Chapter 4
Eighth Test, 4:1-12, Test of Worldly Indulgence
2022 - This chapter starts a little differently. A rhetorical question is posed:
1 What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? [Jas 4:1 ESV]
The answer follows. So...the turmoil we have going on inside us is evidenced by our tendency to quarrel and fight with others. We are told to look inward for an explanation of outward behavior. And again, this is observable by us in our brothers. This is a test of self, and a criteria to evaluate the faith of others. I have phrased this similarly several times. Why am I so anxious to "judge" others by their behavior? How can we teach our children if we don't see their faults. How do we know at what "grade level" to instruct them if we don't assess their current proficiency? How can we "exhort one another" if we treat everyone the same? So we do need to be able to recognize the signs that evidence Christian maturity or lack of it. We need to test ourselves first, and work on ourselves first, and criticize ourselves first, but we also have an obligation towards other Christians.
So. Continuing. What are these inner passions that "war" inside us? Surely this implies that the struggle is between worldly passions and spiritual passions. Or...vs 5 may be saying that it is the Holy Spirit within us that is at war with our fleshly desires. The Holy Spirit immediately identifies unholy thoughts. But...how does this war lead to quarreling with brothers? Maybe the paragraph below is the insight? Perhaps I'm having trouble with this one because this one is a serious problem with me? I don't see it because I don't recognize it inside me this time, as I have the previous tests?
When's the last time I felt anger, resentment or jealousy towards someone at church? Perhaps it was just yesterday...Am I jealous that graduation with a DD catapulted someone to the upper tiers of church hierarchy, with no other apparent "battle scars" or reputation or accomplishments? Why not me, I study a lot, too, and I come up with some pretty neat stuff? Does my memorizing Luke 10:21 signal my jealousy of that man rather than a sincere desire to memorize scripture? Yeah, in light of James 4 I kind of think it does. Not a pretty sight. And that other guy, with the very sordid past, far less deserving of respect than me, yet he seems to get far more attention. I might be kind of jealous there. That guy I used to work with that is so high up in the hierarchy, even though at work I thought he was a whiner who advanced by the squeaky wheel method. Dang....I did not intend for this morning's reading to be such an indictment of my own behavior. But what a good example of how insightful James' tests really are! I need to do some serious praying about my resentments! And then this verse, with the best approach: 10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you. [Jas 4:10 ESV]. Don't look to the church or even to Christian brothers for "promotion", but to God when our attitude conforms to that of Christ.
2023 - I don't think this test is about problems with Christian brothers and sisters. This is about how we function in the world - whether we seek the heavenly or the worldly. BUT, if we are all about getting ahead in the world, there is nothing to restrict us from treating brothers and sisters just the same as we treat co-workers. If we are focused on self-advancement, we will quarrel with someone!
2023 - This verse:
4 You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. [Jas 4:4 ESV], confirming that this is NOT just about relationships within the church. This is a test of whether we live in faith, seeking God, and being satisfied with the blessings he sends our way, or whether we seek our own good. And look also at vs 6. He opposes the proud. He frustrates worldly ambition, he isolates the proud from their goals. And the humble? It does NOT say they get what they seek, because they do not if what they seek is worldly. But the do get more grace if they are humble. Should we make accumulating grace our life's ambition? What would that look like really? Grace is God giving us what we have not earned and do not deserve. Isn't seeking that a bit arrogant? I will be humble today so that God will give me more stuff. That doesn't seem quite right. The goal is to humbly accept what life gives us while we behave as God's word instructs. And then IF God blesses us, we humbly thank Him for what He has seen fit to do, rather than thinking we must have earned it. Tricky wording, but I think this last is the kernel of it all.
2022 - The last few verses, through 12, are about whether we have standing to judge. Much might be made of this condemnation of judging in contrast to the verse that says "Know ye not that you will judge angels..." Perhaps the key is that James is speaking to all - to leadership and to rank and file, and the angels thing is about church discipline, done correctly, through proper procedure.
Our internal worldly desires are the cause of all quarrels and fights among brethren. We sin to obtain what the flesh desires, and in so doing offend our brothers. The first example given is wanting something and committing murder to get it. (Another extreme example. James seems to use a lot of such "hyperbole" in making his points. Like saying the tongue was full of deadly poison. Well...not really. This is interesting.) If we want something we don't have, it is easy to make others "responsible" for our thwarted desires. We tend to be jealous of others, not necessarily because they have what we want, but because they have what they want and we DON'T have what we want. Why do they get to be satisfied and we do not!?!?! And so we resent and avoid the brethren. We are looking to the wrong place for satisfaction, we ask wrongly, because this "faith" we think we have is completely misdirected. Again, this calls into question whether we have faith at all. If we do not have, perhaps we want the wrong things. If we wanted the right things, we'd ask, and God would give them to us.
2025 - Vs 11: 11 Do not speak evil against one another, brothers. The one who speaks against a brother or judges his brother, speaks evil against the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge. [Jas 4:11 ESV]. Starts with "one another" and "brothers". This is about the members of James' church, and by obvious extension, it is about Christians. Don't speak evil against other Christians. It says don't judge them, because to judge them is to judge the Law, and there is only one who can judge the Law. What can this mean, given Paul telling us we MUST judge those within? How do we reconcile this? MSB says it means not to slander or defame a brother, not to let them sin without calling them out. It isn't about THEM at all, but about us accusing them of things...perhaps out of jealousy that they have more worldly things than us, they are more successful in the world than us. That tends to make us "mean" toward them. In judging others for things that we have essentially just "invented" out of our own jealousy and lust, we are ourselves breaking the Law. We are judging them by some internal Law of our own saying what is ok, rather than by the written word of the Law. When we do that, we "promote" our law above the written Law. We make ourselves more perceptive judges than God, and so trample on both the Law and the Lawgiver. This is what it means. This is all from MSB's note on 4:11.
Ninth Test, 4:13-17, Test of Dependence
If we make our plans based on our own expectations and considering only our own thinking, then we are not depending on God, nor giving him place in our lives to direct our lives. This is called arrogance. Seems to me that the whole concept of The United States of America is to be independent of all but ourselves. Anyone can make it, anyone can do anything, "Don't tread on me", freedom from government, and so on. This test seems misdirected to Americans. Perhaps it is a mistake that will ultimately undermine everything. We should know to look to God to direct our steps, but do we? Or do we have faith in ourselves instead?
2022 - Perhaps the better word here is presumption. Do we plan our important profitable lives assuming that we will live until next year, next month, even just until tomorrow? We tempt God in thinking that way. We dare Him to spoil our plans. Underneath, the part we don't consider, is that we see our own plans as more important than the plans God has for our tomorrow. We ought to include the possibility of absence when we make our plans. If we did this, if we were really thinking that today might be our last day, would our plans for tomorrow, if we should live to see it, be about profit and vacations, or would it be about making time to proclaim the gospel to those we love or know who are not saved, or even those we haven't yet met who are heading for hell? If we saw the fuse as short, every day, would our priorities change? If so, this test has uncovered a problem.
2023 - This last verse:
17 So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin. [Jas 4:17 ESV]. What is this verse doing here? How does it even tie in with the idea of not being presumptuous about our plans? It really doesn't seem to fit here. Is it about stubbornly going ahead with plans when we know God is leading us elsewhere? So we know what we ought to be doing - but we pursue worldly things instead? And because we do that - we get our priorities wrong - what was in the first place a fine business plan becomes a sinful, worldly venture? Maybe that's it...?
So many profound tests.