James 4:1-10 ESV

(1) What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your
passions are at war within you?
(2) You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you
fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask.
(3) You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.

G2237 - passions
ηδονη hē donē hay-don-ay'
From ανδανω handanō (to please); sensual delight; by implication desire: - lust, pleasure.

Why do Christians fight and quarrel? James locks in on the passions at work within
us. The Greek word is hedone – from which we get our word “hedonistic” or pleasure
seeking. We tend to think of hedonism as life in the big city, clubbing and sleeping
around. James uses this term to attack the inner passions of coveting and hatred.
All of us have needs – whether physical, emotional or spiritual. Instead of going to
God in prayer for our needs – we expect other people to fill them. When others fail – and
they will – we attack them.

Prayer is the right approach to this problem. “Don’t argue. Don’t fight. Pray.” James
says, “You do not have because you do not ask.” Instead of taking these things to the
Lord in prayer, we try to get what we want by our own efforts. If we want something
which we do not have, we should ask God for it. If we do ask, and the prayer is
unanswered, what then? It simply means that our motives were not pure. We did not want
these possessions for the glory of God or for the good of our fellow men. We wanted
them for our own selfish enjoyment. We wanted them to satisfy our natural appetites.
God does not promise to answer such prayers.
What a profound lesson in psychology we have in these first three verses! If men
were content with what God has given them, what staggering conflict and unrest would
be avoided! If we loved our neighbors as ourselves, and were more interested in sharing
than in acquiring, what peace would result! If we would follow the Savior’s command to
forsake all instead of to accumulate, to lay up treasures in heaven rather than on earth,
what contentions would cease!
Believer's Bible Commentary

Another important point is this – quit making excuses for unanswered prayers! When
you ask and don’t receive, stop and take a look at your motives. James already addressed
double-mindedness in the first chapter. Find out what is amiss and correct it!

(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.
(5) Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, "He yearns jealously
over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us"?
(6) But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, "God opposes the proud, but gives
grace to the humble."
(7) Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
 In this inner war, we must address our own issues of pride and friendship with the
world. This isn’t a battle we must fight alone however, God gives us grace to fight.
Submitting ourselves to God is not an act of weakness but rather faith in the right source
of strength. Remember David and Goliath? In the natural, we would look at young
David compared to the giant and say “poor David, he doesn’t have a chance”. But when
we see David come forth and boldly declare:

1Sa 17:42-47 ESV

(42) And when the Philistine looked and saw David, he disdained him, for he was but a
youth, ruddy and handsome in appearance.
(43) And the Philistine said to David, "Am I a dog, that you come to me with sticks?" And
the Philistine cursed David by his gods.
(44) The Philistine said to David, "Come to me, and I will give your flesh to the birds of
the air and to the beasts of the field."
(45) Then David said to the Philistine, "You come to me with a sword and with a spear
and with a javelin, but I come to you in the name of the LORD of hosts, the God of
the armies of Israel, whom you have defied.
(46) This day the LORD will deliver you into my hand, and I will strike you down and cut
off your head. And I will give the dead bodies of the host of the Philistines this day to
the birds of the air and to the wild beasts of the earth, that all the earth may know
that there is a God in Israel,
(47) and that all this assembly may know that the LORD saves not with sword and
spear. For the battle is the LORD's, and he will give you into our hand."

Now we look at the situation and say “poor Goliath, he never had a chance!”
Submission to God gives you the strength to resist the devil.

(8) Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners,
and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
(9) Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and
your joy to gloom.
(10) Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.

James ends this section with a call to repentance. Get rid of the pride and the pleasure
seeking and the hatred in your hearts. Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.
Get in right relationship with God and He will exalt you!
James 4:11-17 ESV
(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.
(12) There is only one lawgiver and judge, he who is able to save and to destroy. But
who are you to judge your neighbor?
(13) Come now, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town
and spend a year there and trade and make a profit"--
(14) yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist
that appears for a little time and then vanishes.
(15) Instead you ought to say, "If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that."
(16) As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil.
(17) So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.

In this section of scripture, James is giving us a torah lesson. Speaking evil or “lashon
hora” is a big sin among torah observant Jews. It should be a big sin among Christians!

G2635 – speak evil

καταλαλεω
katalaleō ; from G2637; to speak evil of: - slander (1), slandered (1), speak against (1), speaks
against (2).

He that speaketh evil of his brother - It was an avowed and very general maxim
among the rabbins, that “no one could speak evil of his brother without denying God,
and becoming an atheist.” They consider detraction (the act of disparaging or belittling
the reputation or worth of a person, work, etc.) as the devil’s crime originally: he
calumniated (to make false and malicious statements about; slander.) God Almighty in
the words, “He doth know that in the day in which ye eat of it, your eyes shall be opened,
and ye shall be like God, knowing good and evil;” and therefore insinuated that it was
through envy God had prohibited the tree of knowledge.
Clarke

Leviticus 19:16 ESV

(16) You shall not go around as a slanderer among your people, and you shall not stand
up against the life of your neighbor: I am the LORD.

Ephesians 4:31 ESV

(31) Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from
you, along with all malice.

1 Peter 2:1 ESV

(1) So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander.

Lashon Hora

The prohibition against speaking Lashon Hara is so severe, that the Torah
prohibited it even if the information is true and in any other case. It also doesn't
help if the speaker is careful to speak about the subject secretly and takes care
that the subject never hears about it, for that is also forbidden. In fact, as a result
of such action the speaker also receives the curse (Deut. 27:24): "Cursed be the
one who strikes his brother in secret."

Even if the speaker determines that he would say the same thing in front of the
speaker, or even if h actually speaks Lashon Hara about someone to their face,
he violates the prohibition against Lashon Hara. In some ways the violation is
worse when in front of the subject rather than behind his back, because when
said to the subject's face, in addition to the prohibition of L"H, the speaker also
"adorns" himself with the traits of arrogance and audacity. The speaker will incur
more negative judgments as a result, and in some cases causes the
embarrassment of the subject, which, as we elaborated on in the introduction, is
a violation of (Lev. 19:17) "You shall not bear sin because of him."
[url=http://www.torah.org/learning/halashon/chapter3.html]Reference[/url]

7. The Commandment to Judge Favorably

It is important to know another fundamental concept within the subject of Lashon

Hara.

If one sees a person what said or did something, whether something Bein Adam
L'Makom (between man and G-d) or Bein Adam L'chaveiro (between man and
fellow man), and it's possible to judge the speech or action favorably and give the
benefit of the doubt, if the person is a "yirei Elokim" (sincerely G-d fearing
individual), we are obligated to judge him favorably even if the action in question
is more logically interpreted negatively. (op cit)

3. How to react to someone who commits a misdeed

If the sinner is a "beinoni" (an average person), a typical person within the
community, such that his way to to be careful not to sin, and he falters and sins
only occasionally, and it's possible to assume that he committed this sin without
intending to, or he didn't know that the action was forbidden, or he thought it was
an optional stringency only kept by very pious individuals, then even if the
witness saw the sinner commit this misdeed several times, the witness certainly
should assume that one of these possibilities is indeed the reality.

It would be forbidden to reveal this information about this "beinoni", so that he

shouldn't be disgraced in the eyes of his people; even disgracing him in his own
eyes would be forbidden. It is also forbidden to hate him on the basis of what was
witnessed, for the witness must judge him favorably, as this is the fulfillment of
the positive commandment (Lev. 19:15), "Judge your fellow people righteously,"
according to several halachic authorities.
I want you to see something very important here – evil speaking brings a curse.
We all know that curses block the blessing of God so we would do well to pay
attention.

As I was reading through the section on lashon hora I was struck by the care to
not think evil of a brother or to hate him in your heart. What profound respect
you have for another when you would do nothing to embarrass them either in
public or private. Our first thought (and the second and third…) should be in the
person’s favor – giving him the benefit of the doubt.

Remember, lashon hora applies even if what is said is true if the motivation is to
hurt or embarrass the person. Slander – saying something false in order to ruin
someone’s reputation – is an even worse sin.

As Passover season approaches, let us all search out the leaven (sin) in our
hearts and repent. If evil speaking has brought a curse on your life – break it in
the name of Jesus – renounce it and apply the blood of Jesus.