The New Testament letter by James, the younger brother of Jesus, contains some key advice on how to act as Christians. In a series of blog posts, I’ll be covering the four chapters of the book, starting here with James 1.

It centres around the idea that we, as Christians, will face many challenges – but God is not responsible for the temptations we face.

Christians sometimes get confused by the idea of God’s sovereignty. They think that, if God is sovereign, he must have decided to cause the Holocaust or a mass shooting.

But I know from managing a team of people that there need be no contradiction between sovereignty and giving free will to a team.

Good managers know the virtues of giving team members the freedom to make decisions themselves, rather than micro-manage.

I can have a brilliant vision, and have can have the power to make all the decisions. But despite this “sovereignty”, most managers find it better to let team grow by picking how they approach their work, even though they sometimes make the wrong decision.

Delegation, however, doesn’t stop a manager from ultimately being “sovereign”.

So James, who notes that God can overrule all our plans in the final chapter of the letter, says that the notion that God is responsible for the temptation or its effects is completely wrong. He writes in James 1 (NIV):

When tempted, no one should say, “God is tempting me.” For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.

James, however, issues an encouraging message to Christians about the temptations we will face. He says that though our faith may be challenged, we’ll grow perseverance. Those struggles that hit us can make us stronger Christians.

The message, then, is not that if we follow Jesus, everything will be easy, or we’ll become rich. Rather, it is a message that we need to allow the Holy Spirit to work in us to change our behaviour to become more Christ-like. But we should turn to God for help. James writes:

Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind.