James 3:14-16 - Shibboleths For Fake Wisdom

There is this story in Judges 12 where there was a bit of civil war in Israel betweeen the Gileadites and the Ephraimites. The Ephraimites had their pride hurt because the Gilieadites fought some bad guys without them, and it turned into a full-out war between these two groups. At one point, the Gileadites had the Ephraimites surrounded and were going to wipe them out when the Ephraimites had the idea of just pretending to be Gilieadites to save their own skin.

So to keep this from happening, the Gileadites came up with an ingenious solution. They would stop everyone and make them say the word “shibboleth.” Apparently, people from Ephraim had a funny accent and couldn’t say the word right, no matter how hard they tried, so it was easy for the people from Gilead to figure out who was faking and wipe them out.

A shibboleth then is something that makes it obvious when someone is faking. In our text tonight, we are going to look at two attitudes that are a shibboleth for false wisdom. What our text is saying is that if these two attitudes exist in someone, then they don’t have spiritual wisdom. You can mark it down, and you can close the case. These two things absolutely don’t go with “wisdom from above.” They are the polar opposites of spiritual wisdom.

Let’s read the all of James 3:13-18 again, but tonight we are just going to be focusing on verses 14-16:

”13 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. 14 But if ye have bitter envying and strife in your hearts, glory not, and lie not against the truth. 15 This wisdom descendeth not from above, but [is] earthly, sensual, devilish. 16 For where envying and strife [is], there [is] confusion and every evil work. 17 But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, [and] easy to be intreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy. 18 And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace.”

Remember: This text is about finding out who is wise or finding out who we should be listening to; not by listening to what they say, but by watching their attitude and their manner of life. In verse 13, we talked about their works and their lifestyle. We talked about how they can’t be a jerk, but they have to be meek.

These next verses make the very strong point that there are two things that absolutely never go with spiritual wisdom: “envy” and “strife”. It repeats these two things twice: “Envy and strife.”

The problem is that it’s kind of hard to understand what James means here without taking a deeper look at these two words, so that is what we are going to do tonight; we are going to do a little word study.

Let’s start with the first word:

Envy

Envy comes from the greek word “Zalos,” which is sometimes translated “zeal,” but most of the time it refers to jealousy or envy.

The dictionary defines envy as:

a feeling of discontented or resentful longing aroused by someone else’s possessions, qualities, or luck.

Envy happens when we look at someone else—we look at what they have, whether it’s their money, their talents, their looks, or their family—and then we look at what we have and we get jealous. We get angry with God because we think it’s unfair.

When I was in college, I had this roommate who was a few years younger than I was. He looked like a model. In fact, he was the spitting image of Ashton Kutcher. He drove a brand new sports car. He sang really well. He wore clothes from Brooks Brothers and Allen Edmunds. He was good at sports. His grandfather was a famous preacher. Because they closed the dorm where I was staying in the middle of the semester, they put me in his room when I was a senior, and he became my room leader.

Man, I got to tell you: That burned me up. I hated that guy. He seemed to have it all. It seemed like God was just stacking it up on his side of the table.

That’s envy. Do you ever feel envy? Do you ever drive through the country club and think, “Why them?” Do you ever see other people going on fancy vacations and think, “Why can’t I do that?”

Listen: If you don’t think preachers get envious, you are wrong. One of the biggest temptations in ministry is to look at some guy pastoring a bigger church who seems to be doing better than you and envying what he has.

And you might think, “Well, that’s not a big deal. That’s human nature.” But the Bible actually makes a very big deal out of envy.

Let’s look at a couple of verses. Turn with me to Romans 13:13:

”Let us walk honestly, as in the day; not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying.”

Notice what the Bible does there. It gives us three groups of sins put together:

• Rioting and drunkenness - That’s the party, drug filled lifestyle.
• Chambering and wantonness - That’s a sexually immoral lifestyle. And then…
• Strife and envying.

What? It’s easy to look down on the party dude, the drunk, the junkie, and the loose lady. That’s easy, but God puts envy in the same category.

Look at another passage with me. Turn to Galatians 5:20-21:

”Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.”

Envy is on the same list as witchcraft and murder. It’s kind of a big deal to God.

Let’s look at the second word:

Strife

This word “strife” is actually pretty rare. It is the Greek word Erithea.

It’s actually a political word. It’s a word that means “running for office or electioneering.”

Thayer’s Lexicon defines it like this:

a courting distinction, a desire to put oneself forward, a partisan and factious spirit which does not disdain low arts; partisanship, factiousness"

Originally, the word meant “spinning for hire,” and then the word came to mean “freelancing.” Finally, it came to talk about self-seeking political ambition.

Most of the time we see this word in the Bible, it’s translated as “contentious,” but it is a selfish contentiousness.

I’m going into all of this because it helps us understand what James is talking about here. It’s not just saying people who fight and are contentious. It’s telling us a bit about why they are contentious. They are contentious because they are ambitious and because they want to win.

Strife is when we start seeing people as competitors rather than co-laborers. Strife comes into our heart when we start to think about winning over others.

So envy and strife—jealousy and competitiveness—is an ugly duo.

Look at our text again:

”13 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. 14 But if ye have bitter envying and strife in your hearts, glory not, and lie not against the truth. 15 This wisdom descendeth not from above, but [is] earthly, sensual, devilish. 16 For where envying and strife [is], there [is] confusion and every evil work.”

These things are shibboleths. These two attitudes NEVER go with spiritual wisdom. They NEVER go with true godliness. If you see them, you run because they are a bad deal.

You might think, “Pastor, you are making an awful big deal about envy,” but envy IS a big deal.

• It was envy that caused Cain to kill Abel.
• It was envy that caused Sarah to send away Hagar.
• It was envy that caused Joseph to be sold into slavery.
• Moses dealt with envy many times and uprisings of Jews were killed because of envy.
• Envy caused Saul to go mad and try to kill David.

And let’s put it where we live: Envy ruins churches. You don’t get far in Acts until you have one group in the church complaining that the other group has it better. In 1 Corinthians, you saw that there was an issue of envy between the rich and the poor, as well as between those who taught and those who didn’t.

Envy still ruins churches. Why does she get the accolades? Why does he get to teach? Why do they get so many blessings when they are hardly faithful to church? Why do they get a new car when we are struggling to get by? Why does there family seem so perfect and we are struggling?

It’s ugly, folks.

Envy ruins families. There are lots and lots of people who can barely stand their brother or their sister because of envy. They were momma’s favorite. They got money and we didn’t. They are too big for their britches.

I know of someone I’m close to who cannot ever speak about his only brother without expressing jealousy and envy. They don’t go to a lot of family get-togethers. It tears the family apart.

Parents can get envious of their children, and children can be envious of their parents. Husbands can be envious of their spouses and vice-versa.

Envy and strife are incredibly destructive forces. They are like a cancer in every relationship where they live. They suck the joy out of life. They cause us to hate those we should love and to be sad when we should be happy.

But the main thing I want you to understand about envy and strife is that they are the polar opposites of how we are supposed to live as Christians. That’s the idea in this text. They don’t go with true spirituality. They are like toothpaste and orange juice, like nuts and gum, or like drinking and driving. They just don’t go together.

So how are we supposed to live? We are going to look at that next Sunday night in James, but let’s look at what another book says about it. Turn to Philippians 2.

”[Phl 2:1-7 KJV] 1 If [there be] therefore any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any bowels and mercies, 2 Fulfil ye my joy, that ye be likeminded, having the same love, [being] of one accord, of one mind. 3 [Let] nothing [be done] through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves. 4 Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others. 5 Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: 6 Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: 7 But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men:”