---
title: "James 1 - Study King James Bible with godbeys commentary on the new testament"
description: "Read James 1 with godbeys commentary on the new testament commentary. 1 James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad, greeting. 2 My brethren, count it all joy when ye"
image: "/_app/immutable/assets/missing.C7wGMEZ6.jpg"
url: "https://realbiblebelievers.com/study/godbeys-commentary-on-the-new-testament/james/1"
---

[ Read](/kjv/james/1)[ Commentary](/study/james/1)[ Interlinear](/interlinear/james/1) Audio

 1 James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad, greeting.

 2 My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations;

 3 Knowing *this*, that the trying of your faith worketh patience.

 4 But let patience have *her* perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.

 5 If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all *men* liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.

 6 But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed.

 7 For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord.

 8 A double minded man *is* unstable in all his ways.

 9 Let the brother of low degree rejoice in that he is exalted:

 10 But the rich, in that he is made low: because as the flower of the grass he shall pass away.

 11 For the sun is no sooner risen with a burning heat, but it withereth the grass, and the flower thereof falleth, and the grace of the fashion of it perisheth: so also shall the rich man fade away in his ways.

 12 Blessed *is* the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him.

 13 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:

 14 But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed.

 15 Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.

 16 Do not err, my beloved brethren.

 17 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.

 18 Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.

 19 Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath:

 20 For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God.

 21 Wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls.

 22 But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.

 23 For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass:

 24 For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was.

 25 But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth *therein*, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed.

 26 If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man’s religion *is* vain.

 27 Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, *and* to keep himself unspotted from the world.
 
[Hebrews 13](/study/hebrews/13) [James 2](/study/james/2)

## Commentary

 To verse 1
 
**1**. **** *“James the slave of God and Lord Jesus Christ.”* In the Greek Testament we have two words translated *“servant,”* *oiketees*, a hired servant, and *doulos*, a slave. The New Testament is expository of the old. The Hebrew slaves all went free at Jubilee, every fifty years. However, the law of Moses provided for its indefinite perpetuity if the slave was unwilling to go free and preferred to remain with his master; but in that case, the master must draw him up to the door-post, drive a nail through his ear, by this painful tragedy, nailing him fast, thus indicating that he is to be his slave forever. Now let us see the verification of this grand symbolic truth in the Gospel economy. All sinners are the devil’s slaves. Sanctified Christians are God’s love slaves, while the unsanctified are His hired servants. This we see constantly evinced by their speech and deportment. Our Savior forbade His apostles to go and preach under the Gospel dispensation till they received the sanctifying fiery baptism of Pentecost. If the Church had remained true and obedient to this heavenly mandate, she would have escaped the withering and blighting curse of the hireling ministry. The Holiness Gospel blows the jubilee trumpet, which is the signal to all the hired servants in the Lord’s kingdom to go free, *i*. *e*., to go back into the devil’s country, whence they came, and be perfectly free to commit all manner of sin, or go forward into the experience of entire sanctification. The Jubilee proclaimed to all the Hebrew slaves a decisive emergency, *i*. *e*., they must either accept their freedom or have their ears bored and enter into perpetual slavery. Even so the sanctified Gospel brings to all the Christians who hear it an inevasible ordeal. They can not reject the call of the Holy Ghost to go forward into sanctification without forfeiting justification. If they stay with their good old Master, they must let the Holy Ghost, their Sanctifier, pull them up to the door-post, the cross of Calvary, and nail them fast. There Adam the first must bleed and die, thus consummating their love slavery forever. Sanctified people, like the Hebrew love slave, no longer serve God for a reward, but for love alone. They only regret that they can not do, bear and suffer enough for Christ’s sake. They are more than willing to give everything in their power, and wait till they enter the pearly portal for every iota of recompense. O, how happy this love slave, free from care and solicitude as an angel in heaven. All responsibility for soul, mind and body, in time and eternity, devolves on his Master. Now, contemplate the Divine ownership! Do you not see that a truly wise master will always conserve his own interest in the welfare of his slave? I belong to God unreservedly and eternally. I am perfectly becalmed in Him. I know He manages me all right, spiritually, providentially, physically, temporally and eternally. Hallelujah! I am lost in God’s will as free as Gabriel.

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