James 5 Bible study: Be patient

The part opens, "Come now, you rich, weep and howl for your miseries that are coming on you." (5:1) (tap howl). Here is what almost everyone misses: the letter has said Come now once before, "Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow let’s go into this city and spend a year there, trade, and make a profit.”" (4:13), and behind it both times are the same two Greek words, Ἄγε νῦν (age nyn), in all eight editions TAGNT compares. The chapter goes on: "Your riches are corrupted and your garments are moth-eaten." (5:2) (tap moth-eaten) "Your gold and your silver are corroded, and their corrosion will be for a testimony against you and will eat your flesh like fire. You have laid up your treasure in the last days." (5:3) (tap corrosion) "Behold, the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you have kept back by fraud, cry out; and the cries of those who reaped have entered into the ears of the Lord of Armies." (5:4) "You have lived in luxury on the earth, and taken your pleasure. You have nourished your hearts as in a day of slaughter." (5:5) "You have condemned and you have murdered the righteous one. He doesn’t resist you." (5:6). These notes quote this chapter as the WEB has it, explain it no further than its own words and the lexicons, name no one in 5:1-6, and apply the chapter to no person, group, church or practice today.

Job 42:10→leads toJames 5:11

"The LORD restored Job’s prosperity when he prayed for his friends. The LORD gave Job twice as much as he had before" (42:10), and "So the LORD blessed the latter end of Job more than his beginning" (42:12). James writes, "Be patient therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord" (James 5:7), and "Behold, we call them blessed who endured. You have heard of the perseverance of Job and have seen the Lord in the outcome, and how the Lord is full of compassion and mercy" (James 5:11). It is the one place the New Testament names Job, and James doesn't say which verses of the book he means. James opens his letter as "a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ" (James 1:1); 5:11 itself doesn't name Jesus, and these notes don't say whom its the Lord means. James names Job for his perseverance; he doesn't make Job a picture of Jesus, and neither do these notes.

μακροθυμέωmakrothymeosay mak-roth-oo-MEH-o

Strong's: "to be long-spirited, i.e. (objectively) forbearing or (subjectively) patient". "Be patient therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord." (5:7): behind Be patient is this verb. James has it three times, in two verses: twice in 5:7 and once in "You also be patient." (5:8). The New Testament has it ten times, in nine verses (counted in RP2018, and in all eight editions TAGNT compares).