Read & explore together
A Warning against Pride
James 4:1-6 warns that quarrels do not begin only outside people. James points to pleasures, motives, friendship with the world, and pride, then ends with the hope that God gives grace to the humble.
Understanding the passage
The setting of these words
This passage is direct teaching in a letter. James asks searching questions and gives strong warnings to people facing fights among themselves. He connects outward conflict with inward pleasures, then contrasts worldly friendship and pride with God’s jealousy, grace, and favour toward the humble.
James 4:1–6Main takeaway
James teaches that self-seeking desires and pride lead people into conflict with others and hostility toward God, yet God gives grace to the humble.
Follow the letter’s teaching
Open a card to explore the full explanation and its Bible references.
01Conflicts begin with inner pleasuresJames opens by asking where wars and fightings among them come from. He answers that they come from pleasures warring in their members.
Explanation
James opens by asking where wars and fightings among them come from. He answers that they come from pleasures warring in their members. His focus is on an inward battle. The conflicts among them are connected to desires already at work within them.
02Desire turns into grasping conflictJames describes wanting without having. He names lust, murder, coveting, fighting, and making war.
Explanation
James describes wanting without having. He names lust, murder, coveting, fighting, and making war. The verse does not explain further how each term is being used, but it clearly shows serious disorder. James also says they do not have because they do not ask, exposing a lack of dependence on God.
03Wrong motives affect prayerJames goes further than saying they fail to ask. Some do ask, yet do not receive, because they ask with wrong motives.
Explanation
James goes further than saying they fail to ask. Some do ask, yet do not receive, because they ask with wrong motives. Their aim is to spend what they seek on their pleasures. James is not discussing prayer in general here, but the motive driving these requests.
04Friendship with the world opposes GodJames addresses them with severe language, calling them adulterers and adulteresses. He says friendship with the world is hostility toward God.
Explanation
James addresses them with severe language, calling them adulterers and adulteresses. He says friendship with the world is hostility toward God. In this passage, wanting friendship with the world places a person against God. James presents these loyalties as opposed to each other.
05God gives grace to the humbleJames speaks of the Spirit who lives in us as yearning jealously, then turns to hope. God gives more grace.
Questions to explore
Pause, look back at the verses and talk together.
01According to James, where do fights among them begin?
Look for the source James names in the person, where pleasures are described as warring in their members.
02What does James say people are doing in verse 2, and what are they failing to do?
Notice both the serious actions he lists, including murder, and his statement that they do not have because they do not ask.
03What contrast does James make in verse 6?
Watch for the different way God responds to the proud and to the humble.
Read the Bible passage
World English Bible ClassicScripture quotation · Public domain
James 4:1–6
1Where do wars and fightings among you come from? Don’t they come from your pleasures that war in your members?
2You lust, and don’t have. You murder and covet, and can’t obtain. You fight and make war. You don’t have, because you don’t ask.
3You ask, and don’t receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures.
4You adulterers and adulteresses, don’t you know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.
5Or do you think that the Scripture says in vain, “The Spirit who lives in us yearns jealously”?
6But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”