Caution - Patience at Work

Caution – Patience at Work

James 1:4 “But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.”

Let me begin with a look at the grammar of this verse. I have to do that before I can discuss the practical applications.

There seems to me to be a grammatical issue in the Greek that does not come across in most of the English translations. The subject of this sentence is the word “patience.” The verb of the sentence is the Greek word ἔχω – echō, “to have,” and in this usage is a present, active, imperative form of the verb. The use of the word “let” introduces an indication that the reader is the subject of this command, but that is not the way the Greek is written. A literal translation would be, but patience have its perfect work! This the indication of Thayer with this definition of the verb echō; “to have (in itself or as a consequence), comprise, involve: …Jas. i. 4; ii. 17”

The NIV captures this subtlety – “Perseverance must finish its work….”

It is endurance that does the work of God. Given this emphasis of the language, I seem to have no active part in the work endurance does, but God uses the trials so that the endurance He produced can accomplish the work of making me “perfect.” The only impact I can have directly on the process of the trials of faith is negative. I can only get in the way, give up, and cause the endurance God brings to fail to accomplish His purpose in me.

In this sentence, the subject is not the reader (you understood) but patience. Patience / endurance is the energizing force that I am to incorporate into my life in such a way that this endurance accomplishes the work of making me mature and whole in my faith. Along with everyone else I know, I am often tempted to overlook the God’s intentions for the trials of life. I often fail as well to see the accomplishments that God does achieve as I pass through the trials.

That is a life lesson to be learned and relearned and not forgotten.

The word “perfect” is used twice in the English of this verse. It is the Greek word τέλειος – teleios, which means “finished, wanting nothing, complete, mature.” As if to emphasize the complete, lacking nothing aspect of this word teleios, James ends this sentence with the words “complete, lacking nothing.”

The objective God has for the life problems that beset us is that our Christian lives become complete, fully equipped, and no-parts-missing Christians.