14 But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your heart, don't boast and don't lie against the truth.
For where jealousy and selfish ambition are, there is confusion and every evil deed.
doing nothing through rivalry or through conceit, but in humility, each counting others better than himself;
For I am afraid that by any means, when I come, I might find you not the way I want to, and that I might be found by you as you don't desire; that by any means there would be strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, factions, slander, whisperings, proud thoughts, riots;
Some indeed preach Christ even out of envy and strife, and some also out of good will.
for you are still fleshly. For insofar as there is jealousy, strife, and factions among you, aren't you fleshly, and don't you walk in the ways of men?
Let us walk properly, as in the day; not in reveling and drunkenness, not in sexual promiscuity and lustful acts, and not in strife and jealousy.
But the high priest rose up, and all those who were with him (which is the sect of the Sadducees), and they were filled with jealousy,
You are puffed up, and didn't rather mourn, that he who had done this deed might be removed from among you.
But if you bite and devour one another, be careful that you don't consume one another.
Let's not become conceited, provoking one another, and envying one another.
For even they who receive circumcision don't keep the law themselves, but they desire to have you circumcised, that they may boast in your flesh.
For we were also once foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving various lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, and hating one another.
Where do wars and fightings among you come from? Don't they come from your pleasures that war in your members? You lust, and don't have. You kill, covet, and can't obtain. You fight and make war. You don't have, because you don't ask. You ask, and don't receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it for your pleasures. You adulterers and adulteresses, don't you know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you think that the Scripture says in vain, "The Spirit who lives in us yearns jealously"?
Putting away therefore all wickedness, all deceit, hypocrisies, envies, and all evil speaking, as newborn babes, long for the pure milk of the Word, that you may grow thereby,
They will put you out of the synagogues. Yes, the time comes that whoever kills you will think that he offers service to God.
He said, Come with me, and see my zeal for Yahweh. So they made him ride in his chariot.
But Jehu took no heed to walk in the law of Yahweh, the God of Israel, with all his heart: he didn't depart from the sins of Jeroboam, with which he made Israel to sin.
The life of the body is a heart at peace, But envy rots the bones.
Wrath is cruel, And anger is overwhelming; But who is able to stand before jealousy?
Why do you show me iniquity, and look at perversity? For destruction and violence are before me. There is strife, and contention rises up.
For he knew that because of envy they had delivered him up.
When Rachel saw that she bore Jacob no children, Rachel envied her sister. She said to Jacob, "Give me children, or else I will die." Jacob's anger was kindled against Rachel, and he said, "Am I in God's place, who has withheld from you the fruit of the womb?"
"The patriarchs, moved with jealousy against Joseph, sold him into Egypt. God was with him,
But when the Jews saw the multitudes, they were filled with jealousy, and contradicted the things which were spoken by Paul, and blasphemed.
being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil habits, secret slanderers,
but to those who are self-seeking, and don't obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, will be wrath and indignation,
You who glory in the law, through your disobedience of the law do you dishonor God? For "the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you," just as it is written. For circumcision indeed profits, if you are a doer of the law, but if you are a transgressor of the law, your circumcision has become uncircumcision. If therefore the uncircumcised keep the ordinances of the law, won't his uncircumcision be accounted as circumcision? Won't the uncircumcision which is by nature, if it fulfills the law, judge you, who with the letter and circumcision are a transgressor of the law? For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, neither is that circumcision which is outward in the flesh; but he is a Jew who is one inwardly, and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit not in the letter; whose praise is not from men, but from God.
For who makes you different? And what do you have that you didn't receive? But if you did receive it, why do you boast as if you had not received it? You are already filled. You have already become rich. You have come to reign without us. Yes, and I wish that you did reign, that we also might reign with you.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on James 3
Commentary on James 3 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 3
The apostle here reproves ambition, and an arrogant magisterial tongue; and shows the duty and advantage of bridling it because of its power to do mischief. Those who profess religion ought especially to govern their tongues (v. 1-12). True wisdom makes men meek, and avoiders of strife and envy: and hereby it may easily be distinguished from a wisdom that is earthly and hypocritical (v. 13-18).
Jam 3:1-12
The foregoing chapter shows how unprofitable and dead faith is without works. It is plainly intimated by what this chapter first goes upon that such a faith is, however, apt to make men conceited and magisterial in their tempers and their talk. Those who set up faith in the manner the former chapter condemns are most apt to run into those sins of the tongue which this chapter condemns. And indeed the best need to be cautioned against a dictating, censorious, mischievous use of their tongues. We are therefore taught,
Jam 3:13-18
As the sins before condemned arise from an affectation of being thought more wise than others, and being endued with more knowledge than they, so the apostle in these verses shows the difference between men's pretending to be wise and their being really so, and between the wisdom which is from beneath (from earth or hell) and that which is from above.