When The Bible Interrupts

The Tanakh (Hebrew Old Testament) starting using verse divisions in the 15th century. Later, the Archbishop of Canterbury employed chapter divisions in the New Testament. The 1599 Geneva Bible, which predates the King James Bible, was the first Bible to employ both chapter and verse divisions.

As helpful as these verse and chapter delineations are, sometimes they are ill placed and disrupt the message. The break between James chapter 3 and chapter 4 is such a case.

James chapter 3 ends with:

“But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be intreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy. And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace” (James 3:17-18).

James chapter 4 begins with:

“From whence come wars and fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members?” (James 4:1)

Chapter 3 ends with peace and righteousness within the Church body. Chapter 4 immediately begins with what (or rather who) disrupts that peace. Chapter 5 is the resolution to it all. It is impossible to receive the complete message of James without reading all of these chapters.

The Message

“And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace”

What is righteousness? To answer that let’s look how it was originally written. Righteousness was first written as rightwiseness or rightwise (right-wise). Right (God’s way) and wise (God’s wisdom) gives a better contextual representation of the meaning. More to the point, righteousness is whatever is acceptable to God and conforms to His will.

What is the “fruit of righteousness”? The fruit is none other than the manifested qualities of righteousness. These include integrity, virtue and purity of life. These fruits are produced by those who think, feel and act in accordance to God.

All of this; God’s will, God’s way and God’s wisdom, all of this is sown in not just peace, but in those who make peace.

Remember what Jesus said about peace and those who make peace during His Sermon on the Mount.

“Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God” (Matthew 5:9).

Here is where the third chapter of James ends. The message, of course is invaluable. It is also incomplete. Chapter 4 continues on.

“From whence come wars and fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members?” (James 4:1)

We have transitioned from righteousness and peace to lusts and “wars and fightings”.

“Wars” is used, “hyperbolically of private quarrels” (Vines).

“Fightings” are quarrels and contentions, usually in regards to legal or property matters.

“…lusts that war in your members”

The Apostle Paul spoke of the righteous body (self) and its lustful members (limbs) within that body (Romans 7:13-25). James is speaking of the same premise and principle but with the entire body of Christ, (the church), with people as the members of the body.

James further highlights the lustful, sinful “members” or individuals throughout chapter 4. Notice that in almost every verse of the chapter how James is singling out individual members of the Christian body. These are the sinners within the righteous body that create “wars and fightings”.

James 4

2. Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not.

3. Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.

4. Ye adulterers and adulteresses….

7 Submit yourselves therefore to God….

8. …Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded.

10. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord….

11 Speak not evil one of another, brethren…

12 ….who art thou that judgest another?

13 Go to now, ye that say….

14 Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow….

15 For that ye ought to say, If the Lord will….

16 But now ye rejoice in your boastings….

17 Therefore to him that knoweth to do good…..

“If true religion existed among all men, there would be no more war. War always supposes that wrong has been done on one side or the other, and that one party or the other, or both, is indisposed to do right. The spirit of justice, equity, and truth, which the religion of Christ would implant in the human heart, would put an end to war forever” (Albert Barnes).

So let’s get back to the original topic. Sometimes the divisions placed by man in the Bible interrupt the message. Chapter 3 ends with the righteous and peace. Chapter 4 begins with the unrighteous (lustful) and war, or better put, the turmoil they create. Chapter 5 offers the resolution to the war between the righteousness of chapter 3 and the sin(ful) of chapter 4.

James 5

11. “…Behold, we count them happy which endure.”

12. “…but let your yea be yea; and your nay, nay; lest ye fall into condemnation”

16. “…The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.”

20. “Let him know, that he which converteth the sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death, and shall hide a multitude of sins.”

Bill Hitchcock