About that time Herod the king laid violent hands on some who belonged to the church. 2 He killed James the brother of John with the sword, 3 and when he saw that it pleased the Jews, he proceeded to arrest Peter also. This was during the days of Unleavened Bread. 4 And when he had seized him, he put him in prison, delivering him over to four squads of soldiers to guard him, intending after the Passover to bring him out to the people. 5 So Peter was kept in prison, but earnest prayer for him was made to God by the church. (ESV)

In this chapter, everything turns on verse 5. We witness a remarkable answer to prayer, and what an encouragement it is to us. But while it is true that, as William Temple observed, coincidences happen when Christians pray, and when they don’t pray they don’t happen, in the mysterious providence of God we don’t always get the thing asked for (at least, not in the form we envisaged). This wonderful chapter opens by showing us that there was no miracle of deliverance for James. To my mind, it just won’t do to say that he wasn’t prayed for (or prayed for with the same tenacity). That is an argument from silence. It’s hard to imagine that he wasn’t also the object of fervent prayer. What is true to Christian experience in this fallen world is an understanding that while some are miraculously healed/delivered, others suffer and die. Both are manifestations of the life of faith, as Hebrews 11 clearly demonstrates:

” I could go on and on, but I’ve run out of time. There are so many more—Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel, the prophets. . . . Through acts of faith, they toppled kingdoms, made justice work, took the promises for themselves. They were protected from lions, fires, and sword thrusts, turned disadvantage to advantage, won battles, routed alien armies. Women received their loved ones back from the dead. There were those who, under torture, refused to give in and go free, preferring something better: resurrection. Others braved abuse and whips, and, yes, chains and dungeons. We have stories of those who were stoned, sawed in two, murdered in cold blood; stories of vagrants wandering the earth in animal skins, homeless, friendless, powerless—the world didn’t deserve them!—making their way as best they could on the cruel edges of the world.

39-40 Not one of these people, even though their lives of faith were exemplary, got their hands on what was promised. God had a better plan for us: that their faith and our faith would come together to make one completed whole, their lives of faith not complete apart from ours” (32-40: The Message).

No-one why lives by faith in this world, gets everything now that they will one day enjoy – but some receive more of the miraculous than others. The purposes of God are ultimately mysterious to us, but it could be argued that, from an eternal perspective, James got the better deal. Peter was broken out of prison, but he had more suffering ahead, including his own martyrdom to face.