Where there is strife, there is pride but wisdom is found in those who take advice. Proverbs 13:10
Next James addresses the behaviors and attitudes of his congregation that prevent them from reaping a harvest of righteousness.
James 4:1 What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? 2 You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. 3 When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures. 4 You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world means enmity against God? Therefore, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. 5 Or do you think Scripture says without reason that he jealously longs for the Holy Spirit he has caused to dwell in us? 6 But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says:
“God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble.”
7 Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8 Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9 Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. 10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.
In this section of his letter James, first, identifies the source of his congregation’s faithlessness, second, he outlines the consequences of their unfaithfulness, third, he shows them the path to the faithfulness that God desires, forth, and finally, he addresses two pressing sins he sees among his congregants.
First, James asks, What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? 2 You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God.
When you are being discriminated against, when you are being treated unfairly, when you are being persecuted it is very easy to place your desires over the desires of Christ. You have learned from the Scriptures that you are to love your neighbors, but more than that, you are to even pray for those who persecute you. These conflicting desires; self-preservation verses faithfulness to your Savior, are doing battle within you.
In times of great strife, self-preservation can, understandably, become the overriding concern. But, of course, even in times of relative peace we find ourselves at odds with others because our personal pleasure is often our overriding concern. In either case, we eagerly desire something. We allow that desire to grow so strong that we become unloving and selfish, coveting what is not ours to own, and, perhaps we are even willing to kill to fulfill our desires. Following these desires leads to quarreling and fighting.
You may be thinking that James must only be describing unbelievers; he surely can’t be addressing the Church here. Have you ever experienced quarrels and fights among believers in the Church? Have you ever witnessed people putting their own agenda ahead of the mission that Christ charged the Church with; shepherds who only feed themselves… grumbles and fault finders following their evil desires… boasting and flattering for their own advantage… captivating vulnerable women who are led away by passion? Jude 12-16, 2 Timothy 3:6 The stories I could tell… pastors sleeping with women in the congregation, deacons embezzling funds, homosexual leaders grooming and seducing boys in the church, partiality and discrimination against minorities, lies leading to court proceedings against faithful pastors, Christian college presidents molesting co-eds, and much more.
Or maybe you are thinking that a believer could never commit murder. First, we must remember that hate is so incongruous with the love of Christ that we are taught, everyone who hates his brother is a murderer and no murder has eternal life abiding in him. 1 John 3:15 And there are many lies and hate being preached and taught in the church today in the guise of Critical Theory. But, second, there was once a great King, a man after God’s own heart, a man who wrote a huge section of the Bible, who desired another man’s wife, and after captivating the vulnerable woman, murdered her husband. You can read the whole sordid tale in 2 Samuel 11-12.
No doubt, James’ congregation was under great pressure. For many, times were tough to the point of death, but their circumstances were no excuse for wanting to gratify their own desires rather than seeking to help others, rather than loving others: hate and recrimination rather than and living lives pleasing to God. James assures them that God knows their circumstances and that God knows their needs. Rather than fighting and quarreling among themselves they are instructed to turn to God in prayer.
God gives us an unexpected example of this in the Bible. The Israelites were enslaved by the Egyptians. Exodus 1:11 After a period of 400 years God powerfully freed the slaves. Exodus 12 However, after they were freed from their captors God gave Israel a difficult command: You are to love those who are foreigners because you were sojourners in Egypt. Deuteronomy 10:19 See also: Exodus 22:21, Leviticus 19:34 Sojourners? They had been slaves. They had been cruelly mistreated and yet God forbid them to hate. Instead, remembering their treatment, they were to love even those who had been their enemies, as Christ would teach millennia later. Matthew 5:44
Second, having pointed out the source of their lusting and coveting, James continues by rebuking his congregation for spiritual unfaithfulness. You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world means enmity against God? Therefore, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. 5 Or do you think Scripture says without reason that he jealously longs for the spirit he has caused to dwell in us? 6 But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says: “God opposes the proud but shows grace to the humble.”
James accuses the people who are willing to make compromises with the world as being an adulterous people, echoing the words of the prophet Hosea:
You have been unfaithful to your God… like a prostitute, saying, I will go with my lovers who give me food and drink… Hosea 2:2-5, 9:1
Christians all have a choice to make, following God’s law of liberty; the ways of God based on his perfect character, that bring blessing and life, both now and into eternity, or following the ways of the world; the system designed by and operating on the lies of Satan. Going along with those pleasures and passions pursued by unbelievers may make sense in the short term but James reminds his congregation that friendship with the world means enmity against God. The secular gods will always fail. And, in fact, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.
Christ has given his all, purchasing rebels from every nation and tribe with his blood sacrifice, making us into a Kingdom of Priests to serve God on earth. Like the first Adam we are charged with representing God, living out the truth in love, calling everyone to the truth, discipling and reigning over all the earth. However, like an unfaithful, adulterous spouse, when we make peace with the unbelievers around us by compromising with the culture, diluting the good news of Salvation, or when we compromise with the culture chasing after the idols of wealth, youth, health, sex, entertainment, or when we deny Christ to avoid persecution, God jealously longs for us to listen to the Holy Spirit… dwelling within us. God wants us to be faithful and return to him.
Christians are not so much in danger when they are persecuted as when they are admired. Charles Spurgeon
If we remain proud and rebellious in our rejection of God’s ways, if we think that we can handle things better in these trying times by being unfaithful to God, James snaps us back to reality by quoting Proverbs 3:34.
God opposes us in our selfish, shortsighted pride. But if we humbly confess our deceitful web of desires and if we confess our sin, which is nothing less than spiritual adultery, God will bless us with his unlimited grace.
God opposes the proud, But shows grace to the humble. James 4:6/Proverbs 3:34
Third, James pleads with his congregation to submit to God. Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8 Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9 Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. 10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.
Instead of following the world, the flesh, and the devil’s lies, Ephesians 2:1-3, and instead of ignoring God’s will, and ignoring his Spirit; the Spirit that God has placed within us, we should resist the devil. The good news is that we do not have to be prisoners of the destructive desires, attitudes, actions, and sins that Satan tempts us to pursue. Satan’s influence can be resisted and he has no other option but to flee from us. We are Christ’s ambassadors. The Spirit lives in us!
As John reminded first century Christians: They triumphed over him (Satan) by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony. Revelation 12:11
James is summarizing his teaching for his congregation. We are to pray at all times, no matter what the circumstances. Pay attention to, rather than suppressing, the Holy Spirit. Confess the evil that is in your life.
Pray all the time. Thank God no matter what happens… Don’t suppress the Spirit… on the other hand, don’t be gullible. Check out everything… throw out anything tainted with evil. 1 Thessalonians 5:17-22
And when you come in prayer, first come washing your hands and purifying your hearts. In other words. come in confession. Once you have confessed your sins to God you may present God with your petitions. But, James repeats his warning from James 1:8, don’t be double minded. Don’t doubt, don’t cling to your sins just a little bit because you “secretly” love them. Confess and go all in for God.
Why do we cling to our lusts? Why do we cling to desires that oppose God. Why are we gullible? Have we forgotten God’s Word; He that sins against God wrongs his own soul. All that hate God love death. Proverbs 8:36 Why do we deceive ourselves? We are living in a man-centered culture that teaches us to follow our heart’s desires; be yourself, be what ever you want to be. We may be tempted to believe the worldly teachings, that there are no absolutes, there is no truth, and that all decisions are relative. We wrongly think that such beliefs grant us permission to do what we want to do. We pursue these lusts, desires and sins because we think they will bring us joy and pleasure, but they ultimately bring both death and eternal misery. Understanding this James says: Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. In other words, confess your sins and the shallow, temporary joys you may receive from them and the Lord will lift you up.
It is a good exchange to put away carnal joy for godly sorrow. God will give us that in sorrow which the world cannot find in pleasure; serenity, and contentment of mind. Thomas Manton
Forth, and finally, James speaks about two specific sins:
James 4:11 Brothers and sisters, do not slander one another. Anyone who speaks against a brother or sister or judges them speaks against the law and judges it. When you judge the law, you are not keeping it, but sitting in judgment on it. 12 There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the one who is able to save and destroy. But you—who are you to judge your neighbor?
13 Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” 14 Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. 15 Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.” 16 As it is, you boast in your arrogant schemes. All such boasting is evil. 17 If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them.
First, what is our natural, go to, excuse, when called to account for our sins?
We blame others. We slander. We call into question the behaviors of others. We turn the criticisms made against us toward others. The man said, “The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.” 13 Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you have done? ”The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.” Genesis 3:12-13 Adam sinned and he instinctively blamed both Eve and God. Eve blamed the serpent. Neither would take responsibility for their disobedience.
When we cast blame on others James says we are actually blaming God’s law. Brothers and sisters, do not slander one another. Anyone who speaks against a brother or sister or judges them speaks against the law and judges it. When you judge the law, you are not keeping it, but sitting in judgment on it. 12 There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the one who is able to save and destroy. But you— who are you to judge your neighbor?
And what does the law that James is referring to say? Love your neighbor as you love yourself. Leviticus 19:18 And conversely, everyone who hates his brother is a murderer and no murder has eternal life abiding in him. 1 John 3:15
Our job is to love everyone in the same manner that we love ourselves. We are to treat others in the same way that we look after, care for, and, yes, forgive ourselves. Judgment, casting blame on others, is not your job. When you judge others you have actually elevated yourself to the position of Lawgiver and Judge. This is wrong because judgment belongs to God.
Second, in another example of the Christians being gullible and buying into the wisdom of the world, James points out that Christians should not be arrogant in the plans that they have for their lives. Rather, they should rely entirely on God’s will.
Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” 14 Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. 15 Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.” 16 As it is, you boast in your arrogant schemes. All such boasting is evil. 17 If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them.
Business travel was a necessity in the first century, particularly for those Christians in exile; see, for example, Aquila and Priscilla Acts 18:2, or Lydia, Acts 16:14. James reminds the Christians who had already been driven from their home in Jerusalem that because they do not even know what will happen tomorrow, they should not be arrogant or boast in their own business acumen or strength. Instead, they ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.”
Finally, James points out, that because Christians know that boasting is evil, they are obligated to stop sinning in that way; If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them.
The Bible frequently warns about boasting and the false security that wealth provides.
The rich man’s wealth is his strong city, As a high wall is his conceit. Proverbs 18:11
Surita worshipped Hindu idols. When she and her young son became ill she requested prayer from Buddhist priests and she visited witch doctors, seeking healing for herself and her four year old son. She could find no relief. Finally, after a Christian shared the gospel with her and prayed for her healing, both she and her son were healed. She was convinced that Jesus had healed them and began attending a church in her town in Nepal. After two months of attending church she abandoned her former religious practices, placed her faith in Christ and was baptized. She said, “I realized that healing is not an important thing. The first thing I need is to be forgiven for my sins.”
Surita’s husband, did not object to his wife and son attending church since they had been healed there. After several months, when work allowed, he began attending church with his family.
Return to The Letter of James.