Devine Scripture

James 4:1

What does James 4:1 mean?

A plain-English look at James 4:1 in WEB alongside six other public-domain English translations, with cross-references and chapter context.

What James 4:1 means

James traces church conflicts back to the inner battlefield of unruly desires. The quarrels among believers are not merely personality clashes or external pressures; they spring from pleasures that wage war within. When desires rule the heart, people grasp for control, recognition, or comfort, and the result is strife. The problem is not desire in itself, but desires unsubmitted to God. Such cravings make peace fragile and fellowship tense. James forces readers to look beneath symptoms to the cause: a divided heart letting appetites, not the Lord, set the agenda. Lasting peace among believers grows where inner passions are brought under God’s rule.

Parallel translations

WEB

World English Bible · 2000

Whence comewars and whence come fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your pleasures that war in your members?

KJV

King James Version · 1611

From whence come wars and fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members?

ASV

American Standard Version · 1901

Whence comewars and whence come fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your pleasures that war in your members?

BBE

Bible in Basic English · 1949

What is the cause of wars and fighting among you? is it not in your desires which are at war in your bodies?

YLT

Young's Literal Translation · 1862

Whence <FI>are<Fi> wars and fightings among you? not thence--out of your passions, that are as soldiers in your members?

DRA

Douay-Rheims (Challoner) · 1752

From whence are wars and contentions among you? Are they not hence, from your concupiscences, which war in your members?

DBY

Darby Bible · 1890

Whence [come] wars and whence fightings among you? [Is it] not thence, — from your pleasures, which war in your members?

Context

This opening question begins a new section confronting worldliness in the church. After urging wise, peaceable living in the previous chapter, James now exposes the source of discord. Verse 1 identifies the root: warring desires within. Verses 2–3 will unpack how those inner cravings fuel violent words and actions, even corrupting prayer. The flow matters: James moves from external conflicts to the interior life, preparing for his strong charge of spiritual adultery and his call to repentance and humility before God.

v.1This passage

v.2Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and covet, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war; ye have not, because ye ask not.

Cross references

Related passages from across Scripture, drawn from the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge.

  • James 3:14

    But if ye have bitter jealousy and faction in your heart, glory not and lie not against the truth.

  • Matthew 15:19

    For out of the heart come forth evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, railings:

  • 1 Peter 1:14

    as children of obedience, not fashioning yourselves according to your former lusts in the time of your ignorance:

  • 1 Timothy 6:4

    he is puffed up, knowing nothing, but doting about questionings and disputes of words, whereof cometh envy, strife, railings, evil surmisings,

  • Romans 7:23

    but I see a different law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity under the law of sin which is in my members.

  • James 4:3

    Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may spend it in your pleasures.

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