Content taken from Daily Doctrine by Kevin DeYoung, © 2024. Used by permission of Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers, crossway.org.
James 1:14-15 is a key text when it comes to understanding the nature of sin and temptation: ‘Each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.’
It is important to understand what James is not saying. When James speaks of desire ‘giving birth’ to sin, he is talking about observable outward sin. He is not declaring that every temptation is free from sin.
To understand what James is saying we need to look carefully at the word temptation. The word James uses for ‘tempts’ (peirazei) and ‘tempted’ (peiraz tai) in verses 13 and 14 is the same word (in noun form) translated as ‘trials’ (peirasmois) in James 1:2 (‘Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds’).
