The Evangelical Universalist Forum

Question about James 1:5-8

Theology Biblical Theology
#1

So I came across this passage just now:

5 If any of you is lacking in wisdom, ask God, who gives to all generously and ungrudgingly, and it will be given to you. 6 But ask in faith, never doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind; 7,8 for the doubter, being double minded and unstable in every way, must not expect to receive anything from the Lord. [James 1:5-8|NRSV]

Tbh, this is like a nail in the coffin for a possibility of me being Christian. I’m most definitely a doubter. I’m a doubter by nature, and I don’t know if I want to be otherwise because I feel if a person has no doubt then they have grown arrogant and stagnant in their ways. This passage seems to basically be telling me to go to hell and seems to have a very negative opinion of people who doubt.

So, I guess God doesn’t want me? I shouldn’t pray to him? :cry:

How does this work with Matthew 17:20?

20 He said to them, “Because of your little faith. For truly, I say to you, if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you.” [Matthew 17:20|ESV]

Maybe I’m misunderstanding the whole mustard seed analogy here.

Or this:

22 On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, 23 and on those parts of the body that we think less honorable we bestow the greater honor, and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, 24 which our more presentable parts do not require. [1 Corinthians 12:22-24|ESV]

I guess I’ve been praying for nothing this whole time and imagining things.

I don’t know what to do now.

#2

I think Daniel 3 is revealing here. Or Jesus’ prayer in Gethsemane. Or Job.

Most Christians (and most religious people) treat God like a vending machine. If you do/believe/pray the right things, you’ll receive X. If you don’t receive, you didn’t enter the right code, or have enough faith, or in some way manipulate the bible scriptures or theology properly.

But in Daniel, or in Gethsemane, or in Job, the prayer was that God’s will be done.

Shadrach Meshach and Abednego said “our God is able to save us. And we believe He will. But even if He does not, we will not kneel.” Their duty was clear, and they knew they could not manipulate God.

We are supernatural beings, plain and simple. We are not “natural”, in the sense that no human being lives believing that their own “CAUSAL” selves are an illusion - we believe that we exist, apart from the mechanical/chemical/biological natural causes. We ARE ourselves a cause, a reason. We can decide, away from genetics, biology etc. Maybe not always, but sometimes. We ARE, and in that way we are Children of “I AM”. Once we understand that we are ourselves super-natural (small s), it is a small step to seek the source, the Supernatural (big S).

And we can pray without doubt if we don’t doubt His Goodness. Like Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, we have to give up “outcomes”, trusting that if we are humble and living righteously, it is God’s to reward, to punish, to ascribe outcomes. We need only do our duty. Jesus wanted the cup to pass, but He trusted God with the outcomes, even if it looked bleak.

As selfishness leaves us, I believe (not from any great personal experience) that our confidence in being at one with God’s will increases, and so we will doubt less about outcomes as we see our will conforming to His will. Jesus only rarely lacked that confidence. But I do think if we do not doubt God’s goodness and His desire for what is best for us, we can pray without doubt, even if we have no idea what outcome will occur.

As a father myself, i always am touched when i read the Gospel story about the man who asks Jesus to heal his Son. “Do you believe I can do this?” Jesus asks. “I believe!” the man replies. “Help my unbelief!”. It is so desperate and human and true.

It is a worthy, humble prayer. Find a part that you do not doubt. Your own supernatural existence. The goodness of Jesus. The existence of Right and Wrong. The innocence of infants. Let that be your mustard seed, for within that seed is the DNA of all of God’s order for the world.

#3

Now wait one sec Bird, all faith comes from God, it is not something you can create in yourself. A few weeks ago a good friend of mine came over, he opened up to me about some hard things he had been going through, very serious things. I went into a long talk about Jesus and Him being Lord, how he demanded everything of us. After a pause he blurted out, “How can I come to God with all this baggage?!” and my reply to him is my reply to you Bird, " Give Him your baggage, he can take care of it. His grace is sufficent for you, his power is made perfect in weakness." James is not telling you who you are Bird, he stating who you should become, a faith-filled believer, firm in your ways. God gives grace to the humble, and humility is simply trusting in God, being dependent on Him.

God always wants you, he died for you! No matter how you view the atonement. He saw us as so valuable that he laid down his life so that we may live. Always pray to him, instead of asking Him for anything, why don’t you just talk to Him? Faith comes by hearing, hearing what? The word of Christ. Faith comes from listening to Jesus, he speaks in a soft whisper. In the silence, he calls. You don’t need great faith Bird, only a little. Then as you grow in faith, you’ll find God moving in your life as you never dreamed. You must want to change though, this Christian life requires everything of us. Just today I had to give to God an old sin, which I didn’t even know I still dealt with. Yet I will die to everything I have to in order to know Jesus to the depths. Loving Jesus is better than all the pleasures of life, all the wealth of this world. He is more precious than jewels and nothing I desire compares with Him (Proverbs 3:15).

Be encourages Bird, it is God who works in us, both to will and to work for His good pleasure (Phil 2:13).

#4

Bird,
Thanks for bringing this up, I’ve just now spent some time studying on this and it’s been very interesting. It occurs to me that many Christians are afraid of doubting – both in themselves and in others – and it may be from a misunderstanding of verses like this. I grew up believing that doubting was ok and good. Somehow I never read this verse and got the idea that honest doubting was wrong – then what would be the point of asking for wisdom in the first place? When we just don’t know, the only honest option we have is to doubt. If our desire is for truth, what else can we do?

Turning to your question … there are several different words translated “doubt” and they carry different meanings. See this page for details: blueletterbible.org/search/l … t&st=whole

Here are the 4 words that are relevant to your question:

G639 aporeō ä-po-re’-ō doubt, be perplexed, stand in doubt
G1252 diakrinō dē-ä-krē’-nō doubt, judge, discern, contend, waver, misc
G1280 diaporeō dē-ä-po-re’-ō doubt, be perplexed, be much perplexed, be in doubt
G1365 distazō dē-stä’-zō doubt

The best way to get a feel for what these words mean is to click on the link for each word and scroll down to see how it is used in context. The 1st, 3rd, and 4th in the list clearly have to do with uncertainty, perplexity, not knowing what to think or do, which is what we think of when we think of the word “doubt.” But the 2nd is different and that’s the one we’re dealing with in this verse. This is the word I’ve underlined in this passage from James 2:3-4 in regards to not discriminating and showing favoritism to people based on wealth – what we stand to gain from them: "…and you pay attention to the one wearing the fine clothes and say to him, “You sit here in a good place,” and say to the poor man, “You stand there,” or, “Sit here at my footstool,” have you not shown partiality among yourselves, and become judges with evil thoughts?

The word is also used in Acts 15:8-9 in regards to God not discriminating based on race: “So God, who knows the heart, acknowledged them by giving them the Holy Spirit, just as [He did] to us, and made no distinction between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith.”

It is used in 1 Corinthians 4:7 regards to judging oneself better than others: For who makes you differ [from another]? And what do you have that you did not receive? Now if you did indeed receive [it], why do you boast as if you had not received [it]?"

Also here in Jude 9 “Yet Michael the archangel, when contending with the devil he disputed about the body of Moses, durst not bring against him a railing accusation, but said, The Lord rebuke thee.”

So you can see from these uses that the word doesn’t really mean the kind of doubt you are talking about. It carries the sense of contention, distrust, partiality, judgment, being of two minds – “unstable and double minded”. I don’t get the idea that this is an honest kind of doubt. The honest doubt can ask in faith, just like the man who said to Jesus, “Lord, I believe, help my unbelief!”

Maybe someone else can shed more light on this – I’ve only looked at this a little – but I hope it’s a little encouraging to you anyway!

Sonia

#5

The English translation is just not friendly, is it?

Thank you all for this.

#6

Hi Bird

Thought I’d throw in my two pennies’ worth (particularly as Doubting is my middle name :slight_smile: ).

Most - if not all - honest and serious believers have doubts at some time or other. This is definitely not a sin, a bad thing, unhealthy or whatever. After all, look at the Biblical precedents:

John the Baptist, for one, who doubted while in prison that Jesus was really the Messiah. Matthew 11 vv2-4: "When John, who was in prison, heard about the deeds of the Messiah, he sent his disciples to ask him, “Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?” Jesus replied, “Go back and report to John what you hear and see: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor. Blessed is anyone who does not stumble on account of me.”

Then there’s Peter, who didn’t just doubt, he denied his saviour three times! And of course the apostle Thomas, who by all accounts went on to be a giant of the faith.

And as others here have mentioned, there is the greatest “doubter” of all - the one who cried out “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me” …

Please don’t worry that you might have to give up on Christianity just because a) you’re a doubter; or b) because one verse in the Bible seems to criticise or condemn those who do doubt. As everybody who believes in UR has had to come to terms with, the Bible, because it is written by flawed human beings, is not a simple, straightforward handbook for trouble-free belief. It needs careful, prayerful study and reflection to make sense of.

But with my mentor George MacDonald (and yes, he is awesome! :smiley: ), I would say that it is precisely the hardest-sounding or most difficult bits which ultimately speak to us with the most profound truth. But until they do, don’t worry about them. Just ask God to help you understand, and then sit back and trust Him until he does.

Shalom

Johnny