Perseverance Under Trial

July 3rd, 2026
by Lance Waldie

James 1:9-12 But the brother of humble circumstances is to glory in his high position; 10 and the rich man is to glory in his humiliation, because like flowering grass he will pass away. 11 For the sun rises with a scorching wind and withers the grass; and its flower falls off and the beauty of its appearance is destroyed; so too the rich man in the midst of his pursuits will fade away. 12 Blessed is a man who perseveres under trial; for once he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love Him.

The “brother in humble circumstances” (v. 9) specifically refers to financially devastated Christian chased from his home during the persecution in Jerusalem depicted in Acts 12, leaving what little he had to flee for his life. Yet James tells such a man to “glory in his high position,” for as Jesus said, “Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward in heaven is great; for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you” (Matt 5:11-12; cf. Acts 5:41). Donald Burdick says, “To endure persecution for Christ’s sake lifts the believer to a position of honor that more than offsets his poverty.” James calls us to rejoice in this.

The poor Jewish Christian in v. 9 is contrasted with the rich in v. 10. Since the rich also would have been chased from their homes during the persecution, unlike the poor, they were not accustomed to humble means. As in any society, the rich enjoy the glory of exaltation, not humiliation. James, however, tells the rich that instead of feeling like they had lost everything by leaving it all behind, they should rather glory in their “humiliation.” Douglas Moo says, “The rich believer is to boast not in his wealth or his elevated social position but in his identification with Christ and His people, a matter of ‘humiliation’ in the eyes of the world.”

Whether rich or poor, James exhorts both to look toward their identity in Christ as the gauge of their definitive worth. Financially poor believers, though often scorned or ignored in society, are to boast in the fact that they know God (Jer. 9:23-24) and will one day be seated next to Christ. Likewise, wealthy believers who are accustomed to leisure and admiration from the world must learn not to lean on their wealth as the answer to life’s problems. The suffering of the rich man reminds him that his wealth is powerless and that his life is no more enduring than the grass that fades or a wild flower that loses its beauty in the scorching heat (Isa. 40:6-8). He will learn in his trial that it is not his riches that will “pass away”; it is he that will pass away! To rejoice in his trial, therefore, is for the rich to learn how trials, suffering, persecution, and death do not distinguish between the rich and the poor. Wisdom is demanded for both.

Moo concludes James’ meaning, saying, “The point of the passage is… that Christians must always evaluate themselves by spiritual and not material standards. Maintaining such a perspective in a world that so insistently confronts us with a very different standard of measurement is not easy. But if the church is to be the kind of ‘countercultural’ society that Jesus intended it to be, establishing and propagating such a perspective is essential.”
In v. 12, James blesses those who endure trials with joy. On earth this results in character; in heaven, it results in the “crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love Him.” The implication is that those who love God will welcome life’s trials and conquer them with the wisdom that only God can provide in the midst of them (cf. Rev. 2:10).

Food For Thought
One day the “body of our humble state” will be transformed into the “body of [Christ’s] glory” (Phil 3:20-21). We should thus see beyond the futility of how the world evaluates us and be comforted at how God sees us. We not only know God, we are known by Him (Jer. 9:23-24).