Michael's Abbey Bible Study - James Chapter 4

1 What is the source of quarrels and conflicts among you? Is not the source your pleasures that wage war in your members? Chapter 3 ended with the teaching that making peace brings peace and righteousness. And making peace is not avoiding conflict, but confronting bad actors forcefully. The primary source of conflict today is a failure to confront bad teaching and bad behavior. The problem in the first century church was that they were fighting, but not for righteousness or for the truth. People today still fight for the wrong reasons and ignore the things scripture commands us to fight for. They were fighting for selfish reasons instead of contending for the faith. They were motivated to seek their own pleasure rather than Christ.
James used very, very strong language to address this. Quarrels is polemos in Greek, which in this context means a state of hostility and antagonism. This word is more commonly used to mean war and military conflict. While that is not a correct translation here, it would certainly be in the mind of a Greek reader. Conflicts is mache in Greek, which means battles, as in fighting, quarrels or strife without weapons. And "wage war" is strateuo in Greek, which is to engage in a battle. Clearly James was invoking strong war and battle language to describe what were most likely verbal battles over things they shouldn't be fighting over. Contending for the faith is good. Contending for selfish pleasure is not. Nor is contending for false teaching and bad leaders.
2 You lust and do not have; so you commit murder. You are envious and cannot obtain; so you fight and quarrel. You do not have because you do not ask. There is some evidence that some zealots were equating the rich with the hated Romans, and using that as an excuse to murder for gain. But whether James was being literal or hyperbolic, lust was a big problem and still is today. Lust is not necessarily sexual. In this context is is an unspecified strong desire. This could be for possessions, wealth, someone else's spouse, or even a social position.
Envious in the Greek context is jealous envy. It is like lust but is not as strong. People will kill for things they lust after. People will physically fight for things they envy, or attack those that have them out of their envious jealousy.
They do not have because they do not ask God. This is the most significant part of the verse. Instead of looking to God to provide they were looking with lust and envy at each other. This destroys a community. It pits people against each other without just cause. It is likely that many refused to accept that we reap what we sow. It is certain that the vast majority of people today reject that biblical truth.
Galatians 6:7-8 Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life.
3 You ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures. This verse ought to be taught at least once a year in every church. Is there anyone who has not asked God to help them win the lottery, promising to give some portion to charity or the church? God is not mocked. God knows our real motive is satisfying our own desires without limit. God also knows most of us would self-destruct and cause ourselves much grief. Aside from the much higher rates of bankruptcy and financial ruin among big lottery winners, the removal of financial limitations almost always results in severe moral failures. There is a reason why God doesn't circumvent Galatians 6:7.
4 You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. The church is the bride of Christ. The church, which is the congregation, has been unfaithful. It's not just the ones living a life of sin in open rebellion against God. All those who stand by and do nothing, say nothing, and act like everything is fine are just as guilty. They stand by while their church is being washed away because it is built on sand. They are accomplices to the destruction of their own church.
The root cause is they will not stand up for God because they are friends with the worldly in their church. Or they don't object to the worldly being in their church. They wrongly think it's just getting along. But that is hostility towards God.
To be clear, this is not talking about those who are in the world. We should try to reach those people. But it must be to the real Jesus and not a fake Jesus. This passage is talking about people in the church. It is about people who claim to be Christians but live like hell.
The key words in this verse are friend and friendship. Almost all people who claim to be Christians ignore rampant sin and corruption in their church, including by the pastors, because they "like them." They won't even call out blatant heresy by people in the congregation or from the pulpit or stage. God and the world are not compatible. We cannot serve both. We must pick one. If we try to have both we are rejecting God and picking the world. If we choose someone because we "like them", "they're my pastor", or "they're my friend", then we are rejecting scripture, God, and Christianity. That is fake Christianity, which is a polite way of saying it's a cult.
5 Or do you think that the Scripture speaks to no purpose: "He jealously desires the Spirit which He has made to dwell in us"? Scripture is the word of God. James was paraphrasing Numbers 23:19 that God does not lie, does what He says He will do, and when He has spoken He makes good on it. Thus what God said in scripture is true and He will make good on it, all of it. It will not just be the parts we take out of context to try to confirm our delusions.
What God is jealous for is the Holy Spirit being in us. That He has caused it does not mean God has overridden our free will to cause it. And it doesn't mean that after the Holy Spirit is in us we cannot push the Holy Spirit aside so we can follow our own sinful desires.
Some people, like Oprah Winfrey, get totally hung up on descriptions in scripture of God being jealous. For someone who made their mark on the world communicating, she stubbornly holds onto her view of the word from her childhood. An adult ought to realize that a word can have different meanings and different connotations. People who only view jealousy as being envious jealousy are being childish. Jealousy is righteous and proper in a marriage. A person ought to be loyal to their spouse, and a person trying to insert themselves into the affection of a spouse is a deadly viper that will poison the marriage and family. Jealousy is only negative when it is used wrongly. That a spouse has a coworker of the opposite sex should not make us jealous. That would be envious jealousy. But if the spouse is spending a lot of time alone with a coworker of the opposite sex, then it is right and proper to be jealous as that is a direct threat to the marriage. That God is jealous can be found in Exodus 34:14 regarding worshiping any other god, and in Zechariah 8:2 regarding God being jealous for Israel. These are both righteous and proper jealousy, that His nation and His people should only worship and follow Him is how it is supposed to be. That some reject it because they have a one-dimensional view of jealousy is foolish.
6 But He gives a greater grace. Therefore it says, "God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble." Gives is didosin in Greek, which is the present active indicative form of didomi. This means the grace being given by God is not just the grace we were given when we became Christians, nor just the future grace given on Judgement Day for our salvation, although this grace is also saving us from sin. It is grace given at the moment of a specific failure. The failure here is what James brought up in verse 5, that we all fail to give the throne of our individual lives to the Spirit as it should be, and wrongly occupy it ourselves. Most of us do this multiple times a day. Despite our repeated failing in this so important area, we are given grace by God. It is a greater grace than we are able to give to others.
Then James paraphrases Proverbs 3:34. This concept is found throughout scripture, such as Matthew 23:12, 1 Peter 5:5, and Psalm 138:6. This is a vital concept as it is the difference between a real Christian who is saved and a fake Christian who is following a fake Jesus. A proud person cannot submit to God, ask for forgiveness, be corrected by scripture, or follow the Holy Spirit. These are things only a humble person can do. A humble person knows they need God's grace and God's discipline. An arrogant person is immune to correction and discipline, even from God.
7 Submit therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Submission is an act of humility. In the secular world those that refuse to submit to an absolute monarch find their head separated from their body. It is much more important to submit to the King of kings and Lord of lords who made the entire universe and can destroy the soul as well as the body.
Resisting the devil is brought up because he tempts us to think more of ourselves than we ought. Even more he tempts us to take control and use our own morality and thoughts instead of scripture. When Jesus who was God become man resisted the Devil it was not with the power of God. He accurately and in proper context quoted scripture. Jesus also refuted the deliberate misuse of scripture by the Devil. The Devil took verses out context from the rest of scripture to try to mislead Jesus. Jesus knew scripture and used rightly it to deflect the Devil's twisting of scripture. False pastors and churches are following in the footsteps of the devil when they twist and take scripture out of context to support their false teaching.
8 Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded. This is a promise of God. It is simple to understand. However, it contradicts one of the more ridiculous false teachings that is common in almost every church in America, that God's love is unconditional. Right here is a condition. If God unconditionally loves us then how can He be so unloving as to maintain His distance until we draw close to Him first? It is proper and right for God to wait for us to move first. We are the ones that moved away in rebellion against God, choosing sin over Him. And for God to draw close to us without us turning away from our sin back to Him would be to violate Galatians 6:7 and reward bad behavior. Thus we must metaphorically cleanse our hands from the sin we do, and literally purify our hearts with the Spirit.
One false preacher repeatedly says, "God loves you just the way you are." That is absolutely false. God loves us despite the way we are. This false teaching is designed to mislead people to think they don't have to repent or change in any way. It is a lie that we can stay in our sin, continue to live like hell, and draw close to God. Some will falsely claim that is legalism. It is not. It is the direct teaching of Jesus in Matthew 7:13-29. In this short passage Jesus taught in different ways and with different metaphors that we must both hear His words and act on them. Legalism would be to say our actions save us. Only grace through faith saves us. However, if we do not act on the words of Jesus we demonstrate we do not have faith in Him. Galatians 5:16-23 details that it is not that we are under the law, but under the influence of the Holy Spirit inside us. The flesh is in opposition to the Spirit and tries to get us to sin. If we belong to Christ we crucify the flesh and its sinful desires.
We may sin and fail. But we get back up and follow the Spirit again. The difference between one who is saved and one who is not is simple. A person who is saved acknowledges that they sin, acknowledges they need the grace of God, and chooses to follow Jesus by learning and acting on His teachings and commandments no matter how many times they fail. A person who is not saved is double-minded and arrogantly thinks they are just fine the way they are, doesn't bother with the words of Jesus, thinks hearing a little on Sunday is enough, does nothing to act on Jesus' words and commands, and has no intention of turning away from their sin. Double-minded is the literal translation of the Greek word dipsuchos. However, most versions translate this as "doubting" which is not an accurate translation. This is described in a secular text of that time as one whose mind staggers helplessly from one thing to another, being uncertain of the truth. A double-minded person holds incompatible and contradictory beliefs, thinking they are a Christian while they reject Christ and His commandments.
9 Be miserable and mourn and weep; let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy to gloom. This verse is continuing the end of verse 8 referring to sinners and the double-minded. In other words, those in unrepentant sin have no reason to be celebrating and laughing. They should be in mourning and weeping because of where they are headed, which is hell.
10 Humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord, and He will exalt you. This is the solution for those in unrepentant sin. If they would humble themselves and admit they have a sin problem they would then be able to turn to Jesus for grace and salvation. Then He can forgive our sins through the cross and lift us up out of our sin like pulling out a person stuck in a smelly swamp. If we insist on staying in the swamp then we cannot be saved from it. Those that stay arrogant like in verse 6 deny their sin is sin. They deny that there is anything wrong. They deny that the swamp is a problem and want to stay in it. And in reality they are rejecting God.
The most effective lie from Satan, the father of lies, is that staying in the smelly swamp of sin is desirable. He tells people the swamp is freedom to do what they want.
Real freedom is escaping the swamp by reaching for the hand of Jesus and getting cleaned up by the Spirit. No matter how many times we trip and fall back in Jesus will pull us out and the Spirit will clean us up again. If we insist on staying in the swamp we are choosing to be cold, wet, and stinky forever.
11 Do not speak against one another, brethren. He who speaks against a brother or judges his brother, speaks against the law and judges the law; but if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge of it. Ironically, the people who misuse this verse are the ones who are the worst at disobeying it. In order to accuse someone of speaking against another or of judging them you have to judge them and speak against them.
James 2:4 doesn't say not to judge at all. It says not to judge with evil motives. 2:18-26 is all about judging whether faith is real or not. 3:3 tells us to determine if a person is really wise by their good behavior and deeds. 3:15-16 tells us how to judge if "wisdom" is not from heaven. And the point of 4:1-10 is to judge who is a friend of God or a friend of the world. Then there are all the calls to judge by Jesus in the Gospels such as judge them by their fruits, and Paul and Peter's calls to judge in their letters. Clearly James cannot be saying not to judge at all. Nor can he be saying we shouldn't speak out against those who teach against God and scripture. Thus this is referring to those who judge wrongly and speak falsehoods against others in the church. The standard is God's word and law, the law of freedom we have when we are disciples of Jesus.
Probably the most common version of violating this verse is when people will come up with some nonsense in their own head with no basis in scripture and accuse others of sin for not following it. Because it sounds good them they insist that others must adopt it or they aren't being Christian. People do this with music, such as saying guitars and drums shouldn't be in church when those are primary instruments in scripture. Or they say we can't do things like dance despite dancing being in scripture and not being prohibited by scripture. A more common one today is insisting we must go through "leaders" in the church to interpret scripture, make life decisions, or even that they must mediate between us and God. These are inventing our own standard and claiming it to be Christian. It is taking God's word and telling God He got it wrong. That is not a wise thing to do.
The worst version of violating this verse is when wolves in sheep's clothing try to refute the truth. They will double-down on their lies and try to refute scripture that contradicts them. The worst make false accusations against those who rightly point out their false teachings and heresies to discredit those speaking the truth.
12 There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the One who is able to save and to destroy; but who are you who judge your neighbor? Jesus the Christ is the judge of everyone on Judgement Day. Thus the standard for Christians is Christ. We find Christ in the Gospels and the rest of scripture. He is the one who can save and destroy. When we judge by our own standards we violate verses 11-12. This is still done today. We must only use God's standard, which we find in scripture.
However, today it is far more common to fail to judge at all. And that is still a violation of these verses. It is setting the false standard that there is no standard. The entire New Testament contradicts that. If we stand by and do nothing we are just as responsible for the destruction of our church as the wolves in sheep's clothing that actively work against it.
13 Come now, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit." In this verse James was illustrating how a person who arrogantly thinks too highly of their own thoughts and reasoning operates.
Traveling to another city was not easy like today. And businesses didn't have shipping options to reach other markets. You had to go there yourself. So if you didn't have enough business in the city where you were, the only options were to change businesses, or move to another city for awhile. When Paul was preaching in Corinth he supported himself by making tents and selling them. At one point there wasn't enough demand in Corinth for tents, so Paul's income couldn't support him. He couldn't leave for a better market as his main purpose was to establish the Corinthian church. And he would not take money from the Corinthians. Much poorer churches in Macedonia and Achaia sent money to cover the gap between his need and income.
14 Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away. Compared to things of this earth like mountains, human beings are here then gone in a moment. Yet everything on this earth is also temporary. God is eternal. While everything of this world crumbles, falls, fades, and is washed away, God was, is, and is to come. This ought to bring an attitude of humility.
15 Instead, you ought to say, "If the Lord wills, we will live and also do this or that." In other words, it's good to plan. But we should always be humble and understand that God's will trumps our plans. If we don't God's will can steamroller our plans.
A tiny and foolish minority wrongly take this verse to be against planning. God clearly wants us to plan for the future. If we don't plan for the future we won't have the ability to contribute or help others. The biblical stance is to live so as to always be ready to meet God today, and also plan like we are going to live here until we are a hundred and twenty years old. Thus we will be prepared for whatever comes.
16 But as it is, you boast in your arrogance; all such boasting is evil. Our boasting is not just evil, it's also dumb. Our accomplishments are nothing compared to God. We build monuments and work to achieve things that humankind marvel at. Yet everything that exists was created by God. Can we create a star? Can we make a solar system? We can only get to the nearest planet remotely. And when we do the smallest error results in a probe not landing but cratering. God created everything from the largest galaxy to the smallest subatomic particle. He created the physics of the universe that make life possible. Despite decades of trying, no human has even created the four chemicals of life compatible with making amino acids without cheating and using biological sources. The only thing we have to boast of is that we belong to Jesus.
17 Therefore, to one who knows the right thing to do and does not do it, to him it is sin. Put simply, failure to do the right thing when we know we should is a sin. Most sins are things we do. James made it clear that not doing something we know we are supposed to is a sin as well. The context here is humbling ourselves before God. It is probable that James meant this to apply to other things we know we should do like reading, studying, and meditating on scripture, worshipping God, praying, witnessing, calling out bad behavior by Christians, calling out heresy, and so on. However, it is absolutely certain that failing to humble ourselves in the sight of the Lord and maintaining an arrogant attitude is a sin. And it is a grievous sin. It is denying our dependence on God for forgiveness and salvation, not to mention that we were created in the first place.

Scripture quotations taken from the NASB © The Lockman Foundation.

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