What Does James 1:13 Mean?
Let no one, when tested, say, I am tested from God; for God is untested by evil, and he himself tests no one.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man:THE KEY
One Greek verb links being tempted with tempting, and James uses that link to deny that God is either vulnerable to evil or its source.
THE MEANING
When a harmful pull meets you, this verse refuses to make God its author. God is not drawn into evil, and God does not draw anyone toward it; “I am tempted of God” misnames the source.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that because temptation appears in your life, God must be sending it.
THE ROOT
πειραζόμενος
peirazomenos peirazomai peirazei
GROWS FROM
πειρα-
peira-
To try, test, or put to proof.
“tested” in this verse is peirazomenos peirazomai peirazei. The same Greek word-family can describe a test and a pull toward wrongdoing; here, “with evil” gives the pull its destructive sense. The repeated verb links being tempted with tempting, while the verse denies both susceptibility to evil in God and God as its source.
ALSO GROWS
peirasmos: Trial, testing, or temptation.
πειρασμός
James uses this noun in 1:2 and 1:12; the shared word-family shows how a test and a temptation are related, while context clarifies the kind of trial in view.
apeirastos: Not subject to temptation by evil.
ἀπείραστος
This verse uses the negative form of the same family for God’s relation to evil: the pull does not take hold of God.
THE PATTERN
Scripture locates the pull toward evil in desire and excludes it from God’s character.
But each one is tested by his own craving, dragged out and lured.For you are not a God who takes pleasure in wickedness; evil will not sojourn with you.This, then, is the message we have heard from him, and we declare to you, that God is light, and in him there is no darkness at all.THE THREAD
But each one is tested by his own craving, dragged out and lured.James repeats the same Greek word-family, then names a person’s own desire as the source of the pull. The verse opens up how being tempted does not mean God is tempting you.
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