James 4.1-10.
At the end of chapter 3 of his letter, James was making the point zeal and argumentativeness don’t come from God.
James 3.14-18 KWL - 14 If you have bitter zeal and populism in your minds, don’t downplay and lie about the truth:
- 15 This “wisdom” doesn’t come down from above—but from nature, the mind, or demons.
- 16 Where there’s zeal and argumentativeness, there’s chaos and petty plans.
- 17 Wisdom from above, first of all, is religious. Then peaceful.
- Reasonable. Convincing. Full of mercy and good fruit. Not judgmental. Not hypocrisy.
- 18 Righteous fruit is sown by peace, and harvests peace.
Just because Christians split this teaching into separate chapters, doesn’t mean James was done with his idea. That’s the context for the next 10 verses. Righteous fruit is sown by peace… and wars and battles don’t come from the same place. They don’t come from above.
James 4.1-4 KWL - 1 Where do the wars and battles all of you have, come from? Not there!
- They come out of your hedonism, the “field experience” of your limbs.
- 2 You all covet, and don’t have. You murder, act in zeal, yet you’re powerless to achieve it.
- You fight and wage war, yet don’t have—because you don’t ask.
- 3 You ask, yet don’t receive because you ask for evil!
- —so you might spend it on your hedonism.
- 4 Adultresses! Haven’t you known friendship with the world is enmity with God?
- So whoever wants to be a friend of the world, is rendered God’s foe.
As leader of the Jerusalem Christians, James naturally had to deal with all their fights and spats. No doubt some of ’em escalated into violent physical confrontations, ’cause “eye for eye” and all that. With his experience, James knew precisely what sparked the bulk of these fights: People wanted their own way. They hadn’t submitted to God. (They sure wouldn’t submit to one another.) They had their own ideas how things should be, who should answer to whom, and what God “owes” us.
Even Christians who should know better, try to get away with this. Years ago my pastor bought a luxury car, and spent the bulk of a sermon trying to explain God permitted him this extravagance. It was a pretty pathetic defense. It was little better than what we hear in Prosperity Gospel churches—how God wants his kids to have the best of everything, so what’s wrong with a little mammonism? Years later the pastor gave his car away; that defended his purchase far better than his sermon ever did.
But my point, and James’s, is that our idonón/“hedonism” (