James 1:16-18
The NIV reads as, "Every good and perfect gift is from above." The King James gets a little closer to the Greek by saying "good gifts" and "perfect gifts" but even that doesn't go all the way. Paul used two different words that have been translated as "gifts".
The second one is what you think it is - gifts. But the first one? It is more like a gerund (how well do you remember your high-school grammar?)... a verb used as a noun... the giving itself is good.
You know how people always say, "Well, I didn't understand it at the time, but now I see what God was doing." We do see the maturity, the lessons learned, the gifts at the end as perfect gifts. But, the journey itself was also part of the gift. It was the goodness of God that delivered the gift in a good way.
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