No one wakes up one morning and decides to become addicted to a substance or behavior. No one decides in the moment to be unfaithful to their spouse. While we do make decisions in the moment, these decisions are connected to a much more complex web of influences, vulnerabilities, desires, and pain over days, weeks, months, and even years. Let no one dupe you into thinking that temptation and giving into temptation is a simple human experience or an easy one to identify, understand, fight, and change.
If James 1:1—18 gives us a broad framework for understanding temptation, James 1:13—18 maps out the illusive stages and progression of temptation in a way that can be useful for us as we seek to fight temptation. If you are looking in the Bible for the language of “addiction” or “use-disorder”, this is where you will find it:
13 When tempted, no one should say, “God is tempting me.” For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; 14 but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. 15 Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin,
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