The Cause Of War
THE CAUSE OF WAR
JAMES 4:1-4
Are our prayers sometimes selfish?
It is possible that James is not speaking in the first instance about wars in the military sense. He may well be using military imagery to rebuke quarrels among church members. But what he says has relevance to a wider circle than quarrelsome Christians. To an age as eager for peace and as much given to war as ours these words about the root causes of wars come home with forceful relevance. For the fact is that if we promote a warlike spirit it is only to be expected that we will have wars, whether on the grand scale between nations or on the small scale between church members. We must get down to the basic issues.
James is stressing the very important point that the cause of hostility is basically human passion. People desire and covet. And our passions are so strong that we take into our own hands the gratification of our desires. This is the spirit that leads nations to wars and individuals to quarrels. Wherever people or nations act on the assumption that they themselves are the guardians of their own rights and that they are entitled to take whatever steps they consider necessary to safeguard those rights, then enmity is inevitable. The attitude is certain to be met by a similar attitude on the side of the other party. So hostility results and this may well lead to open warfare on a grand or minor scale.
For Christians there is a further reflection that the reason they do not have what they need is that they do not ask (4:2). Prayer is a powerful force. And when some of his readers are prepared to retort that they have prayed, James replies that they have prayed wrongly. They have tried to use prayer for the gratification of those same passions! Instead of renouncing the worldly way, they have thought they could enlist God on their side. Even in what they take to be a proper religious activity they have shown a worldly spirit. They (and we) must learn that the world’s friendship means enmity with God (4:4).
There is a fundamental incompatibility here, and as long as we gloss over it with words, while hanging on to a worldly spirit of self-aggrandizement, we must expect strife.