James4chapter 4

James 4:1-3

From whence come wars and fightings among you traces conflict to its root rather than to circumstance, come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members, the battle located inside before it ever breaks out between believers. Ye lust, and have not; ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain names desire's own failure, wanting without asking becoming envy and worse. Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts diagnoses even the prayers that are offered, asked with the wrong aim and so refused.

James 4:4

Ye adulterers and adulteresses names spiritual infidelity in the covenant language the prophets used for Israel's idolatry, the same figure carried into the new covenant. The friendship of the world is enmity with God states the choice starkly, no neutral ground between the two loyalties. Whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God is the letter's own version of the Lord's teaching that no man can serve two masters, Matthew 6:24 in his brother's plainer prose.

James 4:5-6

Do ye think that the scripture saith in vain, The spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy is the letter's hardest citation, matching no single Old Testament verse word for word. The readings divide over what the spirit and the lusting name, a summary of Scripture's whole witness against envy, the human spirit's own jealous bent, or the indwelling Holy Spirit's jealous yearning over the believer, and each reading stands with its holders. But he giveth more grace answers whichever reading stands, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble, quoting Proverbs 3:34 as the remedy for the envy just named.

James 4:7-8

Submit yourselves therefore to God gives the positive command before the negative one, submission the ground resistance stands on. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you names a real spiritual adversary and promises a real retreat, the unseen world assumed throughout the letter rather than argued for. Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you, cleanse your hands, ye sinners, and purify your hearts, ye double minded pairs outward and inward reform, the same dipsuchos, double minded, already named at 1:8.

James 4:9-10

Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep calls for a grief matching the seriousness just named, laughter turned to mourning, and joy to heaviness, the world's cheap gladness set aside for real repentance. The tone matches the prophets' own call to Israel to lament rather than presume. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up answers the grief with a promise, the Lord's own reversal already named at 1:9's exaltation of the lowly.

James 4:11-12

Speak not evil one of another, brethren extends the tongue thread of chapter 3 into the specific sin of slander among believers. He that speaketh evil of his brother, and judgeth his brother, speaketh evil of the law, and judgeth the law reasons that judging a brother by an invented standard sets the judge above the royal law of 2:8 rather than under it. There is one lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy leaves judgment where it belongs, and who art thou that judgest another closes the point as a question rather than an argument.

James 4:13-14

Go to now, ye that say, To day or to morrow we will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain, portrays the confident merchant planning a year's business without a thought of the Lord who holds the days. Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow humbles the planning at its root, tomorrow itself uncertain. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away answers the question with the letter's own picture of a life's whole length, a breath visible for a moment and then gone.

James 4:15-16

For that ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that gives the corrected speech, not a superstitious formula but a genuine submission of plans to providence. But now ye rejoice in your boastings names the actual practice being corrected, confident plans made and spoken as though the future were the planner's own. All such rejoicing is evil names the boasting itself the sin, not the planning, since the letter nowhere forbids ordinary business.

James 4:17

Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin closes the chapter with the sin of omission, guilt attached to good left undone rather than only to evil done. The verse gathers the chapter's whole argument, the wars from lust, the prayers asked amiss, the friendship with the world, the slander, the presumptuous planning, all of them failures to do the good already known. Knowledge without obedience is the same charge the letter opened with at 1:22, the hearer who is not a doer.