Henry Krabbendam - James - World Evangelical Alliance

would display this twin vice. Would some of the readers, or all of the readers?
Would some folk, known to the readers, folk aspiring to the teaching office,
or folk who were in the teaching office already? The preceding context makes
it attractive to think about people who are connected to the teaching office or
who aspire to it. This would fit quite well. The context that follows, however,
addresses the readership in general. This suggests that the indictment is not
only addressed to aspiring teachers, but to the general membership as well. 299
The anti-social existence of lingering resentment and cutting bitterness
among professing Christians, which is fed by envious rivalry and frequently
splinters communities, is hard to deny and may well be much more prevalent
than they are willing to admit (Cheung, 141, with reference to Heb. 12:15-
16). The fact that James’ sentence is conditional appears to underscore this.
Clearly no one is beyond the “fanaticism” (Moo, 1985, 132) of bitter
envy and selfish ambition. When they become the driving force in any setting,
arrogant boasting is or becomes inevitable. Such arrogant boasting by
definition “lies against the truth.” This is to say, it both defies the biblical
truth that wisdom is invariably associated with humility (Moo, 1985, 133),
and paves the way to playing loose and fast with the truth anywhere. In the
words of one commentator, “Attitudes of jealousy and faction are no cause
for boasting ... These are evidences that those who claim to possess wisdom
are only presumptuous, as those who claim to have faith in 2:18. These people
are practically lying or deceiving themselves (cf. 1:24), not living according
to the truth, but against the truth ... Here we may have an implicit
contrast of words with deeds (Cheung, 139).
moral traditions as represented by the Testaments that traced social ills back to jealousy (zelos)
and envy (phtonos). Frankly, I am suspicious of the approach that posits “great” universal
traditions which evidence themselves in both pagan and Christian thinking. It is easy to forget
or overlook that even if pagan thinking willy-nilly hits the nail on the head it always occurs in
the framework of the suppression of God’s truth. Even here the biblical phenomenon of the
complementarity of truth manifests itself. In unbelievers all truth is at the same time untruth
(See Prov. 21:4b, the explanation of this passage in my Sovereignty and Responsibility, 172,
and the further discussion below). If this is helpful for the understanding of this phenomenon,
in this regard they are the mirror image of Satan in whom every truth is always simultaneously
a lie. Especially Christian scholarship would do well to remember this, and consequently
respond to his “children” as Jesus responded to their “father” in Matthew 4. He earmarked
even Satan’s biblical quotations as murderous lies. If he had fallen for these lies, salvation
would have turned into wishful thinking. Similarly it would be a pipedream for Christian
scholars naively to endorse Satan’s “truth” one-dimensionally. Sooner or later it will turn
into a quagmire that swallows them up and a nightmare from which they should, but never
may, wake up!
299 So also Brosend, 102, but he applies it specifically to both “the double-minded person already
met in James 1:8, whose instability matches the ‘disorder’ of James 3:16, and those
showing favoritism (diakrino) to the ‘rich’ in James 2:1-4, an attitude whose opposite (adiakritos)
is among the virtues in those who have the wisdom from above (in James 3:17).”
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