What does the Bible say about patience?
Patience runs through the whole Bible as more than a mild temperament: it is endurance under pressure, and it is also something God Himself shows towards people who provoke Him. The key passages — Romans 5:3-5, James 1:2-4, James 5:11, Hebrews 10:36-37, Revelation 3:10 and 2 Peter 3:9 — raise two questions the commentators keep returning to: how is patience produced in us, and what exactly are we waiting for?
(Note: the older translations these writers use render the Greek word as "patience"; the ESV usually says "endurance" or "steadfastness".)
Two Different Words
The New Testament uses two words that both come across as "patience" in English, and one commentator sets out the difference by tracing where each one is used.
J. A. Trenchmakrothumia comes from makrothumos, "long-suffering." … The distinction has been put like this: "makrothumia expresses patience in respect of persons, hupomone in respect of things"; and the use of the words in Scripture, it is believed, confirms this. From Exodus 34:6 makrothumos is constantly used of God… Expressing "a long holding out of the mind before it gives room to action or passion," it is applied to God in His forbearance towards those who provoke Him.
The same writer notes that the first word, hupomone, is "a patient endurance that does not succumb under trial and suffering" (Romans 5:3-4; James 1:3-4; Hebrews 10:36; Hebrews 12:1).
Trouble Is the Training
Romans 5 puts patience at the head of a chain: suffering, then patience, then proven experience, then hope. One writer explains why the order runs that way, and uses Moses to show it.
J. N. DarbyI need my will to be broken. I expect to get something and never have it… I have to learn patience, and in it learn the rashness of my heart that would expect everything at once. A man in earnest to do right will, if his will is at work, be in a hurry, but he will have to find out that he must wait for God's help, as Moses had to do. Moses kills an Egyptian in his haste without God's bidding, and when Pharaoh hears of it, off he goes… His flesh had to be broken down, and this was through forty years of trouble in the wilderness, keeping his father-in-law's sheep.
Letting Patience Finish
James tells his readers to let patience have its perfect work so that they may be "perfect and complete, lacking nothing." Note what the alternative is — the shortcut.
The Bible Treasury"But let patience have her perfect work." Patience sustains a person so that he waits according to God for the outcome of the trial, without taking the shortest way that the flesh teaches. Saul, for example, could not wait patiently.
Job, and the End of the Lord
James 5:11 points back to Job as the standing example. The commentary sets Job's patience against the malice that caused his suffering, and against the limit God placed on it.
J. T. MawsonSatan had long wanted to crush Job, but he had to admit that God had "made a hedge about him … on every side." He could not get at him until God made a breach in the hedge and gave him permission to go so far. He went as far as he was permitted, and brought almost unspeakable suffering upon Job, but he was limited… God turned his evil to great good for Job; and while we have heard of the malice of Satan, we have also heard of "the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord; and that the Lord is very pitiful and of tender mercy" (James 5:11).
Patience Aimed at a Coming
Hebrews 10:36 says we have need of patience — and the next verse says why. The New Testament ties patience to the return of Christ.
W. TrotterIn the light of this hope patience is urged on us. "For you have need of patience, so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what is promised. For yet a little while, and the coming one will come and will not delay" (Hebrews 10:36-37). James uses it in the same way: "Be patient, therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord" (James 5:7).
The Word of His Patience
In Revelation 3:10 the patience in view is Christ's own. Commentators read the phrase as describing where He is now, not only what He bore then.
Walter ScottThe patience or endurance of Christ was tested to its utmost, but the trial brought out, not impatience and fretfulness, as so often with us, but perfection… "The word of My patience," however, does not recall His past — fragrant as it is with moral beauty — but refers to the present attitude of our Lord. He sits at Jehovah's right hand patiently waiting until God makes His enemies a footstool (Psalm 110 with Hebrews 10:12-13).
God's Patience Is Salvation
If Christ is waiting, the delay itself has a purpose — and it is a merciful one.
H. J. VineSome of us who have known the Lord for many years are apt to get a little impatient and say, "Why does not the Lord come soon?"… We need to get a little of His own patience into our hearts. 2 Thessalonians 3:5 says, "The Lord direct your hearts into the love of God, and into the patience of Christ"… We are to count the long-suffering of our God as salvation (2 Peter 3:15)… He desires that more sinners should be saved and brought in to know Him.
Summary
- Two words. One patience is towards things — endurance that does not collapse under trial. The other is towards people — the long-suffering constantly used of God since Exodus 34:6.
- Cause. Patience is not a temperament but a product: trouble breaks the will, so that the heart stops demanding everything at once, as Moses learned over forty years of sheep-keeping.
- Process. Its work is finished only when no shortcut is taken. Saul is the warning; Job is the pattern, held by a limit God set on his suffering and ending in tender mercy.
- Person. The deepest patience is Christ's own — He waits at God's right hand until His enemies are made His footstool, and we are called to keep the word of that patience.
- Purpose. The waiting is not delay but mercy: count the long-suffering of our Lord as salvation, because He wants more sinners brought in before He comes.