Verses 1-5
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 spirit he has caused to dwell in us?
Commentary
Verses 1-5
James addressed the pollution of the human heart. He talks about the constant fights and quarrels among the people. He reprimands them through rhetorical questions. As a reminder, a rhetorical question is one where the person asking the questions knows the answer. He wants listeners to become accountable. In other words, a rhetorical question is one that doesn't require a vocal answer.
He asked them if the fights and quarrels came from their desires that battle within them. Then he gives a long list of things that caused the people to quarrel and fight.
Notice he addresses his listeners as "adulterous people" and not "brothers and sisters" as has been his usual habit.
Verses 6-12
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.
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?
Commentary
Verse 6-12
James addresses solutions for the human heart. He tells them the following things:
---1. Submit yourselves to God.
---2. Resist the devil, and he will flee.
---3. Come near to God and he will come near to you.
---4. Wash your hands.
---5. Purify your hearts.
---6. Grieve.
---7. Mourn.
---8. Wail.
---9. Change your laughter to mourning.
--10. Change your joy to gloom.
--11. Humble yourselves before the Lord.
--12. Do not slander one another.
Notice James addresses the people by different terms in this section.
---1. you sinners
---2. you double-minded
---3. brothers and sisters
James refers to God by two terms:
---1. Lawgiver
---2. Judge
Verses 13-17
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.
Commentary
James talks about the future when people don't know what will happen. Then he defines what life is like. He says it is a mist that appears for a little while and then disappears. Therefore, they should say, "If it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this or that."
James concludes that boasting is evil, and anyone who knows the good a person can do and doesn't do it, it is sin.
SPECIAL NOTE:
In Verse 14b, James asks "What is your life?" When this writer was a 16-year-old junior in high school, she what an essay titled, "What is Life" that was published in her community newspaper. Click on the link at the bottom to read the timeless essay. There might be some questions from the article on the quiz that goes along with this chapter.
|
|
