<p>4:4<em> You adulteresses, do you not know that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? Therefore, whoever would be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God</em>-As the reference to killing in v.2 looks back to 2:11 in the sense of killing your brother by not loving him, so the command in the Old Covenant not to commit adultery mentioned in 2:11 is here interpreted as meaning not having friendship with the world. James' reasoning seems to be based (yet again) in the sermon on the mount- this time in the passage about not being able to serve two masters, which results in loving the one and hating the other (Mt. 6:24). James is putting things in black and white terms again. By their prayers being based on the human desires of their heart they were loving the world and thereby hating God. &quot;The world&quot; is therefore primarily our evil desires- the world is in our heart (Ecc. 3:11,12), and &quot;The lust of the eyes&quot; etc. is &quot;All that is in the world&quot;. The language of adultery invites us to interpret being a &quot;friend&quot; of the world in a sexual context, or to see that mere friendship with the world is of the same intensity as intercourse with it, in God's sight. Serving mammon (the world) in the two masters parable is due to taking thought for human possessions (Mt. 6:25)- i.e. the service of mammon is a mental condition in the heart rather than just physically spending time pursuing these things. This is exactly the context here in James.</p><p>&quot;Friendship&quot; (Greek <em>philia</em>) is a gentle word, even implying 'fondness'. Being a friend of the world means that, in the light of the two masters parable, they were not being a friend of God. This maybe connects with 2:23, which calls Abraham a friend of God because of his faith and works based on the word of promise taking hold of his heart. Their friendship or sympathy to the world and its desires which were in their heart meant that they had no real faith because the word was not truly influencing their thinking. This friendship with the world is &quot;enmity with God&quot;. This takes us immediately to Rom. 8:7: &quot;The carnal mind is enmity against God&quot;, thus again connecting the love of the world with the unregenerated mind. James is pounding away about the importance of the mind, and therefore of our attitude to the word which influences it. This enmity is further defined in Eph. 2:15,16: &quot;Having abolished in His (Christ's) flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments... for to make in himself one new man... that He might reconcile both unto God by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby&quot;. The phrase &quot;<em>the</em> enmity&quot; implies that this is the same enmity as referred to elsewhere, namely in Rom. 8:7. The carnal mind allowed itself to be stimulated by the Law- not that the Law encouraged sin, but man's response to it encouraged carnal thinking, e.g. in the form of self righteousness. This again hints that their &quot;friendship of the world&quot; was justified by their misquoting of the Law. &quot;The world&quot; which they were so sympathetic towards (so &quot;friendship&quot; implies) may even refer to the Jewish world, both in its doctrine and its materialistic, pleasure-seeking attitude to life.</p>