Wisdom for Every Trial
James Bible Study
The Trial of Wisdom
This section of James highlights the way we deal with trials in our lives. James gives us the tools we need and our approach before God in prayer and requests we have as we go through trials. He describes God’s character and approach when we ask Him for wisdom.
James 1:5-8
5 Now if any of you lacks wisdom, let him keep asking from God, who keeps giving without hesitation to all, and without rebuke, and it will be given to him. 6 But he must ask in faith without doubt, because the doubter is like a wave of the sea, driven and blown about by the wind. 7 Now that person should not expect that he will receive anything from the Lord – 8 a double-minded man, unsteady in all his ways.
Thought Flow
James expects we need help in our trials. The biggest help we can receive is wisdom from God. We must learn to ask God without doubting for wisdom and He is the kind of God to grant our request. We must not doubt because we will be unsteady and double minded.
Surrounding Context
In the previous section, James taught us to face trials unlike the world. We should approach them with joy because God is working endurance into our lives. He is increasing our faith. In the next section after James 1:5-8, James will lay out another trial dealing with the rich and the poor.
Dig Deeper
As James thought about all of the parts that Christians need to be complete, he began to think of a key trait - wisdom! Wisdom is necessary for us to approach a trial with the best outcome. We will also need to ask God for it and respond properly to His wonderful gift of wisdom.
James 1:5. James starts with a catchword from the previous paragraph. He uses the word “lack” to clarify what being mature and complete is. Then he starts this section with the lack of wisdom as something that makes us incomplete.
He introduces a condition here. In Greek, this is a first-class condition where James expects we do not have the wisdom we need for our trial. If that is true, then this is what to do to fix it. Just ask God for wisdom. Some English versions do not make it clear that this is another command from James. He is not making a suggestion, “let him ask from God.” He is saying, “Ask God.” James reflects Jesus’s teaching from the Gospels, specifically about asking God and receiving from Him (Matthew 7:7-12).
Sounds simple. Maybe too simple. Many Christians may not even think to ask God for wisdom. Usually, our first reaction to a trial is to look at ourselves, our abilities, resources, and how we have approached a trial in the past. Our first reaction to a trial should be prayer, connecting with God, and learning again to rely on Him in faith.
The way you react, even the way you pray, depends on how you see God. Some see God as someone in the sky waiting for you to mess up. They expect that He just wants to remind them of their mistakes and be to move the head for them. God could not further from that caricature. James is going to realign our misconceptions with the truth.
Here is how God responds to asking for wisdom from Him:
- God gives to everyone. Some scholars say “everyone” refers to the Christian city to ask in faith. Others say “everyone” means everyone who asks God for something in prayer. I think it is qualified to Christians. This is a specific request – for wisdom.
- God is generous and open handed with his answer. The word for “generous,” “simple,” “without reservation, hesitation” only occurs here in the New Testament. It is hard to get a good meaning for this word. The word used in the Old Testament and ancient Greek literature suggests it has the meaning of being open and single-minded. God does not have to think about whether or not He will give you wisdom. He will. But you have to ask.
- God does not rebuke you for asking him for wisdom. God will not slap you upside the head will beat you with the back when you ask for wisdom. He doesn’t hold it against you or attach strings to His gift of wisdom. There is no long form to fill out, health requirements, being on the obedient good boy list, or anything else.
- God promptly fulfills your request. James uses a “divine passive,” a way of saying it will be given to you by God. He gives you wisdom as soon as you ask. Perhaps He reveals something in His Word that gives you the wisdom. Maybe another Christian suggests something you didn’t think of as the wise approach. However God does it, he answers your request for wisdom. Solomon is a great example of this. God asked him if he wanted wisdom, riches, or fame. Because salmon ask for wisdom, God gave him everything.
Tell Me More
What do you think of when you hear the word “wisdom”? Biblical wisdom is not theoretical, esoteric, people sitting in a room with their hands on their chins as if they look like they are in deep thought. No, biblical wisdom is extremely practical. If you ever look up the words for wisdom in the Old and New Testaments, you will find practical words like skill, insight, knowledge, ability, and the like.
Biblical wisdom is putting knowledge into action. Wisdom comes from God (Proverbs 2:6). It is the skill and ability to approach a situation in your life, no what God would want you to do, and make the choice to do it God’s way. There are two kinds of wisdom in the Bible. The first is called Foly, or worldly wisdom. It is a form of wisdom, but it does not consult God. People use worldly wisdom to get what they want, do what they want to do, and don’t care what happens to others in the meantime.
The other form of wisdom is godly, heavenly wisdom. It is the ability to know biblical principles and practices, put in place wisdom that pleases God and leads to success that pleases God. It is the kind of wisdom that says it is better to be in good standing with God because of my choices and actions and to be backspace to get immediate gratification and suffer later. It seems to make the choices and actions that are good for the long term. It waits for God to open doors, God to speak and reveal His ways to you, and to please Him first and foremost.
You can learn biblical wisdom from the Bible, especially the wisdom literature of the Old and New Testaments. You will find these books in Psalms, Proverbs, Job, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Solomon in the Old Testament. In the New Testament, Jesus’s teaching in the Gospels and the book of James have godly wisdom. But the whole of the Bible gives you godly wisdom through positive and negative character examples and sayings.
James 1:6. We may not believe God will just give wisdom to us if we ask. James must address how we ask God for wisdom. You must ask
- In faith. You must believe that God can and wants to give you wisdom. Wisdom comes from God, so only He can give the kind of wisdom that will work for your trial. If you do not believe God can do it, then why would you ask Him?
- Without doubting. What is doubt? It is everything from disputing with yourself for God, questioning His abilities or intentions, deliberating the impossibilities, and the enemy of belief and faith. It can stop you from receiving wisdom.
Let’s clear up some misconceptions that have to be for me in your mind as you read this and what James says about doubting. The kind of person James is describing is a doubter. This is a person who doubts everything. They doubt God’s character. They doubt His power and will. They doubt He is good and has good things for us.
James is not describing a person who has dealt from time to time. We all have doubts. They are colored by our experiences from the past. The person James doesn’t describe is the person who sometimes has doubts but still believes. This is the person learning to trust God more deeply. The person like the father the young boy who cried out to Jesus, “I believe. Help my unbelief” (Mark 9:24) and the disciples who asked Jesus Jesus to increase their faith (Luke 17:5).
James is the consummate pastor and preacher. He introduces an illustration of the kind of person who dampness when he prays. The doubter is like a wave of the sea that is blown about by the wind, battered by the storms and talks about. This person is controlled by their circumstances rather than their faith. This is the first of many of James’s illustrations from nature.
James 1:7. This kind of doubtful person must not expect anything from God. What’s interesting is that in Greek, the emphasis is on never receiving from God in this instance! James is sure that such a doubtful person will not get what they ask for in prayer. It’s like when you offend someone to the point that they can’t even deal with you anymore. You go so far that you push them over the edge so that they can’t even talk about that thing anymore with you.
When we doubt God, we offend Him with our request. Asking God for something while doubting nullifies the sound of your voice and the seriousness of your request. Why would you come to Him if you doubted He has the power to do it and the will? You cannot do it for yourself. You trust in something or someone. It must be trust in God before you make your request.
James 1:8. James calls this type of person a “double-minded” person. What does that word mean? James is the only person in the New Testament to use that word and he uses it twice in his epistle: once here and once in 4:8. Because he is the only one to use this word, it is much harder to figure out what he means by it. There may be some Old Testament background, two verses that refer to being double-hearted (Psalm 12:2; 1 Chronicles 12:33), perhaps meaning the same thing.
It is a combination of the two words in Greek for two and soul (or mind), literally, “two souled.” This person has “two minds” about a situation or decision they must make. It means to be divided in your thinking. You are unable to come to a decision, frozen by two or more options.
This makes sense in our passage because James is talking about someone who can’t make up their mind. What’s more, James then goes on to describe them in a more holistic way. He tells us that these same people who are unsure of whether or not God can do what they are asking for are unsteady or unstable in everything that they do.
They are lost among the circumstances and stuff going on in life, controlled by their situation, not their faith in God. They are driven and controlled by the outside, not an inner foundational conviction that God can do whatever they ask. If they cannot ask God for wisdom that comes from Him and He is more than willing to give, they cannot make decisions and their whole life produces instability.
In a Word…
The word for double minded (δίψυχος (dipsychos)) only appears twice in the New Testament (James 1:8; 4:8). It means to be of two minds about one thing, paralyzed and stuck between two or more choices, frozen with indecision, lacking wisdom, doubting. It is possibly a word coined by James for this situation in life. The Greek word is a compound of two words, “two” and “mind/soul.” James uses it to refer to Christians who are in this frame of mind. It can be avoided by seeking wisdom from God and putting that wisdom into practice.
What's James Saying?
Trials require us to have wisdom to do with them correctly and in a godly way. When they come our way, we need to have practical wisdom to do what God would want us to do, what would be best for that situation. This is why we pray for wisdom, and ask God for it, for He is wisdom! The proverbs speak of wisdom personified, and God is all-wise. So to ask Him for wisdom is to ask for His help and will in the situation or trial we are in.
We must be careful when we come to God without faith. When we ask God for His infinite power and help in a matter, we ask because that only God can do what we cannot. Faith is the active expression of our belief and understanding that God is able to do anything, so there is nothing we can ask Him to do that He can’t do!
But oftentimes, when we pray for healing or wisdom or something that we’re praying for because we know we can’t do it, we don’t pray expecting that God will grant it! He can do anything. We say we know that in our heads, but it’s got to go beyond something we say into our souls so that we don’t just mentally ascent to God’s omnipotence, but we believe actively in expectant hope for Him to do what we ask.
We can trust that God is a good God who can give us wisdom, wants to give us wisdom, does not hold it against us for asking, generously gives it, doesn’t hesitate to give it, and gives it to everyone who asks. God is don’t like us. We waiver between decisions, but God quickly responds and grants our request for wisdom.
James's Themes
Wisdom is a theme throughout James’s letter. He deals specifically with it here in James 1:5-8 and James 3:13-18. But the whole letter is James’s pastoral counsel and wisdom on how to approach every trial he presents.
In the Bible
Wisdom happens on almost every page of the Bible. It is focused mostly in the wisdom literature, such as Psalms, Proverbs, Job, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon, and James. Many times, you will find a wisdom saying that will have different meaning for different situations. For instance, the Bible may say that you should answer a fool according to his folly in one verse and even right after that say do not answer a fool according to his folly (Proverbs 26:4-5).
Wisdom comes in knowing what wisdom to apply to which situation. You will know the character of a person who needs an answer to a foolish action they may be committed to. They would do well to hear from you. But in other cases, the character of a person tells you that they are just trying to go you into giving godly wisdom to a worldly person to will just make fun of it.
One of the best things you can do is read wisdom daily from the wisdom literature. It will become part of who you are and make you wise even if you cannot quote book, chapter, and verse. Ask God for the wisdom to apply in your relationships and situations, and with practice you will become more precise in your application of wisdom to your daily life.
Wisdom for Today
Trials require wisdom to come out approved by God and advance in endurance and strengthen your faith. So the next time you find yourself in the midst of a trial, ask God for the wisdom to pull through stronger than before, and don’t forget to give Him the glory when it’s over! Trust that He will grant you wisdom when you asked. You have no reason to doubt He will.
We must learn to stop being so unstable and double-minded in our lives. Wisdom helps us to choose the right path right now. Wisdom is a practical way to deal with current issues. We need not be tossed and driven by the situations over people around us.
God wants to place in us an inner core of trust and hope that will outlast any trial we come up against. In these last days, it will not be easy to rely on God for hope, but we hope in what comes at the end of the last days, the time when God finalizes all of the promises He has given to us.
Every trial is a test to see if we will go to our knees in prayer or our hands to try to fix it ourselves. With each passing trial, we learn to go to God first and often. Ask yourself these questions:
- How do I respond when a trial comes by way? Do I start with prayer, seeking God, and asking for wisdom? Or do I try to figure out what I can do, what resources I have, at how I can get out of it?
- What wise steps and my learning from Jesus on how to approach this trial? How do I put them into practice?
- Do I ask God for wisdom with doubt it by heart? How can I stop from doubting that God will be generous and answer my request?
- How do I become more stable and not waiver between choices?
Starter Prayer
Lord Jesus, I do not know how to proceed in the situation. I know it is a trial and that I can stand this test and You will approve of me. Please give me wisdom to know exactly what to do and how to proceed. I’m having trouble in this relationship, at work, or with my friends, family, at home, (fill in your situation a relationship issue). I bring it to You and trust that You will see me through and give me the wisdom I need to succeed. I give You all the glory in Your mighty name, amen.