Theme: COMMENTARY ON JAMES CHAPTERS 3 - 5
Text: “Who is a wise man and endued with knowledge among you? let him shew out of a good conversation his works with meekness of wisdom.” – James 3:13.
Comment: One who claims to have the accurate knowledge of God must demonstrate what he knows by his action. One who claims to know God but habours bitter envying and strife in his heart, is, to use the words of Apostle James, lying against the truth in that the truth teaches us to practice what we know. Anything short of that is hypocrisy. Jesus Christ our Lord asked the unbelieving Jews in those days, “And why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?” (Luke 6:46) The wisdom that teaches people to claim to be Christians whereas they are still ruled by their carnal desires, the apostle of Christ said, “descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish”. (James 3:15) Two vices that proceed from worldly wisdom, he went on, are envying and strife. Envy is “the resentful or unhappy feeling of wanting somebody else’s success, good fortune, qualities, or possessions” while strife is “bitter and sometimes violent conflict, struggle, or rivalry”. Where people are envious of one another and exhibit such in a violent manner there would certainly be “confusion and every evil work”. (verse 16) What we should cultivate is wisdom that is from above which “is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be intreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy”. – James 3:17.