Commentary on James 3:13—4:3, 7-8a

Earlier in chapter 3, the author of James shocked readers with the hazards of the tongue. The tongue is dangerous and untamable, analogically inconsistent with the laws of nature in that it can produce conflicting substances—both good, productive speech, or blessings, and bad, evil speech, or curses (3:1–12). James warns those who would teach others to be cautious because they participate in the moral life of those who follow them, inevitably reaping the consequences of their influence (3:1). 

Despite the strong rhetoric about the fiery tongue, itself set ablaze by Gehenna (a place of punishment) and spreading into large forest fires, the author initially appears to offer little in the way of methods for taming the tongue’s wildness. The latter half of chapter 3, our present passage, provides a way forward. 

If the tongue and its potential for inconsistency goes against the laws of nature, the solution is wisdom, which is characterized by deep inward consistency of character. Can a fig tree yield olives? No! Can a grapevine yield figs? Of course not! Neither can saltwater yield fresh water (3:12). So, too, does one’s outward character evidence one’s inner being: “Show by your good life that your works are done with gentleness born of wisdom” (3:13). 

But—not so fast. According to James, there are two kinds of wisdom: that which comes from below, and that which comes from above. Wisdom from below is characterized by bitterness, envy, selfishness, boasting, falseness (3:14–15). This sort of so-called wisdom is “earthly, unspiritual [psychiké, physical], devilish,” because selfishness cannot help but lead to disorder (3:16). This follows from the first chapter of James as well, in which readers are instructed to ask for wisdom to overcome doubt. 

Those who are dipsychos, literally double-souled or double-selved, are easily tossed around, lacking in stability (1:5–8). That is, those who exhibit characteristics belonging to this lower “wisdom” lack substantiality, integrity, gravity. Even conflicts and disputes within community are the result of individual selfish appetites brought on by vapidity and half-heartedness. In this sense, disputes and conflicts are a sign of instability or inconsistency. Inner conflict—“cravings that are at war within you”—leads to outer conflict (3:18).

The concern with consistency and substantiality is extensive throughout both the Old and New Testaments. First Peter, for example, is also concerned with things that last. The “living hope” of 1 Peter is an inheritance “imperishable, undefiled, and unfading,” in contrast to the temporary reality of hardship, which, just as fire refines and purifies gold, reveals one’s internal essence (1:3–7). 

Where James refers to the wealthy who will pass away “like a flower in the field,” since “the sun rises with its scorching heat and withers the field; its flower falls, and its beauty perishes” (James 1:11), 1 Peter more directly cites the same tradition from Isaiah: “all flesh is like grass, and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord endures forever” (1 Peter 1:24–25; Isaiah 40:6–8). Like the Letter of James’ focus on consistency and endurance, 1 Peter emphasizes the contrast between what is solid and therefore lasting, and what is unstable and therefore temporary. 

A few texts from the Hebrew Bible are also instructive in providing context for the approach to wisdom and being in the Letter of James. The Teacher of Ecclesiastes, Qohelet, repeatedly draws a stark contrast between the fleeting and the eternal: everything done under the sun is “vanity and a chasing after wind” (Ecclesiastes 1:14; 2:17, 26; 4:4, 16), but “whatever God does endures forever” (3:14). The literal meaning here is hevel, vapor, chasing after rūah, breath. In contrast, “breath [rūah] will return to God who gave it” (12:7). 

In the end, in other words, everything will be revealed as what it really is—something, or nothing at all. Whatever belongs to the realm of God is eternal; whatever does not is literally a non-thing. The same sort of ethic applies throughout James: true things are solid things. Conversely, false things (or people) are frail things. Job mourns the fragility of his life and well-being as “but a breath” (7:7, rūah; 7:16, hevel). The psalmist, like James, refers to the vanity—the worthlessness—of riches (Psalm 39:6). 

The same terminology used by Qohelet, Job, and the psalmist—vapor or emptiness to characterize fleeting nature—is also commonly applied to idols, false gods, and false prophecy. Israel “followed idols [hevel] and became idolaters,” often translated as they “followed vanity and became vain” (see also 2 Kings 17:15; Jeremiah 2:5). We are talking, then, about far more than “vanity” understood as being preoccupied with aesthetics, or how things look. Rather, hevel is emptiness, nothingness, inevitably fleeting. Be warned: you become like what you worship. 

So, according to James, how does one become a person of solid substance, instead of a person of insubstantial vanity? For one thing, “resist the devil and he will flee from you; draw near to God and God will draw near to you” (4:7–8a). Proximity matters. Additionally, the author circles back to the first chapter, in which readers are told how to gain wisdom: namely, if you lack wisdom, ask God, who “gives generously to all who ask” (1:5). Here, “you do not have because you do not ask,” whether wisdom or anything else (4:2–3). 

The features of lasting wisdom are purity, peacefulness, gentleness, humility, mercifulness, action, impartiality, and integrity. And “a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace for those who make peace” (3:18). You reap what you sow.