James 4:5,6 – “Testing the Spirit”

As always, here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

⁵Or do you suppose that the Scripture says emptily the spirit dwelling in us lusts toward envy? ⁶But He gives more grace, therefore it says, “God opposes proud ones but gives grace to humble ones.”

Verse 5 before us is something of an exegetical battleground for several reasons, of which the two biggest are that 1) the words as such don’t appear anywhere in the Scriptures and 2) one must decide which spirit is being discussed – His or ours. One can consult any decent commentary and read the various positions and their support.

Personally, I think it is consistent with the context to understand He is talking about our spirits. The words “The spirit dwelling in us lusts toward envy” are in the same vein with Gen 6:5, “Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” Some argue that nowhere else in the NT does a writer talk about our spirit as “the spirit dwelling in us” and that phrase in particular would more naturally refer to the Holy Spirit. However, as I have worked through the Greek text of this book I find it true that James has “odd” ways of saying a lot of things. The fact is this is the only book of the NT he wrote and he is a unique person who may express himself in unique ways. Also, it doesn’t bother me at all that the words, “The spirit dwelling in us lusts toward envy” don’t appear anywhere in the Scriptures. I think James is just saying, “The Bible tells us our spirit is rotten.” That statement doesn’t have to be made particularly anywhere. It is, of course, the general teaching of the entire Bible and can be supported from many passages.

The context, all the way back to 3:13 (at least) is comparing our spirit with His. In chapter 4, we’re probing the question of why our world is so marred by conflict. He tells us the problem is our rotten spirit, our selfish, lust-driven, greedy, envious spirits, then even calls us adulteresses. Since we’re inclined to think we’re “not so bad” He then throws in, “Or do you think the Scripture speaks emptily?” About what? About our spirits. And what does it say? That our spirit “lusts toward envy.” This seems, granted, another odd way of saying things, but I think James’ point is well taken. Our spirits are naturally drawn passionately toward evils like envy – the restless angry resentment that someone else might have “more” than us.

The fact is that is quite true and we’d do well to admit it.

This verse (and the rest of the Bible) is telling us our sinful inclination toward lust, envy, malice, and endless war is not an unfortunate choice we make. It is our very spirit. It is “the spirit dwelling in us.” If we would honestly accept this truth, then it becomes all the more apparent why contentment in the Lord Himself and love to Him and others is the only cure. There is no cause for strife if our heart is not “wanting” things, if it is content with what the Lord provides, and if our highest priority is to be loving Him and others. His Spirit is the only cure for our spirit!

We should note here, as Barnes points out, James’ clear intent is to move us “to the duty of honestly and unflinchingly considering what is the disposition of heart that underlies and reveals itself through our conduct.” Clear back in 3:13 he asked the question who is wise and understanding and then insisted, “Let him prove it by his life.” From that point on, he has said in different ways that our conduct will prove the true condition of our hearts. As Jesus said, “By their fruits you shall know them.” He’s calling us to “test our spirit.”

When we think we can call ourselves “religious” and yet our lives are marred by conflict and anger, we “suppose the Scriptures speak emptily.” We suppose they speak “in vain.” Of course the standard and immediate response will be, “Oh, I don’t do that.” But that response is a sure bet we do.

This is a point where none of us can search someone else’s heart. It is precisely this point where God calls us to search our own. It is here our “duty to honestly and unflinchingly consider what is the disposition of heart that underlies and reveals itself through our conduct.”

God help me to be honest who I am.

James 4:4 – “The Line”

As always, here’s my fairly literal translation of this verse:

⁴Adulteresses! Do you not know the friendship of the world is enmity with God? Therefore, whoever chooses to be a friend of the world has become an enemy of God.

Honestly, to me it is very difficult to see how to apply this passage. I think in explaining why I find it difficult to apply, I’ll actually move closer to seeing how. That being said, this is likely to be a long post. So here goes --

Once again practically every commentator reads this verse and then goes off on a harangue about “those bad people out there” who make themselves “friends of the world.” I’m sorry but I can’t buy that approach to Scripture. The Bible was written to change me. “These things were written for our admonition …” I have to read this and then say, “Lord, search me and try me, and see if there be any wicked way in me.”

I say all that just to put on paper that I can’t buy the broad-brush “bad ole people out there” interpretation of this passage. If you do, this is an easy passage to apply [to them.]

First of all, I think it is too easy to read this and immediately our mind goes to our list of “do’s and don’ts.” They equate “friendship with the world” with a list of practices of “the world.” In many peoples’ minds, “friendship with the world” = going to movies, dancing, tobacco, alcohol, and listening to “worldly” music. They smugly commend themselves that they are not “worldly” because they “don’t do those things.” They call themselves “separated” and think that makes them religious. A lot of people, I believe, build their entire sense of “righteousness” on this very thought. The Pharisees built their religion on their list of “do’s and don’ts,” on being “separated,” and where did it get them? They crucified the Messiah! They were “separated.” They were very “religious,” yet their “religion” actually made them Satan’s minions! They scrupulously avoided “worldly” practices and yet they were the very enemies of God!

So “friendship with the world” isn’t something cured by a list of do’s and don’ts. The lists won’t cure us of “worldliness.” The Pharisees championed that approach and you see where it got them.

The next thing that we might think is that we need to somehow minimize the time we spend with “lost” people, that they are “the world” and we just can’t get too “friendly” with them. In other words, “friendship with the world” means being too close to the people of this world, spending too much time with them.

But wait. If that is our conclusion, something is really wrong with our thinking. Jesus was a friend of sinners. He loved the tax collectors and the prostitutes and they knew it and loved Him in return. Jesus came to this world to live among us. He prayed not that the Father would “take us out of the world but that He would keep us from the evil one.” Johnstone said of Jesus: “… His life was pre-eminently one spent in the world, in constant and close contact with men. ‘Friendship with the world,’ then, does not mean simply presence in the midst of activities of the world, and taking part in its work … The question then, you observe, is strictly one in regard to the state of the affections.”

“The question then, you observe, is strictly one in regard to the state of the affections.” Johnstone is one of the (very) few writers who took the time to see there’s more going on here than just washing our hands of “worldly practices” or of avoiding time with “sinners.” Well then what is it? I would suggest when the Lord warns us here against “friendship with the world” and about making ourselves His enemies, we need to stop dead in our tracks and ask Him to open our eyes to see what He really means.

That is precisely where I am struggling. I can’t just dismiss a list of practices and I certainly can’t just isolate myself from people.

On the other hand, there are clearly practices of this world where I don’t belong and people I don’t necessarily want to be with.

As I live in this world and spend my time with the people of this world, where is the line between being like Jesus or simply becoming a “friend” of the world and thus an enemy of God?

As I have pondered and prayed over this, the only thing that makes sense to me is to say that line is defined by love. My mind goes back to Jesus’ words that the only thing that matters is to love God and love people. Can I safely say that the moment I stop loving God and people, I’ve crossed the line? Can I say this instead of looking for some line defined by “do’s and don’ts” or by certain people and their activities? I think I can. I John 2:15,16 says: “Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them. For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—comes not from the Father but from the world.”

Why would I ever not love God and people? Is it not because I am loving my lusts more? Is that not exactly what John is saying? I am either loving God (and therefore people) or I am loving something this world offers me – pleasures, possessions, or applause. And the problem is not the pleasures, possessions, or applauses in and of themselves. The problem is my love for them. This is also consistent with the context back again in James 4. This verse 4 we’re studying follows verses 1-3, where he’s been talking about our “desires that battle in our members.” That is what causes the wars and fightings among us. The problem is what is going on inside of us and it comes down to a question of what we’re desiring, what we’re loving.

So it is a love problem!

Doesn’t this explain how the Pharisees could be scrupulously religious and “separated” and yet be found the enemies of God? They did all of that but they didn’t love. They loved each other’s applause but they didn’t love God or people. And doesn’t this explain how Jesus could spend so much time with “sinners” and yet be “without sin” Himself? He loved God and He loved them. He just never loved what they loved.

I am thinking that is exactly what we should do with James’ admonitions here. We should be mindful what we love. In the context, when what we love causes us to war and fight, when it creates in us bitterness and selfish ambitions, then we can be sure we’re loving the wrong things and have made ourselves not the friends of God, but His enemies.

I have to say, putting all of this in the metaphor of “friendship with the world/enmity with God” is for me too obscure. Love God/love people makes sense to me. Then it is clear to me the problem is what is going on inside of me. When I try to see it through the “friendship of the world” metaphor, it is hard not to see the problem as practices and people. But they are not the problem. I am. So for myself, I certainly appreciate James calling my attention to the problem from a different angle but I think the only way I can apply this is to keep with the Love God/Love people approach.

One last thing before I close. The fact the problem is inside each of us is also supported by James using the vocative “Adulteresses!” He probably used the feminine form either because he is referring to us as the Church, the Bride of Christ, or simply to shock us men into listening to what he’s saying. What is really, really ugly here is to realize what he’s saying. It would be bad enough for a wife to have an affair with another man – but what if that other man was her husband’s worst most bitter enemy? How unspeakably evil would that be? But that is exactly what we’re doing when we give our hearts to this world’s pleasures, possessions, and applause. It is spiritual adultery, but worse than that, it is adultery immersed in betrayal.

But that is who we naturally are.

I wish my heart wasn’t like that. I don’t want to make myself the Lord’s enemy. God help me to mind my heart, to mind my desires, to love like Jesus. But most of all, as I ponder all of this, I am thankful for His grace. I am His enemy. My very existence is to betray Him, to go “a whoring” after whatever idol allures my heart today. And yet, “while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us!” “Behold what manner of love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called the children of God!” The other day my mind was bludgeoning me with all my failures. I opened my Bible and the very first words my eyes fell on were in Isaiah 41:9: “I said, ‘You are My servant;’ I have chosen you and have not rejected you.”

He’s just like that. Kind to His bitter enemy. And that love melts my whoring heart. Makes me want to never again for one second do anything but love Him in return. To love people like He does. Makes me cry with the old song writer, “Adam’s image now efface; Stamp Thine image in its place! Second Adam, from above, reinstate us in Thy love!”

Wars and fightings. Bitterness and selfish ambition. Killing and coveting. Enemies of God. Loving what He hates. Adulteresses. Yep, that’s pretty much me.

Lover of my soul, make me different.

James 4:1-3 – “Sweet Spirit”

As always, here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

¹Where [do] wars and where [do] battles among you [come] from? [Do they] not [come] from here – out of your pleasures which are soldiering among your members? ²You lust and do not have; you murder and covet and are not able to obtain; you battle and war; you do not have because you do not ask. ³You ask and do not receive because you ask wrongly in order that you may squander [it] on your pleasures.

In verse 2, James accosted us that we often do not have simply because we did not ask. In verse 3, he addresses the possibility that we did ask but didn’t receive.

As I read this verse, what jumps off the page at me is that the major reason we ask but “don’t receive” is simply because the Lord knows better – that we simply “know not how to pray for what we ought” (Rom 8:26). As I survey my own life and my prayers, the answer has often been “no” but then as time goes by I see how wise and loving the Lord was not to give me what I asked for. In fact that is true to such a point that I can honestly say I don’t want Him to give me what I ask for. I want Him to give me what He knows is best. Then I just need grace to live in a world often far from what I wish it was. All that said, I also live in the amazement of how often He does answer my prayers and how unbelievably kind He has been to me. In fact, when He answers prayers, He usually does it in ways that really are immeasurably more than I could have asked or thought. He really does Himself give “a full measure, pressed down and running over.” He is still the One who said, “Ask and you shall receive that your joy may be full” and “Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart.”

However, in James 4:3, we have to wrestle with this problem that my “no” answers might be because there’s something wrong in my asking. I hesitate to even wander into this matter because pretty much all my life I’ve heard people saying things like “You shouldn’t pray for your own needs and wants. That’s selfish. You should only pray for other people.” Or I’ve heard things like, “You shouldn’t bother God with little things,” … like finding a pair of shoes on sale or finding that left hand glove that seems to have disappeared. I soundly and totally disagree with those attitudes. In the Lord’s prayer itself, Jesus taught us to say, “Give us this day our daily bread.” Elijah prayed for rain. Hannah prayed for a son. John prayed for his friend’s good health (III Jn 2). David prayed to be delivered from his enemies. Jeremiah instructed the exiles to “Pray for the prosperity of their city” (Jer 29:7), and Jesus was concerned when people were hungry. Jabez prayed “Oh that You would bless me indeed and that Your hand would be with me, that you would enlarge my borders, and that You would keep me from pain,” and the Bible specifically says he was more honorable than his brothers and that the Lord answered his prayer (I Chron 4:9,10).

In fact, God wants us to pray over the least little details of our lives. That is the point of Jesus’ teaching in Luke 18:1: “Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up.” That is His point as well in Matt 7:7-11: “Ask and it will be given to you … how much more will your Father in Heaven give good gifts to those who ask Him!” The Lord wants us to pray about everything. It’s just like when my own children were very small – it was such a delight just to hear their little voices. I wanted them to ask me for anything at all their little hearts desired. I wanted them to ask, because I enjoyed when I could give them what they asked for. And even when I could not, I felt it was a valuable teaching time – explaining why I could not, or encouraging them to pray to God for it.

So, with that firmly asserted – that the Lord wants us to pray for everything and anything our hearts desire, big or small, anytime, anywhere – yet we come to James’ admonition here in verse 3. It is possible that our prayers are not answered because we “ask them amiss, that we may squander them on our pleasures.”

How do we balance this with all I said above? I don’t think it really that difficult. The fact is that anything we do is susceptible to motive. The little child can ask for something sweetly or they can be a demanding little brat who throws a tantrum when you say no. Sweet little children wrap us around their finger. Demanding little brats get spankings. It’s no different with the Lord. It’s up to us to keep the sweet child’s heart. That is James’ point.

Now what exactly is he talking about, this “asking wrongly, that you may squander it on your pleasures?” I think we need look no further than I John 2:16, “the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life,” which I have found convenient to designate our love for “pleasures, possessions, and applause.” The lust of our flesh. Once again, the evil “wanter” within us. The fact is we are so evil, we can even sin in the process of doing something as holy as prayer! We see it happen in Luke 18:11 when, “The Pharisee stood and prayed about himself: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people--robbers, evildoers, adulterers--or even like this tax collector.’” Clearly, even in the business of prayer, we need to be vigilant not to let our flesh be the driver of our hearts.

Once again, that doesn’t mean we should hesitate to ask for even the smallest thing we want or need. It just means, even in that, we need to be aware of our hearts. Will the Lord hear the sweet voice of His precious little child, or the demanding voice of a brat who needs to be spanked? We make the choice what spirit we ask in. Then He makes the choice how to respond.

So let us ask away, but let us do it in the sweet spirit of a child and their loving Father and try to be aware when our evil “wanter” is rearing its ugly head. Love God, love people. Even in prayer!