“It’s all heart stuff!”
Download discussion questions: James 4:3-10
Translating James 4:5
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I encourage you to look at the passage in James before you read this Blog entry. What do you see in the text yourself? What questions come to your mind? How would you interpret what the writer says? After even a few minutes examining and thinking about the text you will be much better prepared to evaluate the comments in the Blog.
This passage provided our group with two paths of discussion, the exploration of the passage itself, and the opportunity to discuss differences in translations. Are the differences among translations and the various views of respected scholars cause for concern? How do we deal with differences in reliable translations of the Bible? Do we ignore them? Do we give up in confusion? What can we learn when my Bible seems to say something different from your Bible? And how do we respond to the skeptic who uses the difference to disbelieve the whole Bible?
Fish First, Then the Bones
The handout for this week included two related but slightly different versions of the brief passage. The 1984 and the 2011 versions of the New International Version (NIV 1984 and NIV 2011) provide identical translation for most of the passage. There are one or two minor variations (underlined on the handout), but verse 5 is worded quite differently in the two editions. (It should be noted that both NIV translations include a marginal note with the wording of the other NIV version.)
The differences in the NIV translations are not the result of some problem in the ancient text or an error as copies were made down through history. Scholars agree that the wording in the original language is challenging. “Indeed, James 4:5 is one of the most difficult verses in the NT.”[1]
While it might be tempting to focus all our discussion on the differences in that one verse, we took the advice that someone told me when I was first beginning to study the Bible. We took the “bony-fish approach” to inductive study.
When you come to a problem in Bible study, treat it as you would treat bones while eating a fish. Take the bone out and carry on with the fish. After you have finished the fish, come back and collect the bones.[2]
In other words, concentrate on the parts of the passage that are more clear. Then deal with the difficult, “bony” part. The clearer parts may help us understand the more obscure or confusing portion.
Adulterous People or Beloved Brothers?
One of the first comments about this passage was the change in the tone James is using. A few sentences earlier (James 3:10, 12) he twice calls his audience “my brothers”). Immediately after this passage (James 4:11), James again calls them “brothers.” But here he uses harsh language, rebuking “adulterous people” (v. 4), “sinners” and “double-minded” (v. 8). What is going on here?
Someone asked if he might be directing those words to a different group, such as non-believers or wandering believers. But the passage doesn’t seem to offer any support for that idea. In the previous passage James has already called out their “jealousy and selfish ambition” (3:14, 16) and the disastrous effects their sin was having on relationships. There is no indication that he was simply commending one group and condemning another.
Someone pointed out the overall trajectory of the letter, that James has gotten “heavier as he goes.” The severe language in this passage might be James “opening up” (in the words of one member) about the accumulation of the sins he has been pointing out. It was easy to imagine the inspired writer becoming increasingly passionate about the problems among the people he cared about (“my beloved brothers” in 1:16, 19; 2:5). The consensus in our group was that the beloved brothers and the adulterous sinners were the same group.
We took James’s mixed language as evidence that he cared deeply for the people and that his affection made him passionately concerned for their growing “friendship with the world” (v. 4). Following the image of adultery, one writer calls it their “flirtation[3].”
Our group thought about what that might mean. Suggestions included checking out other religions, looking for better answers to life’s problems, or making life work better. All of these “flirtations” would be tempting for people dispersed from their homeland and separated from their cultural heritage, especially as they suffered from persecution. Trials may produce steadfastness (James 1:2), but part of that steadfastness is resisting the friendship with the world that might reduce those trials. James used shocking language to warn his beloved people of the dangers of any kind of flirtation with the world, its values, and its solutions.
Harmless Flirtation?
The problem of “friendship (or flirtation) with the world” is its typical subtle start. Seemingly innocent attempts to make life better might avoid some unpleasant interaction with opponents of the faith. Relaxing rigid beliefs or moral standards might mitigate persecution. Then these efforts evolve into closer “friendship,” more overt, intimate “flirting” with the methods and mechanisms of the “earthly, unspiritual, demonic” worldview.
C. S. Lewis highlights the subtlety and the seeming innocence of the process he describes as “becoming a scoundrel.”
And the prophecy I make is this. To nine out of ten of you the choice which could lead to scoundrelism will come, when it does come, in no very dramatic colours. Obviously bad men, obviously threatening or bribing, will almost certainly not appear. Over a drink or a cup of coffee, disguised as a triviality and sandwiched between two jokes, from the lips of a man, or woman, whom you have recently been getting to know rather better and whom you hope to know better still—just at the moment when you are most anxious not to appear crude, or naïf or a prig—the hint will come. It will be the hint of something which is not quite in accordance with the technical rules of fair play; something which the public, the ignorant, romantic public, would never understand; something which even the outsiders in your own profession are apt to make a fuss about, but something, says your new friend, which “we”—and at the word “we” you try not to blush for mere pleasure—something “we always do.” And you will be drawn in, if you are drawn in, not by desire for gain or ease, but simply because at that moment, when the cup was so near your lips, you cannot bear to be thrust back again into the cold outer world. It would be so terrible to see the other man’s face—that genial, confidential, delightfully sophisticated face—turn suddenly cold and contemptuous, to know that you had been tried for the Inner Ring and rejected. And then, if you are drawn in, next week it will be something a little further from the rules, and next year something further still, but all in the jolliest, friendliest spirit. It may end in a crash, a scandal, and penal servitude; it may end in millions, a peerage, and giving the prizes at your old school. But you will be a scoundrel.[4]
The Punch in the Face Letter?
When our group first even considered studying the Letter of James, more than one person expressed hesitation. “My least favorite book in the Bible” and “just one punch in the face after another” were some of the concerns. Further conversations revealed that most of the objections resulted from past sermons (or sermon series) that used James “like a hammer” to coerce behaviors acceptable in those congregations.
But our time in James has changed these attitudes (at least to some degree). For example, one brief phrase reveals James’s deepest motive. After the harsh language described above, he resolves the potential hopelessness with the simple, “But He gives more grace” (v. 6a).
Yes, we all are guilty of flirtation with the world. Yes, we all occasionally exhibit enmity toward God. Yes, we all consciously choose friendship with the world to solve some of our problems. Yes, we can all be described as adulterous, sinners, and double-minded. And James summarizes God’s response: “But He gives more grace.” James’s answer is not elaborate theology, not rigid requirements. “But He gives more grace.”
James contrasts the seriousness of the sin and the simplicity of response. But He gives greater grace. Even in the face of adulterous and double-minded sinners, His grace is more than sufficient. As the hymn reminds us, “Grace that is greater than all our sin.”[5] The struggles we often have with shame or guilt over our sin are answered by James’s simple statement, “But He gives more grace.” Or in the words of a fourteenth-century poet,
All the wickedness in the world that man might do or say is no more to the mercy of God than a live coal dropped in the sea.[6]
James’s “punch in the face” statements are certainly intended to warn of behavior that distracts us from faithfulness to God. But those “punches” are also capable of showing us our desperate need for God’s grace. And James reminds us of God’s abundant, unending supply, literally, “more than mega grace” (μείζονα χάριν, meizona charin; using meizona, the comparative form of mega;[7] hence, more than mega, greater).
Responding to Grace
Our group recognized James’s exhortations as the response to God’s grace, the marks of the required humility (v. 6). The following list attempts to outline the characteristics of genuine humility:
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.
The “list” or collection of responses begins and ends with submission and humility, ultimately with “He will lift you up” (v. 10). We spent considerable time discussing why humility is so difficult. We concluded that the humility James describes is not “trying harder” or “getting it right.” Humility is giving up our prideful “I can do this” efforts and sincerely saying, “No, I can’t do this.” Or in the words of one person in our group earlier in James, “I’m not gonna make it.”
But this giving up, this abandonment, is not a surrender to hopelessness. This abandonment is the recognition that our only hope is that central statement, “But He gives more grace.” Obedience depends absolutely on His work in us to change our adulterous hearts to faithful followers.
The invitation to “come near to God (v. 8a; reminiscent of our earlier study in Hebrews) involves admission of our sinful rebellion (v. 8b) and our double-minded divided devotion (v. 8c). It means experiencing brokenness over our sin (v. 9a), not just sadness over the pain of our circumstances. It means recognition that our “earthly, unspiritual, demonic” sources of laughter and joy (v. 9b) are counterfeits only worthy of mourning and gloom.
All of those changes are symptoms of genuine repentance resulting from humility. Those changes involve multiple admissions of failures, mistakes, errors in judgment, poor choices, and inadequacy.
James doesn’t describe repentance lightly. Neither does C. S. Lewis.
Now repentance is no fun at all. It is something much harder than merely eating humble pie. It means unlearning all the self-conceit and self-will that we have been training ourselves into for thousands of years. It means killing part of yourself, undergoing a kind of death. In fact, it needs a good man to repent. And here comes the catch. Only a bad person needs to repent: only a good person can repent perfectly. The worse you are the more you need it and the less you can do it. The only person who could do it perfectly would be a perfect person—and he would not need it.
…
But supposing God became a man—suppose our human nature which can suffer and die was amalgamated with God’s nature in one person—then that person could help us. He could surrender His will, and suffer and die, because He was man; and He could do it perfectly because He was God. You and I can go through this process only if God does it in us;[8]
But He gives more grace.
A person in our group pointed out that the response to grace that James expects is not about behavior (in spite of the many misperceptions of his emphasis on “works”). Instead, in our member’s words, “It’s all heart stuff.” Earlier impressions were that, “James goes too far.” Now it appears that his intention is to convince believers of the seriousness of sin in order to appreciate the magnitude of mercy.
The subtlety of friendship with the world can convince us that our flirtation really isn’t that dangerous, our behavior is not that bad, are attitudes are not really adulterous. The result of trivializing sin is to minimize God’s grace. God’s grace isn’t so amazing if sin isn’t so serious. James doesn’t make that mistake. Neither should his readers.
What About That Verse?
Our discussion had enjoyed the meaty part of the fish. Now it was time to pick at the bone (v. 5).
The short version is that either translation (NIV 1984 or NIV 2011) gives a legitimate and accurate translation of James 4:5. (For a half-page summary of additional translations, see “James 4:5b Transliteration and Translations.” References to NIV 1984/2011 can be compared to this extended list for further variations. For an eight-page exposition, see “Translating James 4:5.”)
The first question about the verse is the Scripture reference. Usually, citations to the Old Testament help clarify the New Testament quotation. But this reference to “the Scripture” (ἡ γραφὴ, hē graphē) has no recognizable canonical or apocryphal source.[9] Some scholars suggest James quotes a midrash (a Jewish commentary on Scripture) or even an “unknown version of the OT,”[10] but those suggestions are speculation. So translators are left with the vocabulary and the grammar as guides.
The complication for v. 5 is that the grammar and vocabulary can be translated either as some form of the following:
-
- the spirit…envies (NIV 1984, etc.)
OR - He (God)…longs for the [human] spirit (NIV 2011, etc.)
- the spirit…envies (NIV 1984, etc.)
The remaining resource for deciding the intent of the phrase is the context.
Our sense of the thread of James’s thinking is his emphasis (noted above) of the unfaithfulness amounting to adultery and the cumulative evidence or our dependence on God’s grace. How does verse 5 fit into that flow?
Once again, a case can be made (and has been made by respected scholars) for either alternative. Someone in our group pointed out that adulterous people were the objects of God’s jealousy as suggested by NIV 2011. On the other hand, the envy inherent in our fallen human spirit is the immediate cause of flirtation with the world (NIV 1984).
We inclined to the NIV 1984 translation. The consistent focus in the passage is on the adulterous response to God expressed by sin and double-mindedness. Our inward “intense envy” provides the internal dimension to that outward behavior.
Beating on the Bible
Back to one of the first questions we raised, “What do we do with differences in translations?” One comment paraphrased Martin Luther, “We beat importunately on the verse to see what it means!”[11] Different translations offer differing perspectives to help our understanding. (For another brief discussion of the topic, see “Trusting Translations.”)
In the case of James 4:5, even what first appeared as a significant difference does not materially affect the meaning of the passage. Interpretation is not about isolated verses. Good, accurate inductive interpretation is about the writer’s intention revealed in the context.
Whether James points out God’s justified jealousy or our self-obsessed envy, he makes his point. We tend to be faithless to our faithful God, but as we humbly depend on Him to change our hearts, He gives more grace. As interesting as the exploration and discussion was about James 4:5, our enduring emphasis must be on drawing near to God as James describes in verses 7-10:
Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.
May we continue to rest in Him as He gives more grace.
[1] Douglas Moo, The Letter of James (Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company. 2000), 188.
[2] Dr. Oswald Smith, quoted in James F. Nyquist, Leading Bible Discussions (Chicago: Inter-Varsity Press, 1968), 29.
[3] Douglas Moo, The Letter of James (Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company. 2000), 190.
[4] C. S. Lewis, “The Inner Ring,” in The Weight of Glory And Other Addresses (New York: HarperCollins, 2009). Kindle Edition, location 1423, page 152.
[5] https://sovereigngracemusic.com/music/songs/grace-greater-than-all-our-sin/
[6] William Langland, The Vision of Piers Plowman (www.digireads.com, 2013);
paraphrased by Madeline l.Engle, A Live Coal in the Sea (New York: Open Road Integrated Media, 2017), 176.
[7] https://www.billmounce.com/greek-dictionary/megas
[8] C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis Signature Classics (New York: HarperCollins Publishers Inc., 2021) Kindle Edition, location 840, 858, page 56, 57.
[9] Douglas Moo, The Letter of James (Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company. 2000), 190.
[10] Peter H. Davids, The Epistle of James, The New International Greek Testament Commentary (NIGTC) (Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1982),
[11] Quoted by John Piper, The Legacy of Sovereign Joy (Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway Books, 2000), 91;
also http://www.desiringgod.org/biographies/martin-luther-lessons-from-his-life-and-labor