THE LETTER OF ST. JAMES

Quarrels and Conflicts Within the Church

James 4:1-10

INTRODUCTION

There is a real tendency when people read the first several verses of this chapter to "spiritualize" what James is saying. For example, when James writes about "murder" they claim that James is actually referring to spiritual murder, that is, hatred towards somebody else. If you look though at the context in which James is writing, it is most likely that James is NOT spiritualizing these terms. Yes, all murder springs from hatred; however, in light of what was going on in James' situation, literal murder was probably really taking place.

Just exactly what situation was James facing? According to most conservative NT scholars James was writing between 45-62/63 A.D. As the head of the founding church of Christianity in Jerusalem, James seldom ventured far from Jerusalem, and never out of Judea if our sources are accurate. Jerusalem and the surrounding areas were filled with Jewish zealots wanting to overthrow their Roman overlords. Although the Romans had occupied Jerusalem since 63 B.C., many Jews had never accepted Roman rule. Although the Jewish resisters really could not muster a powerful enough army to defeat the Roman legions, they could form small bands to wage guerrilla warfare. One faction known as the Sicarri (which means the "dagger" because their main weapon of choice was the dagger) would sneak up upon small groups of Roman soldiers and either stealthily slit their throats and stab them in the backs. This was a hit-and-run operation. These Jewish zealots wanted "to take their country back!" (Sounds familiar?)

Murder and violence were not confined to the political area. Killing people who did not agree with certain religious views was common in those days. In fact it was not until the establishment of our nation and its constitution that religious persecution persisted. John Calvin, who is so revered by so many, claimed that if the heretical Michael Servetus ever came to Geneva where Calvin reigned supreme, then he would kill him because of his heretical views on Christianity. Servetus in fact did go to Geneva because of persecution. Calvin was true to his word and burned him at the stake. Oliver Cromwell slaughter half a million Irish simply because they were Catholics.

"Well," you might respond, "this passage then has nothing to do with me and the church situation we are in." My response is "Not yet. Hopefully never, but definitely at least not yet." Our country is going through turbulent times right now. I think that many politicians have underestimated the depth of anger many Americans feel right now. One leading Russian sociologist claimed that within 10 years America will divide itself into 5 separate nations, the strain upon her being that great right now. What is even scarier is that a lot of those angry Americans have guns. (I am not saying that they should not have guns. I am just saying they have guns.) I was laughing with my wife the other night about the fact that the average Texan owns 11 guns. I said what makes that even scarier is that I own only 3 guns. That means, and this is even scarier, that somebody is running around with 19 guns. When I shared that with a friend, he told me he had OVER 19 guns! I hope not but I fear that we are sitting on a powder keg which is going to blow up if something doesn't give.

Moreover, passions are really running high in American churches. Anger runs through most of the church's great denominations, particularly Roman Catholicism, Anglicanism, and even Baptist. It is incredible the number of lies which have been uttered in order to press certain viewpoints. The situation James faced may actually become our own situation. James' response to his situation should help us understand how to respond to our present and even possibly future situations. It is JAMES' response to this situation which should govern our actions, not the response of anybody else we may so highly revere in both political and religious circles.

THE SOURCE OF THE PROBLEM (4:1-3)

At the end of chapter 3 James had been speaking about the peace which godly wisdom brings to a person and to any situation. Although Christians have access to that wisdom and peace at all times, the truth is that many times they do NOT experience that peace because they do not access that wisdom. Instead, they experience war and conflict. James lists a series of rhetorical questions and statements which build upon one another to help us understand the source of the problems.

Question 1: "What is the source of quarrels and conflicts among you?" James answers this first question with another question: "Is it not your pleasures which wage war in your members?" The obvious answer to this second question is "Yes, our pleasures are the problem." (The word "members" here may refer to an individual's own being or it may refer to the actual members in a church body.) According to James the problem lies with "pleasures," or desires. Again, harking back to chapter 1, James is saying that we are our own worst enemies. Yes, God has given us desires; however, we have refused first to keep those desires in check and second to let God fulfill those desires. Because we are determined to have those desires met right now, right here, the result is conflict and quarrels.

Statement 1: "You lust and do not have." People are going to experience lust. They can't help it; however, they can control it. They don't have to read certain magazines, watch certain movies or TV shows, or look at certain internet websites. No one is forcing them to do any of these things. Even if they don't engage in such harmful behavior, they are still going to have to deal with lust. The classic example of the person who avoids anything which might tempt him in this area is St. Jerome who went into the desert to escape such temptations. He wrote:

How often, when I was living in the desert, in the vast solitude which gives to hermits a savage dwelling-place, parched by a burning sun, how often did I fancy myself among the pleasures of Rome! I used to sit alone because I was filled with bitterness. Sackcloth disfigured my unshapely limbs and my skin from long neglect had become as black as an Ethiopian's. Tears and groans were every day my portion; and if drowsiness chanced to overcome my struggles against it, my bare bones, which hardly held together, clashed against the ground. Of my food and drink I say nothing: for, even in sickness, the solitaries have nothing but cold water, and to eat one's food cooked is looked upon as self-indulgence. Now, although in my fear of hell I had consigned myself to this prison, where I had no companions but scorpions and wild beasts, I often found myself amid bevies of girls. My face was pale and my frame chilled with fasting; yet my mind was burning with desire, and the fires of lust kept bubbling up before me when my flesh was as good as dead (Letter 22).

Statement 2: "And you are envious and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel."

Statement 3: "You do not have because you do not ask." The bottom line is that there are many things God wants to bless you with; however, He will withhold those things until you ask for them in prayer. Why does withhold from us if we don't pray? Primarily because he respects our freedom. To impose His good will upon us without our asking Him would be tantamount to violating the boundaries of our free will, free will being an essential part of what it means to be not only human, but also God's son/daughter. As a result, if your children are not doing well spiritually, you need to ask yourself if you have really spent time praying to the Lord about them. If things seem to be falling apart around you, you need to see if you have actually been praying to the Lord about these situations.

Statement 4: "You ask and do not receive because you ask with wrong motives so that you may spend it on your pleasures." Maybe you do pray, but are you asking the Lord to give you what HE wants to give you and your loved ones, or are you asking selfishly? Whenever I felt that somebody wronged me, I would ask God to straighten them out. For their sake? Hardly. It was for MY sake I wanted them straightened out. It is difficult to ask Christ to punish someone who wronged you whenever you remember that on the cross He forgave those who crucified Him.

Now when someone in my opinion wrongs me, I just ask God to bless that person. First, God truly wishes to bless everybody--not necessarily "straighten them out" the way I want. Second, if God decides He wants to straighten people out, He might just think He needs to start with me first (Matt. 7:1-2).

THE ULTIMATE PROBLEM (4:4-6)

Yes, our choosing to lust after worldly things is a problem. James though goes right to the heart of the problem here. We act out of who we are. Jesus says that a bad tree produces bad fruit, while a good tree produces good fruit. So why do we who claim to be Christians place our desires on the things of the world? Because we are "adulteresses!" "You, adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility against God?"

When James calls his people "adulteresses," he is using a term very familiar to his Jewish congregation. Several times in the OT God portrays Himself as being Israel's bridegroom or husband (the entire book of Hosea; Isaiah 54:5--"For your husband is your Maker whose name is the Lord of hosts"). God is the lover of His people who jealously guards their relationship with Him.

Unfortunately, many times in the OT when God reminds Israel that she is His bride, He does so because she has gone astray, gone after false idols. At that point God claims that Israel actually has played the prostitute, has committed adultery with those idols. Although James' congregation was not involved in idol worship, it had attached itself to the world in such a way that it should have been attached to God. James' congregation had embraced the world by adopting the world's attitude and actions.

Our nation's morals today are seriously under assault. What James is describing spiritually here actually is occurring in many places in the US. I saw part of a TV show in which one woman was living with 2 men, and that was mild in comparison to other shows. That is the situation James is describing here: Christians are cohabiting with 2 spouses--God and the world.

There is a major difference though between the 2 situations. In the TV situation the 2 men actually got along; not so in the case of the Christian. The world and God are diametrically opposed to each other. Although the world claims that you can have it AND God, the truth is that that is impossible. The truth is that the world wants to destroy God (as seen in the fact that it tried to kill off Jesus once and for all on the cross) and God one day actually will destroy the world in its present state. Jesus categorically claims: "You cannot serve 2 masters [have 2 husbands]. You will either hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon" (Matt. 6:24).

Some people though may think that it is cool to have 2 spiritual loves. The fact is that the situation is like that of a person whose arms are strapped to 2 horses, with both horses pulling in opposite directions. You have got to let go of one of the 2 horses, or else you will be split in two. Unfortunately, many of us never let go of one of the horses spiritually. The result is that we truly destroy ourselves. So much of the hardship in our lives is due to the fact that we are trying to hold onto both horses running in opposite directions.

To back up the statement that you cannot have both the world and God, James claims: "He jealously desires the Spirit which He has made to dwell in us." Actually the verse is better translated: "The Spirit who dwells in us is hostile towards our envy," that is, our desire for the worldly things. I cannot have both the world and God. God will not allow it. He refuses to be treated this way.

The person who tries to have his desires fulfilled by the world is actually exalting himself against God. That is a recipe for disaster because whereas God exalts the humble, He opposes the proud: "God is opposed to the proud but gives grace to the humble" (4:6).

THE SOLUTION (4:7-10)

So how should we respond to this situation? At the end of chapter 3 James had spoken about wisdom which produces peace. So what wise thing should I do in order to create peace, in order not to be the source of quarrels and conflicts? James will list a series of wise commands, commands given in such a way that he wants us to obey them immediately, at once. He doesn't want us to ponder them and debate them. He expects us to obey them instantaneously.

First two commands: "Submit therefore to God; resist the devil and he will flee from you." Submit: get "under" God; place Him above you; exalt Him. Resist the devil: oppose him. Peter later called him a roaring lion, all bark and no bite (1 Pet. 5:8). When you resist Satan, he will flee.

Third command: "Draw near to God and He will draw near to you." Draw near to God in humility and He will draw near to you. This so reminds us of one of James' step Brother's story--the parable of the prodigal son. When the son finally humbled himself and came home, his father came rushing down the path to welcome his son back home (Luke 15:20). Apparently the father had never taken his eyes off the road his son had taken to flee home. If the son returned, he would come back on the same road he had left on. The moment the father sees his son, he rushes to meet him. He doesn't make him come crawling back. He doesn't wait for an apology. The fact that the son is returning is enough for the father. As Renee Zelwegger said in Jerry MaGuire, "You had me at 'hello.'" The father rushing to meet his returning son is the kind of Father God is to us whenever we return to Him--He rushed out to meet us, embrace us, kiss us, and bedeck us in glorious garments.

Fourth and fifth commands: "Be miserable NOW and mourn IMMEDIATELY and weep INSTANTANEOUSLY; let your laughter NOW be turned into mourning and your joy into gloom." James is not trying to produce a bunch of gloomy Christians. He is addressing Christians who have committed adultery with the world. We should cry a flood of tears for the way we have turned from God, choosing the world and its attitudes instead of choosing Him.

I am not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but I do know this: I am a better person because God has given me a family. The thought of doing something which would disgrace my family brings me to tears. How could I ever betray them or hurt them? They are that precious to me. Well, God should be even more precious to me. He is a perfect Father; Christ is a perfect groom. To hurt them by turning away from them should bring tears to our eyes. Until that thought does, we have a long way to go in our relationship with God. The song goes: "No one ever cared for me like Jesus." If that is true, then I need to do all I can not to turn away from Him.

Sixth command: "Humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord, and He will exalt you." Why do we pursue our selfish desires? Why do we want the world to fulfill those desires instead of God? Do we really think that only the world can fulfill these desires? Or do we think that the world will do a better job of fulfilling these desires than God? We know the answers to these. The bottom line is that God wants to exalt us. We want the praise of mere paltry men? If we humble ourselves before the Lord, He will have the entire universe applaud us on that last day. We want riches and fabulous homes? God is going to lavish upon His children more wealth than we can ever imagine. We want power? God promises us that we shall reign with Him, even judge angels. Take your pick. You can have one or the other. You can have fulfillment from the world or fulfillment from God, not both. Take your pick.