As you read this chapter of James keep the following questions in mind. You may even wish to write the questions down on a separate piece of paper before you begin. Allow yourself several lines between each question. When you have finished reading the chapter devote several minutes to your answers. Click on a question to get our interpretation.

2. Why is faith important?

3. From where does temptation come?

^4:1Where do wars and fightings among you come from? Don't they come from your pleasures that war in your members? ^4:2You lust, and don't have. You kill, covet, and can't obtain. You fight and make war. You don't have, because you don't ask. ^4:3You ask, and don't receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it for your pleasures. ^4:4You adulterers and adulteresses, don't you know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. ^4:5Or do you think that the Scripture says in vain, "The Spirit who lives in us yearns jealously"? ^4:6But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, "God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble." ^4:7Be subject therefore to God. But resist the devil, and he will flee from you. ^4:8Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded. ^4:9Lament, mourn, and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to gloom. ^4:10Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he will exalt you.

^4:11Don't speak against one another, brothers. He who speaks against a brother and judges his brother, speaks against the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law, but a judge. ^4:12Only one is the lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy. But who are you to judge another?

^4:13Come now, you who say, "Today or tomorrow let's go into this city, and spend a year there, trade, and make a profit." ^4:14Whereas you don't know what your life will be like tomorrow. For what is your life? For you are a vapor, that appears for a little time, and then vanishes away. ^4:15For you ought to say, "If the Lord wills, we will both live, and do this or that." ^4:16But now you glory in your boasting. All such boasting is evil. ^4:17To him therefore who knows to do good, and doesn't do it, to him it is sin.