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. What does James have to say about judging others?

3. Why does James tell us not to boast of our control over our own destinies?

^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.

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