For small groups · 10 questions
James 1 Bible study questions
James says to count trials as joy, ask God for wisdom, be quick to listen and slow to anger, and do the word, not only hear it.
Read the chapter aloud first. Then take the questions in order: what it says, what it means, what to do. About 45 minutes. Skip any question that doesn’t fit your group.
Start here
- Are you a fast talker or a slow talker?
Look: what does it say?
- What do trials produce, according to James?James 1:2-4
- How does God give wisdom to those who ask?James 1:5
- What 3 things does James tell everyone to be?James 1:19
Understand: what does it mean?
- How can a trial be joy? What does James not say about it?James 1:2-3
- James says God tempts no one. Where does temptation come from?James 1:13-15
- What is the person who hears and does not do like?James 1:22-24
Live it: what will we do?
- Where do you need wisdom right now? Ask for it this week.James 1:5
- Who do you need to listen to more and talk to less?James 1:19
- James names orphans and widows. Who are they near you, and what could you do?James 1:27
Close in prayer
Ask God for wisdom for each person, and for help to do what you heard tonight.
James 1
Lumin Translation. It prints after the questions, so the group has the words in front of them.
1 James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes dispersed abroad: Greetings.
2 My brothers and sisters, think of it as complete joy when you run into trials of every kind,
3 for you know that when your faith is tested, it produces endurance.
4 Let endurance carry its work through to the end, so that you may be fully mature and whole, with nothing missing.
5 Now if any of you lacks wisdom, let that person ask God for it. He gives to everyone freely and without scolding, and wisdom will be given to them.
6 But the asking must be done in faith, with no wavering, because someone who wavers resembles a sea wave pushed and blown about by the wind.
7 For that person must not suppose they will receive anything from the Lord.
8 Such a person is of two minds, unsteady in all their ways.
9 The brother or sister in humble circumstances should take pride in being lifted up,
10 and the wealthy should take pride in being humbled, since like a flower of the field they will pass away.
11 For the sun rises with its burning heat and dries out the grass; its flower drops off, and its lovely appearance is lost. In the same way the rich too will wither away in the midst of their pursuits.
12 Blessed is anyone who stands firm under trial, for once proven genuine, that person will receive the crown of life, which God promised to those who love him.
13 No one under temptation should claim, “I am being tempted by God.” For God is beyond the reach of temptation by evil, and he himself tempts no one.
14 Rather, each person is tempted by their own desire, which drags them off and lures them.
15 Then desire conceives and bears sin, and sin, once it reaches maturity, brings forth death.
16 Do not be misled, my dear brothers and sisters.
17 Every good thing given and every perfect gift comes from above, descending from the Father of lights, in whom there is no variation, no shadow cast by turning.
18 Because he willed it, he brought us to birth by the message of truth, so that we might be a sort of firstfruits among the things he made.
19 Understand this, my dear brothers and sisters: every person must be ready to listen, in no hurry to speak, and slow to anger,
20 for a person’s anger does not accomplish the righteousness of God.
21 So strip off every kind of filth and the overflow of evil, and in a gentle spirit welcome the word rooted in you, the word that can save your souls.
22 But be people who act on the word. If you only hear it, you deceive yourselves.
23 For if anyone hears the word but does not carry it out, that person resembles a man who studies in a mirror the face he was born with.
24 He takes a look at himself and walks off, and right away he has forgotten how he looked.
25 But the one who gazes into the perfect law, the law of freedom, and stays with it, becoming not a forgetful hearer but one who does the work, will be blessed in the doing.
26 If anyone imagines they are religious while failing to rein in their tongue, they are fooling their own heart, and their religion is futile.
27 Pure and spotless religion in the eyes of God the Father is this: to care for orphans and widows in their hardship and to keep oneself untainted by the world.
Lumin’s own translation, drafted with AI from the Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek, checked verse by verse against them, and approved by Lumin. Brackets mark verses not found in the earliest manuscripts.