James 4:1
From whence come wars and fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members?
Study Note
Study Note
The question 'from whence come wars and fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members?' applies Platonic and Stoic inner-conflict analysis (the passions at war with reason) to the communal conflicts of the congregation. The Greek 'hēdonōn' (pleasures, desires) and 'epithumeō' (crave, desire intensely) are terms from the philosophical tradition of disordered desire (pleonexia) that James deploys within a covenantal framework. The structural argument is that external social violence (wars, fightings, murder, fighting — 4:1-2) originates in internal spiritual disorder (disordered desire, failure to ask God), linking social ethics inseparably to spiritual formation. The passage anticipates Augustine's analysis of the 'libido dominandi' (lust for domination) as the root of all political violence in the City of God.
Other Translations
Whence comewars and whence come fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your pleasures that war in your members?
Whence <FI>are<Fi> wars and fightings among you? not thence--out of your passions, that are as soldiers in your members?
What is the cause of wars and fighting among you? is it not in your desires which are at war in your bodies?
Cross References
But unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect. And Cain was very wroth, and his countenance fell.
And Cain talked with Abel his brother: and it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain …
The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?
For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies:
For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders,
All these evil things come from within, and defile the man.
Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer …
For when we were in the flesh, the motions of sins, which were by the law, did work in our …
But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity …
Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed …