<p>3:14<i> But if you have bitter jealousy and rivalry in your heart, do not boast about it and deny the truth</i>-<i>&nbsp; </i>The bitter envying in the heart connects with the bitter water of v.11, representing the bitter words of the brethren- again showing that words and heart are effectively identical. &quot;Envying&quot; is the Greek <i>zelos</i> and is the word used to describe zeal for God; it is not the normal word translated &quot;envy&quot;. This envying, as we can imagine from what we know already of these brethren, was justified by them with spiritual reasons; similarly Acts 13:45; 17:5 and 1 Cor. 3:3 describe Jews and believers envying each other for supposedly spiritual reasons. Envying and strife within the ecclesia were a (conscious?) product of the work of the Judaizers and other false teachers amongst the brethren. It may well be that they were envious of others in the ecclesia spiritually, being jealous of the true spirituality possessed by the poorer brethren. However, the &quot;wars and fightings&quot; of James 4 seem to be associated with desiring material possessions (4:2), resulting in evil speaking between brethren (4:11). In this case the envying of chapter 3 could just be envying the possessions of other brethren. Yet the spiritual associations of &quot;envying&quot; ('zealousing') suggest that either this envying of possessions was couched in spiritual terms- e.g. 'You shouldn't have that car (which I envy) because you should show more generosity to the Truth'- or that the envying was of the more spiritual members. The envying and strife was clearly within the ecclesia, from what chapter 4 and other mentions of envying and strife imply (1 Cor. 3:3; Phil. 1:15 etc.). But the root cause of this was because this bitterness and envying was &quot;in your hearts&quot;. Amazingly, these brethren were glorying (boasting, rejoicing) in this: &quot;glory not&quot;. Similarly they rejoiced in their boastings about how they made plans to make business trips without taking account of the working of God's will (4:13-16)- presumably because they thought that as prophets they knew God's will. They were clearly rejoicing in what was wrong and evil, doubtless as a result of taking on board the Judaist-pedalled philosophy that &quot;let us continue in sin, that grace may abound&quot; (Rom. 6:1). Romans was written largely to Jews- the first two chapters especially describe how the Jewish ecclesia of the first century were repeating the same errors as that in the wilderness. The Jewish believers were reasoning that because they were Jews they were justified, and Christ being a Jew confirmed the impossibility of sin being held against them. Thus they smugly rejoiced in being able to commit sin and, as they thought, remain justified, thereby spurring their spiritual condemnation of their poorer Gentile brethren.</p><p>The basic message of the Gospel was &quot;in the beginning&quot;, in John's language, right from Eden and Abraham, and was made flesh in the person of Jesus. God could have left it at just &ldquo;the word&quot;, but to make it powerful and compelling of acceptance it had to be made flesh in a person. That word must become flesh in us too. This is why James 3:17 speaks of &quot;wisdom&quot; as if it has been made flesh in the believer: &quot;The wisdom that is from above is pure peaceable, gentle, easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and hypocrisy&quot; . Abstract wisdom can't be spoken of in those terms; but wisdom made flesh in a person can be. The &quot;wisdom&quot; of which James speaks is &quot;the truth&quot; (3:14). The true Gospel, the doctrine of Christ, must be lived out in flesh; this is the whole intention. It isn't merely an intellectual test to see who can figure it out, and on that basis a relationship with God is given as a reward. One of the Hebrew words for &quot;wisdom&quot; also means &quot;practical working&quot; - and as so often in the Hebrew language, the Divine perspective is reflected in the language. Wisdom is &quot;manifold in effectual working&quot; (Job 6:11 RV); and compare the AV and RV of Job 12:16: &quot;With him is&hellip; wisdom AV / effectual working RV&quot;. The man Christ Jesus was made unto us &quot;wisdom&quot;; in Him wisdom was made flesh.</p>