Warning Against Worldly Indulgences: Part 5 - James 4:4

Warning Against Worldly Indulgences: Part 5 - James 4:4
Written by LaRosa Johnson
Wednesday, 21 May 2008

Last time we spent our entire study looking at the implications and importance of a single word. In that study, we got a full understanding of what it means to commit adultery and the reason why James chose to call his readers "adulteresses" as opposed to something else. Today, we are going to continue and conclude our look at verse 4, picking things up right where we left off. So, let us once again prepare ourselves for the study of the Word and crack open our Bibles to James 4:4.

Quote :

James 4:4 (NASB) - You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.

Carrying with us our understanding of what it means to be an adulteress from our previous study, we can now adequately take a look at the remainder of this passage, having a full appreciation for the message that James is trying to convey. As a point of reiteration, we take notice that James is once again using a rhetorical question immediately followed by its answer to get his point across. This time around his question is, "do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God?" This is followed by, not so much as an answer, but a turning of the question into a statement of truth when he says, "whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God." Since this question-answer combination basically states the same thing, the focus of our study will be geared towards coming to an understanding of: 1) what it means to be a friend of this world, and 2) what it means to make yourself an enemy of God.

So, what does it mean to be a friend of the world? That's a good question, and to start answering such a question, it would be wise to go to the Greek and find out exactly what we're dealing with. In this instance, we have the words "friendship" and "friend," which are both related in the Greek. Our word for "friend" is the word philos (Strong's #G5384), which is translated as "friend(s)" in the New American Standard Bible; this word can denote being "loved, dear, or friendly." In many instances, this word references a genuine friendship or relationship, such as Jesus' relationship with Jewish outcasts (Matthew 11:19) or Abraham's being called the friend of God because of his belief (James 2:23). The word for "friendship" comes from the same word as "friend," but only occurs this one time in New Testament Scripture; it is the Greek word philia (Strong's #G5373) and carries with it the idea of "loving as well as being loved." When you join this together and compare it with the verb form (phileo - Strong's #G5368) found in John 15:19, we can get a very clear picture of what James is describing in terms of being friends with this world. The idea that James is trying to convey is that there is a deep love and affection for the world and its ways, so much so that they literally loved the world and the world loved them back. This cannot be right though, because, if we continue to look at the rest of John 15:19, we see that the world is supposed to hate Christians, not love them; the world only loves its own. Thus, we can conclude that being friends with the world is living in such a manner that there is no distinction left of being a true believer, but you look and live as if you were always a part of the world's system, instead of being redeemed from it. It can also be said that such a strong bond denotes giving service or affection to one system of thinking over another; we see this illustrated clearly in Matthew 6:24, which leads right into our looking at what it means to then become an enemy of God as a result of having a friendship with the world.

Obviously, it is impossible to serve two masters, or even to be friends with two opposing systems of thinking; this is the idea that James wants to get across when he tells us that being a friend with the world is to make yourself an enemy of God. To get the full meaning of this, we want to go to the Greek again and look up the meaning of the words "hostility" and "enemy." Now, these words should be rather obvious, but it can only aid us to see the nuances of the Greek and how it may have an amplified meaning that we may not get from simply understanding the English words. Just like with "friend" and "friendship," we again have a pair of related words. First is "hostility," which is derived from the word for "enemy" and is found to be echthra (Strong's #G2189) in the Greek. Used only six times, it basically means hatred, or the exact opposite of agape love. Then we have our word "enemy" and it is the Greek word echthros (Strong's #G2190). This word is used thirty-two times in the New Testament and means just what it does in English, enemy or adversary. If we look at the New Testament, we can see that there are many different enemies that the believer has to contend against. A few of these enemies would include: Satan (Luke 10:19), death (1 Cor. 15:26), those opposed to Christ (Romans 11:28), and many more. In our instance here, to make yourself a friend of the world, you put yourself into direct opposition to the plan of God, which in turn makes you His enemy. Anything that goes against the perfect plan and will of God is sin, and we all know that God is opposed to sinners and their sins. This is almost akin to espionage and when a spy is discovered and declared to be a traitor; they instantly become the enemy and are no longer friends with the side they claimed to be on. In essence, this is what is happening when a believer turns their face away from the Lord and chooses to partner and become friends with the kosmos system of thinking, which is Satan's system. We become traitors in God's sight when we choose to walk contrary to His ways.

1 John 2:15 sums up our study today very nicely as it reads, "Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him." Quite simply, the person who loves the things of this world and its way of doing things does not have the love of God inside their heart. Instead, it is the person who willingly decides to shun this world and follow after the plan of the Father that truly has the love of God in him. If we profess Christ, then we should be living that out in every aspect of our lives and there should be no question as to what side we are on, like these believers here in James' epistle. It doesn't just end here though, as James continues his rebuke in verse 5, which we will take a look at next time, Lord willing. Until then, be aware of whose team you're on, and if it's Christ's, represent Him well!

devotion courtesy of Trailblazin Ministries
http://www.trailblazinministries.com/daily-devotions/05-21-2008.php