James 1 – Testing of your faith – It’s time to know this! Before it is too late.

James 1:3
knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance.

Elohim has a purpose in mind. Tests and trial are useless, senseless, and irrational unless Elohim has a purpose behind them. When external pressures are pressing down on us and we are placed in situations of adversity and tragedy and suffering, the attitude should be that Elohim has caused it for a purpose and He has a higher goal in mind. We should know that Elohim is working something in our lives. This does not necessarily mean that we will always understand this purpose that Elohim has in it. The "why" of many situations is not always easy to ascertain. James says "knowing that the testing of your faithfulness produces endurance." We should look at the translational nuances here. The Greek word for "faith" is the word pistis and it should be translated as "faithfulness." Looking at the usage of these term in the English translations from Hebrew and Greek bear this out to be correct. For instance, in Heb. 10:38 the Greek pistis is translated as "faith" and this is a direct quote from Hab. 2:4. Hab. 2:4 translates enumah as "faith" in this ONE instance in the Tanakh, and that is because it is the only time the Hebrew word enumah is directly quoted from the Tanack by the Brit Hadasha. In all the rest of the Tanakh, enumah is translated as "faithfulness" or something similar. In the same way, pistis is translated as "faithfulness" in Romans 3:3 because it is pertaining to Elohim's faithfulness toward us. In that case, it is impossible to translate pistis with the vague and foggy term "faith." Throughout this letter and in all of the Brith Hadasha, one should use the term "faithfulness" instead of the word "faith" when the Greek word pistis is used. It certainly fits much, much better.