The Word Made Fresh
1Where do arguments and fights among you arise? Don’t they come from selfish desires fighting within? 2You don’t have something you want, so you murder someone. You covet something and can’t get it, so you argue and fight.
You don’t have because you don’t ask. 3Or you ask but don’t receive because you ask in the wrong way, or you ask just to get something that pleases you. 4You are like adulterers; you want to have friends in the world, but you make God your enemy because that’s the way it is with those who want to be friends of the world. 5Do you think that for no reason the scripture says that God deeply longs for the spirit that he placed within us? 6But God gives us even more grace – the scripture says that God scorns the scornful, but blesses the family of the righteous.
7So, submit to God! Resist the devil and he will run away from you. 8But draw near to God and he will draw near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners! And purify your hearts, you people who want it both ways. 9You should be sad. You should be sorry and weep. So, stop laughing and start crying. 10If you humble yourselves before God, he will lift you up.
11Don’t speak poorly of one another, friends. Whoever says something bad about or judges another is speaking badly about the law and is judging the law. But if you judge the law you are not keeping the law; you are merely judging it. 12There is only one who is the lawgiver and judge who can save or destroy, so who are you to judge your neighbor?
13Really, you who say that today or tomorrow you’ll go here or there and spend a year doing business and making money, 14you have no idea what tomorrow might bring. Your life is just a mist that appears for a while and then disappears. 15Instead, what you should say is that if the Lord wishes, you will go and do this or that. 16Otherwise you’re just arrogantly bragging, and that is wrong. 17Indeed, anyone who knows what is right but fails to do it is a sinner.
Commentary
1-10: He returns to a previous thought; that our ill behavior — including murder, theft, conflict, and adultery – is caused by our own internal desires and cravings. These must be submitted to God’s control with repentance and humility; those are the necessary conditions for God’s favor.
11-12: These verses perhaps shed some light on a similar saying of Jesus (see Matthew 7:1) about judging others. It is the law’s function to judge, not the individual’s. We may accuse, we may testify, but judgment belongs to God through God’s law.
13-16: These verses gave rise to a famous quote from Thomas à Kempis in “Of the Imitation of Christ,” a still widely read devotional classic. À Kempis wrote, “For man proposes, but God disposes.”
17: This verse is a good summary of the chapter.
Takeaway
We should always seek God’s guidance when we try to plan for the future.