridle his tongue but deludes his own heart, this man's piety is vain.
The way to win an account with God the Father for piety pure and undefiled is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world.