{"id":5662,"date":"2009-06-09T13:41:11","date_gmt":"2009-06-09T18:41:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/community\/jesuscreed\/2009\/06\/09\/a-brothers-wisdom-66\/"},"modified":"2009-06-09T13:41:11","modified_gmt":"2009-06-09T18:41:11","slug":"a-brothers-wisdom-66","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2009\/06\/09\/a-brothers-wisdom-66\/","title":{"rendered":"A Brother&#8217;s Wisdom 66"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><p><span class=\"mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"JesusJames*.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jesuscreed\/imgs\/JesusJames%2A.jpg\" class=\"mt-image-right\" style=\"margin: 0pt 0pt 20px 20px;float: right\" height=\"291\" width=\"343\"><\/span>The following words, however clear they might be in an English translation like the TNIV, are much disputed:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Or do you think Scripture says without reason that the spirit he caused<br>\nto live in us envies intensely? But he gives us more grace. That is why<br>\nScripture says: <br>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u201cGod opposes the proud <br>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0but gives grace to the humble.\u201d<sup><br><\/sup><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I clip this from my forthcoming commentary on James, which sums up a lengthy discussion: <\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf we put this together, then, we have this: the subject of the verb is most likely \u201cthe spirit\u201d; that word most likely refers to human spirit given by God to use to be used for God\u2019s glory.\u00a0 Therefore, we have a sentence that literally reads like this so far: \u201cthe spirit that God caused to dwell in us yearns toward jealousy.\u201d Now we can be more specific: the leaders were using God\u2019s bestowal of the spirit \u2013 not for God\u2019s glory \u2013 but for their own glory; they were letting the spirit of envy rule their hearts.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><br>\nAnd this whole jealousy thing: \u201cThe distinctive and decisive problems with the divine jealousy reading of 4:5 are two: first, though it is possible that James simply alludes to a text when he says \u201cscripture\u201d in verse five, the evidence uniformly supports the view that James means a specific text in Scripture. This is simply not the case with the view that James is alluding to the theme of divine jealousy. The word \u201cscripture\u201d leads us to look for a cited text and we find that, albeit delayed for the moment, in 4:6. (We argue below that 4:5b-6a is a paraphrase of the text cited in 4:6b.) <\/p>\n<p>Second, and in our view decisive, is that the expression \u201cyearns with jealousy\u201d uses a term, the Greek word <i>phthonos<\/i>, that is uniformly negative and never used of God.\u00a0 it is nearly impossible to think of God yearning \u201cwith jealousy\u201d (<i>pros phthonon<\/i>). Furthermore, the expression itself fits admirably with the theme of human envy on the part of the teachers in 3:13-18 and 4:1-3. Thus, the scripture reference to which James refers is found in James 4:6 (Prov 3:34) and the point James makes before he gets to that citation is what is needed for James to get to that point: the teachers have within them a divinely-planted spirit that (un)naturally craves for envy and the good news is that God is there to supplant those cravings with his grace.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The following words, however clear they might be in an English translation like the TNIV, are much disputed: Or do you think Scripture says without reason that the spirit he caused to live in us envies intensely? But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says: \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u201cGod opposes the proud \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0but gives grace [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":197,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1777],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5662","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-james"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>A Brother&#039;s Wisdom 66<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The following words, however clear they might be in an English translation like the TNIV, are much disputed:Or do you think Scripture says without reason\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2009\/06\/09\/a-brothers-wisdom-66\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A Brother&#039;s Wisdom 66\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The following words, however clear they might be in an English translation like the TNIV, are much disputed:Or do you think Scripture says without reason\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2009\/06\/09\/a-brothers-wisdom-66\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Jesus Creed\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-06-09T18:41:11+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jesuscreed\/imgs\/JesusJames%2A.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Scot McKnight\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Scot McKnight\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2009\/06\/09\/a-brothers-wisdom-66\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2009\/06\/09\/a-brothers-wisdom-66\/\",\"name\":\"A Brother's Wisdom 66\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2009-06-09T18:41:11+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2009-06-09T18:41:11+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/5919e847c58ffe6efb5899fb61797252\"},\"description\":\"The following words, however clear they might be in an English translation like the TNIV, are much disputed:Or do you think Scripture says without reason\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2009\/06\/09\/a-brothers-wisdom-66\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2009\/06\/09\/a-brothers-wisdom-66\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2009\/06\/09\/a-brothers-wisdom-66\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"A Brother&#8217;s Wisdom 66\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/\",\"name\":\"Jesus Creed\",\"description\":\"Scot McKnight on Jesus and orthodox faith in the 21st century\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/5919e847c58ffe6efb5899fb61797252\",\"name\":\"Scot McKnight\",\"description\":\"Scot McKnight is a recognized authority on the New Testament, early Christianity, and the historical Jesus. 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