James 3:13-4:3, 7-8a Commentary

I recently conducted a wedding of a dear brother and sister in Christ. Since they weren’t especially fussy about the shape and substance of the wedding service, they largely left its planning to me. That left to me the question of whether to ask the bride to “submit” to her husband.

After all, the order of wedding that the denomination in which I was ordained suggests that brides offer to submit to their husbands as the Church submits to Jesus Christ. I “compromised” by asking the couple to submit to each other. That’s, after all, consistent with Paul’s call in Ephesians 5:21 to “Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.”

In this Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson James doesn’t summon his readers to submit to their husband – or each other. Instead, he invites them to “submit [hypotagete]*” themselves to God [7]. That call is in some ways the key to understanding not just James 3 and 4, but also James’ entire epistle. The attitudes and actions the apostle rejects are evidence of humans’ refusal to subject ourselves to God’s will and purposes. The actions and attitudes the apostle commends are, by contrast, evidence of our Spirit-fueled desire to submit to God.

Preachers might note that James inserts the word that we translate as “then” that suggests verse 7 is somehow linked to what he has written earlier. He’s just reminded Jesus’ friends that “God opposes [antitassetai] the proud [hyperephanois] but shows favor [charin] to the humble [tapeinois].” God, the apostle rejoices, literally gives “grace” to people who are humble.

This, however, is not a reference to God’s grace by which God rescues God’s dearly beloved people from the control of Satan, sin and death. That grace is, after all, not based on our deserving of it. Instead, this “favor” is the kindness and mercy that God shows to humble people who don’t deserve it.

So, it’s as if James is teaching Jesus’ followers to submit to God so that we may be ready to receive all the good things God wants to share with us. After all, as the apostle adds in verse 8, as Christians “come near [engisate] to God,” God promises to “come near [engiei] to” us.

Yet James also suggests that God’s adopted children can only approach God as we flee the evil one. “Resist [antistete] the devil [diabolo],” writes James in verse 7, “and he will flee [phoixetai] from you.” It’s a gracious paradox. As Jesus’ friends respond to the Spirit’s promptings by resisting the evil one, we’re free to subject ourselves to God. What’s more, as we flee from the evil one, we’re not left on our own. Christians, in fact, don’t have to even initiate approaching God. God graciously draws near to us.

The Message lyrically paraphrases verses 7 and 8 as James’ summons to God’s dearly beloved sons and daughters to “Let God work his will in you. Yell a loud no to the Devil and watch him make himself scarce. Say a quiet yes to God and he’ll be there in no time.”

Preachers might let those invitations to rejection and submission serve as a kind of “lens” through which we let the Spirit help us read and interpret the rest of this Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson. According to James 3:13, those who subject ourselves to God show that we’re “wise” [sophos] and “understanding” [epistemon] by living what James calls a “good life” [kales anastrophes] and by “deeds [erga] done in the humility [prauteti] that comes from wisdom [sophias].” No matter how our culture and society define the “good life,” the apostle sees it as a life that’s characterized by humility and wisdom. That is to say, the kind of life of submission to God for which God created us that is marked by humility, mildness and gentleness.

Such a good life has no room for what verse 14 refers to as “bitter [pikron] envy [zelon] and selfish ambition [eritheian]” in our hearts. Wise people cultivate the kind of humility that recognizes that God gifts us with everything that we really need. Yet, adds the apostle, if the Spirit roots such attitudes in our hearts, there’s also no room for “boasting” [katakauchasthe] or “lying” [pseudesthe] about it. Jesus’ followers who demonstrate the wisdom that arises from humility understand that we can be honest with God and each other about our failure to fully submit our whole selves, including our attitudes, to God.

James seems to view envy and selfish ambition, as well as our attempts to cover them up, as evidence of our embrace of rather than flight from the devil. Such “wisdom [sophia],” is only a parody of wisdom. It, after all, according to verse 15, does not “come down [katerchomene] from above [anothen], but is earthly [epigeios], unspiritual [psychike] and demonic [daimoniodes].” The kind of foolishness that The Message calls mean-spirited ambition, boasting and twisting the truth is not inflamed by the Holy Spirit. They are, instead, lit by the fires of hell and the evil one.

Submission to God rather than the devil is, what’s more, characterized by what 17 calls “the wisdom that comes from heaven that is “peace-loving [eirenike], considerate [epiekes], submissive [eupeithes], full of mercy [meste eleous] and good fruit [karpon agathon], impartial [adikritos] and sincere [anypokritos].” While that list of characteristics is long and varied, it does have some commonalities. It suggests that submission to God does include submissiveness [eupeithes] to others. The Greek suggests overtones of gentleness to this submission. What’s more, the characteristics of godly wisdom build up rather than tear down community. They see the other as an image-bearer of God who is deeply beloved by God. So, Christians’ basic posture toward others, says James, is one of gentleness and kindness.

On top of all that, the apostle adds that the wisdom that is submission to God and others works not for strife, but for peace and reconciliation. As he writes in verse 18, “Peacemakers [tois poiousin eirenen] who sow [speretai] in peace [eirene] reap a harvest [karpos] of righteousness [dikaiosynes].” Whatever else to which “a harvest of righteousness” might refer, it at least suggests that peace-making can beget peace, consideration, consideration, mercy, mercy, and so forth.

That “harvest, writes James in 4:1, stands in stark contrast to that which our “desires [hedonon] that battle [strateuomenon] within” us reaps. Such warring longings produce not the peace to which James refers twice in verse 18, but the casualties that are “disputes [polemoi] and quarrels [machai].”

Those casualties are both literal and figurative. “You desire [epithymeite] but do not have,” James mourns in 4:2, “so you kill [phoneuete]. You covet [zeloute] what you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel [machesthe] and fight [polemeite].” Christians’ refusal to submit to God’s generosity produces a lust for what we don’t yet have. That, in turn, harvests not just literal murder, but also the quarreling and fighting that so quickly escalate into it.

In fact, the apostle goes on to insist God’s adopted sons and daughters don’t necessarily lack things because we don’t submit to God, but because we don’t even bother to “ask [aitete] God” for them in the first place [3]. Instead of trusting God to generously provide what we need, we “clam up,” perhaps because the evil one has convinced us that we don’t need God to give us that for what we long.

And even when Christians do ask God, we don’t, according to verse 3 “receive [lambanete],” because we ask “with wrong motives [kakos] because we want to “spend [dapanesete] on” our “pleasures [hedonais].” Failure to submit to God leads to disordered longings and connections, as well as squandered gifts. Collaboration with the evil one rather than God harms people, relationships, communities and the world. Submission to God, by contrast, transforms not just individuals, but also the whole creation.

*I have here and elsewhere added in brackets the Greek words for the English words the NIV translation

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Donald Frame translated the French political philosopher Michel de Montaigne’s essays in a book entitled, The Complete Essays of Montaigne. In it he cited several examples of how Montaigne showed that people who have been conquered and are at the mercy of their conquerors may sometimes soften the hearts of the victors by submission, supplication, tears, entreaties, etc.

However, the philosopher, remarkably, also demonstrated how people sometimes achieve the same end by fighting valiantly on, 3 against 100, or so. The victors may be moved as much or more by such valor and courage as they would have been, or were, by submission and tears. Montaigne wonders if men, especially, respond more to the latter.

While Montaigne wrote about submission to conquerors, preachers might ask if we can glean anything from his writings about submission to God, particularly in the light of Jesus’ parable about the abused widow and unjust judge.