Do You Think That the Scripture Speaks To No Purpose?

Today's Focus Scripture:  James 4:1-10

James 4:1-10

1 What is the source of quarrels and conflicts among you? Is not the source your pleasures that wage war in your members? 

2 You lust and do not have;so you commit murder. You are envious and cannot obtain; so you fight and quarrel. You do not have because you do not ask. 

3 You ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures. 

4 You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. 

5 Or do you think that the Scripture speaks to no purpose: “The spirit which He has made to dwell in us lusts with envy?" 

6 But He gives a greater grace. Therefore it says, “God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”

7 Submit therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. 

8 Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 

9 Be miserable and mourn and weep; let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy to gloom.

10 Humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord, and He will exalt you.


LANGIAPPE:
The writer of this blog today has come across the word "ENVY" quite a bit in the past weeks. The understanding of envy has always been equal to jealousy as far as I could tell. However, these 2 words, envy and jealousy are not at all similar words in definition and meaning. On the one hand, jealously desires something for self, whereas envy desires to deprive others of what they have.

Envy is distinctly evil, compared to Admiration.  Envy is the supposed sin of Cain, and lead to murder.

Job 5:2
For wrath kills a foolish man,
And envy slays a simple one. 

(Vine's Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words)
ENVY: 
The distinction lies in this, that "envy" desires to deprive another of what he has, "jealousy" desires to have the same or the same sort of thing for itself. 


Psalm 37:7
Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for him;
fret not yourself over the one who prospers in his way,
over the man who carries out evil devices!

(NOAH WEBSTER'S 1828 DICTONARY of AMERICAN ENGLISH)

ENVY:
v.t. [L. invideo, in and video, to see against, that is, to look with enmity.]

1. To feel uneasiness, mortification or discontent, at the sight of superior excellence, reputation or happiness enjoyed by another; to repine at another's prosperity; to fret or 
grieve one's self at the real or supposed superiority of another, and to hate him on that account.

2. To grudge; to withhold maliciously.

ENVY:
n. 
Pain, uneasiness, mortification or discontent excited by the sight of another's superiority or success, accompanied with some degree of hatred or malignity, and often or usually with a desire or an effort to depreciate the person, and with pleasure in seeing him depressed. 
Envy springs from pride, ambition or love, mortified that another has obtained what one has a strong desire to possess. 

(Emulation differs from envy, in not being accompanied with hatred and a desire to depress a more fortunate person.)