{"id":18,"date":"2011-03-12T13:12:52","date_gmt":"2011-03-12T20:12:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lukehistorians.com\/?p=18"},"modified":"2014-12-28T00:33:57","modified_gmt":"2014-12-28T07:33:57","slug":"18","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/lukehistorians.com\/?p=18","title":{"rendered":"Does Yahweh Tempt People?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Q. Does Yahweh tempt people?<\/em>
\nA. No, Yahweh never tempts someone. Not in the evil sense of the word, anyway.<\/h3>\n

James 1:13 says:<\/p>\n

\u201cLet no one say when he is tempted, \u201cI am being tempted by God\u201d; for God cannot be tempted by evil, and He Himself does not tempt anyone.\u201d (NASB)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

People are often confused when they see they read in the King James Version that God \u201ctempted\u201d Abraham (Genesis 22:1). This is likely due to a decreased understanding of the English language that the brilliant William Tyndale translated that passage into, let alone a decreased understanding of Hebrew and Greek languages. God tested Abraham, not \u201ctempted\u201d him in the sense that James wrote about.<\/p>\n

The book of James distinguishes between positive and negative tempting through the Greek words peirasmo<\/em>s, meaning trials, and peirazo<\/em>, meaning tempted (as in lust).<\/p>\n

To make up for the decreasing understanding of proper English, more recent translations have resolved the issue by using the word \u201ctest\u201d in place of the word \u201ctempt\u201d:<\/p>\n

\u201cNow it came about after these things, that God tested Abraham, and said to him, \u2018Abraham!\u2019 And he said \u2018Here I am.\u2019\u201d (Genesis 22:1, NASB)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u201cTempt\u201d comes from Middle English\/Anglo-French tempter<\/em>, tenter<\/em>, which in turn is derived from the Latin temptare<\/em>, or tentare<\/em>, meaning to feel and try.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s something else to think about\u2026<\/p>\n

Think of the following words: test, trial, try<\/p>\n

Now, you probably know what this word means: attempt<\/p>\n

Do you see the word \u201ctempt\u201d in there? If you at-tempt something, you are pursuing a try, a test, a trial. That doesn\u2019t necessarily mean that you are attempting evil. To take a creative spin on the issue, when you are tempted, you are not necessarily tempted to do evil. You can be tempted to do good by various incentives.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Q. Does Yahweh tempt people? A. No, Yahweh never tempts someone. Not in the evil sense of the word, anyway. James 1:13 says: \u201cLet no one say when he is tempted, \u201cI am being tempted by God\u201d; for God cannot be tempted by evil, and He Himself does not tempt anyone.\u201d (NASB) People are often […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[4],"tags":[26,239,37,35,44,27,39,25,28,31,36,29,30,23,40,24,42,41,43,32,34,33,38],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/lukehistorians.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/lukehistorians.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/lukehistorians.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lukehistorians.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lukehistorians.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/lukehistorians.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":307,"href":"http:\/\/lukehistorians.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18\/revisions\/307"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/lukehistorians.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lukehistorians.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lukehistorians.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}