James 3:13–18 Explained: Earthly Wisdom vs Heavenly Wisdom (Session 11)

In this episode of Reasoning Through the Bible, James 3:13–18 is explored in depth, showing the sharp contrast between earthly wisdom and heavenly wisdom. This Bible study examines how Scripture describes jealousy, selfish ambition, disorder, and confusion as marks of worldly wisdom, while God’s wisdom is revealed as pure, peaceable, gentle, merciful, and full of good fruit.

This verse-by-verse study through the book of James highlights how true biblical wisdom is not merely spoken, but demonstrated through conduct, humility, righteousness, and peace. Listeners will see how James connects wisdom to daily Christian living, spiritual maturity, church life, personal relationships, and the pursuit of peace.

If you are searching for teaching on James 3, heavenly wisdom, earthly wisdom, biblical wisdom, Christian living, practical faith, peace in the Bible, and verse-by-verse Bible study, this episode offers a clear and direct exposition of the text.

Transcript

Glenn 0:15

On today's session of Reasoning Through the Bible, we're going to learn what the Bible says about contrasting earthly wisdom with heavenly wisdom. We're going to explore what does earthly wisdom look like compared to heavenly wisdom? Hi, my name is Glenn and this is Steve. We have this ministry we call Reasoning Through the Bible, where we do verse by verse studies through the Word of God, and we welcome you today and we ask you that you come and sit down and join us in this study. Steve, today we're in the book of James, chapter three, the last part of the chapter where he contrasts earthly wisdom and heavenly wisdom, and he gives us a quite blunt, clear contrast between the two. James is somebody that doesn't mince words. He hits you right between the eyes with some very clear teaching, and that's what we're going to feast on today.

Steve 1:05

I was just thinking. He doesn't pull any punches and it makes sense, because he's giving these new Jewish believers practical ways in order to worship God.

Glenn 1:16

Just a quick summary. If you have your copy of the Word of God, then open your Bibles to James. Chapter three James is Jewish and he opens his book in chapter one writing to the Jewish people that believed in Jesus Christ that were dispersed. He talks throughout his book about very practical things. In our end of chapter two he was talking about applying your faith. Can your faith be of any use to anyone, or is it dead? It wasn't talking about salvation he was talking about was it useful to anybody? Was it dead? In the sense of being of practical use? He talks about show me, which is one of the keys to the book of James is show me your faith and how can I see it. That's what he's talking about. From that perspective, james is very practical and as we get into chapter three and chapter four, he's going to be giving some very direct commands and statements to his congregation. Turn to James, chapter three, starting in verse 13. Steve, can you read from there to the end of the chapter?

Steve 2:24

Who among you is wise and understanding, let him show by his good behavior, his deeds and the gentleness of wisdom. But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your heart, do not be arrogant and so lie against the truth. This wisdom is not that which comes down from above, but is earthly, natural, demonic, for where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there is disorder and every evil thing. But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, reasonable, full of mercy and good fruits, unwavering, without hypocrisy. The seed whose fruit is righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.

Glenn 3:06

As we go through this in verse 13, james gives us a very clear description of how a wise person will show wisdom and understanding. Stephen, verse 13,. What does he say there about how a wise person will show his wisdom?

Steve 3:23

Surprise, surprise. He says a wise person is going to show that wisdom through his deeds. And I say surprise because that's just what he was talking about previously as far as how do you show your faith? You show your faith through the works and the acts that you do. Well, he's continuing that here, saying you show the wisdom that you have in your deeds. And where before he was talking about bridling the tongue and how it could start fires from little bitty sparks, this is by showing wisdom and not doing those type of things, you show the wisdom that you have.

Glenn 4:01

And the following verses there, verses 15 and 16, he contrasts earthly wisdom with heavenly wisdom, and we know the difference between earthly wisdom and heavenly wisdom. What do those two types of wisdom look like?

Steve 4:15

He gives a listing here Some of the things he talks about that that wisdom is earthly. Wisdom is natural, demonic and selfish. But there's a direct difference between the two Earthly is selfish and demonic and the heavenly one is peaceful and gentle.

Glenn 4:31

That's exactly what he says. If we look again at verses 15 and 16, verse 15 says this wisdom is not that which comes down from above, but is earthly, natural, demonic, for where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there is disorder in every evil thing. What he's saying here is that earthly wisdom produces disorder, it produces jealousy, it produces all these problems earthly wisdom does. What we can do is if we just look around us, in our life and the lives of those around us, if we see a lot of disorder, if we see a lot of jealousy, then we know that they're following earthly wisdom and not heavenly wisdom. It's again James is very focused on how we live on a daily basis. Therefore, are you seeing disorder in your life? Well, it's very possible. That's because you're following earthly wisdom. If you want peace, then we need heavenly wisdom.

Glenn 5:29

Then he also talks here about what can make a person wise. One of the things that he tells us that can make a person wise is back in chapter 1, verse 5, where he talks about asking God for wisdom. God can give us wisdom if we but ask for it. God says he will grant us wisdom, especially wisdom towards going through the trials and the tribulation. Why is there all these problems in my life? Why is there all this pain and suffering and jealousy and disorder? God, why is this? He says in chapter 1, verse 5, and he ties it together here. Is that because we don't follow heavenly wisdom, we're following earthly wisdom? Here's the next question, steve. Where do we get this heavenly wisdom?

Steve 6:16

Well, we get it from God himself, the Father who he says back in chapter 1 that we should pray to. Going to some of the things that you were just talking about, don't you know or haven't you known some people in your life, Glenn, work or in personal life, social life that they like to keep things stirred up. They just like to keep a chaos going on. They like to cause problems and they like to gossip. They like to pit one person against the other. Why is it that this person is doing this? This seems like this person just wants to keep chaos going. I think sometimes that they do that because that way, they're the ones that are causing the chaos and they think that, therefore, they are in control and that they can manipulate situations by pitting people against other people. In doing so, they think that they're wise in this, but they're not. That's the exact opposite of what James is saying. This wisdom that you have from God, which is peaceful and accommodating to other people and getting along with other people. It's the exact opposite.

Glenn 7:23

Oh yeah, I've seen people in churches that, for all practical purposes, would seem to have the gift of dissension and chaos, because they go in and just cause disruption in churches. I remember one of the people I learned from in my life was a preacher that has a good ministry out there named J Vernon McGee and he was a pastor for 40 years. He said that he saw people in his churches. It acted so evil and wrongly. These were church members that he said. The only explanation I could have is that it's demonic that there'd be church people that would have so much dissension, chaos, backbiting, jealousy, all these things that he said that there's no other explanation for it other than a demonic influence? I think this is exactly what James is speaking to here. Is he's writing again to people that are Christians in churches and telling them don't follow this earthly wisdom? It results in jealousy and chaos. If we see peace and we see cohesion and we see love, then we know there's following heavenly wisdom. If we see jealousy, dissension, chaos, we know that it's earthly wisdom. There's no doubt.

Glenn 8:37

Other places in the New Testament tell us where this heavenly wisdom comes from. 1 Corinthians 1-24 Christ is the wisdom of God. In Christ are hidden all the treasures of wisdom. Colossians 2-3. The Bible is able to make us wise for salvation. 2 Timothy 3-15. If we need wisdom, we just look to the Scriptures and learn from Christ. That's the message here. Steve, if we think of a wise person and when we think of a foolish person, what is the difference in what we will see in their lives? If we were just to observe people and I was able to point to one of them and say, well, that's a foolish person and that over there that's a wise person, what behaviors would we see, steve A, look at verse 18.

Steve 9:23

I think the answer is there. At least part of it is. Verse 18 says the seed whose fruit is righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace. That is an action. That's a action word. They're making peace. They're sowing peace amongst the congregation.

Steve 9:43

James is writing to these people. There must have been problems within the communities, their local synagogues, related to this, or else he wouldn't be putting it in his letter to them. But what he's even saying? He says we're under the law of liberty, we're under the royal law. Now, which we've talked about is basically the Lord with all your soul, heart, mind and treat your neighbor as yourself. Now we're under this. Well, how is that manifested? It's manifested by sowing peace and making peace. And how you do that is if you see backbiting going on, if you see gossiping going on, number one don't participate in it. But number two is tell them, say I don't want to hear this, let's just stop that here, and maybe you need to think about what you're saying. It's not something that needs to be propagated out within the church. That's possibly just really gossip.

Glenn 10:40

You know, what's interesting to me, steve, is that we Christians those of us that have tasted of the heavenly things in the scriptures, that have learned some things about God and His ways then we see what heavenly wisdom is and we've seen Godly people and how they carry themselves. We can see that wisdom and how it plays out into them and the people around them in peace and love and these types of things. Those of us that know some things about God and His ways can look at heavenly wisdom and see that and the benefits of that. We look at the world and we see the chaos and the dissension and we say, oh, how foolish that is. What's interesting is the lost people look at us and say the same things. They think all the dissension and the backbiting is normal. They look at us and they say how foolish. And the scriptures support this Quote.

Glenn 11:41

The natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him. God tells the sight of 1 Corinthians, 2.14. The natural man looks at the things of God and says that's foolishness. Loving your enemies, praying for those who persecute you. How could that ever be? However, be wise, it's supposed to. The natural man says it's supposed to be a dog eat dog world, supposed to have all this violence and chaos and dissension. Families are supposed to fall apart. That's the natural man.

Glenn 12:12

But once we taste of heavenly wisdom and we see God's love and we see God's ways, then we learn that we can indeed have peace in our lives and we can have love and we can have the fruit that comes from righteousness. And it's just amazing to me. I'm always amazed at how opposite the world's ways are from the ways of God. If we look at verse 14, then we have a statement here that I find very interesting. The question is what does this verse mean? Verse 14 says if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your heart, do not be arrogant and so lie against the truth. What does that mean? What is it telling us, steve? What do you get out of that verse?

Contrasting Earthly and Heavenly Wisdom

Steve 12:56

Well, what I get out of it is if you have chaos in your own life, if you have selfish ambition or the other way that it's put, there is strife in your heart, within yourself, don't be arrogant about it and just lie against the truth that it's there. In other words, don't go around saying that you don't have chaos in your life, as you so chaos in other people's lives and the reason you're doing that is because of what's going on inside of you. You're saying don't do that just because you have strife and self ambition in your life. Don't let that carry on to other people, because you're just causing issues and problems. Deal with it on yourself. Don't lie. Tell the truth, at least to yourself. Look, maybe the reason why I go around causing problems is because I'm doing it for self ambition. I'm doing it because I have strife in my life. Let me take care of that and not continue to spread it around to the rest of the church.

Glenn 14:00

Notice here that he's not saying don't be ambitious. Let's look at the verse again. If you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your heart, that's what he's talking about. He's not saying don't be ambitious. Christians should be ambitious. Christians should get up in the morning and go, accomplish things and work hard, shoot for excellence. Christians should have this.

Glenn 14:21

What he's talking against here is this selfish ambition that I'm going to promote myself above those around me, like my family members, and I'm not going to love anyone because I'm the one that's going to be the most important here. Well, no, a true person that wants to accomplish something recognizes that I need people around me that I have to treat with respect in order to accomplish great things. That's a truly great person. He's talking against selfish ambition here that will lie against the truth, and a selfish person does not admit that they're sinners. That's what I see out of this verse when he says to avoid selfish ambition and lie against the truth. Well, the truth is is that we're all flawed and we all have weaknesses, and we need to admit that and ask forgiveness from those that we've hurt. That's the wisdom that he's talking about here is don't have this selfish ambition that just lies about my own sin and lies about when I walk on other people. That's what he's talking about here.

Glenn 15:20

If we go down through the list of what he's talking about, this earthly wisdom, jealousy, or some of the translations say envy, selfish ambition, arrogance or boasting, lying or deceit. And verse 16 talks about disorder. He's contrasting this earthly wisdom with this heavenly wisdom. In verse 15, he makes this very severe statement. I mean, look at this verse Earthly wisdom is demonic. How are we to understand this? Is it true that natural earthly wisdom is demonic? Well, that's what he says. What is the source of this way of the world, so to speak, we Christians would call worldliness? What is the source of that?

Steve 16:00

Well, part of the source is demonic, meaning that it's not coming from God. If you follow this natural progression that starts in verse 13, he says show me the deeds of your wisdom. Verse 14, he says and if you have self ambition in your heart, don't be arrogant and lie against the truth. And then part of that truth is in verse 15,. It continues as this wisdom, which wisdom? The wisdom of the earthly wisdom, is not that which comes from above, but that is earthly, natural and demonic. He is just opposing the earthly wisdom that comes from demons or Satan versus heavenly wisdom that comes from God. They're just exact opposites of each other. What is produced by them is the exact opposite of each other.

Glenn 16:49

Exactly the opposite of each other. Verses 15, 16 is the earthly wisdom, and then in 17 and 18, or the heavenly wisdom. Let's look at what the heavenly wisdom has in verse 17,. But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, reasonable, full of mercy and good fruits, unwavering, without hypocrisy, and the seed whose fruit is righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace. The contrast is very clear. Those who follow heavenly wisdom have a piece about them, and there's that wonderful long list of benefits of being pure and gentle and all these things. Steve, it's just such a beautiful contrast there. Of course, we all want to get to the heavenly wisdom part.

Steve 17:37

That's what we should strive to do and you know we're constantly fighting this fleshly part of us that is attached to this world, and James is going to get into that even more when we get into chapter four. It's a constant struggle between our flesh that wants to do worldly things versus our spirit that wants to do godly things. You know Paul talks about I do the things that I don't want to do and I don't do the things I do want to do. Even Paul had this issues from time to time of struggling against the world. But look at what the heavenly things produce. I mean, don't we want peace in our life and don't we want things that are good and full of mercy and that are gentle and reasonable? I mean, who wouldn't want those type of things versus the opposite of chaos and problems and always having issues in somebody's life?

Glenn 18:31

That would be exactly my question to our listeners. I would just tell all of our listeners to ask these questions to yourself Wouldn't you like to have peace? Wouldn't you like to be clean and have righteousness in your life? Wouldn't you like to get rid of all the pain and the chaos around you? If you don't have peace, then one of the reasons the word of God says is that it's because you're not following heavenly wisdom. You're following earthly wisdom. How do we know when we need a different kind of wisdom? It's because we look around us and we see envy and strife and jealousies and chaos. If you want peace, learn from God, open your Bible and spend some time there and learn his ways and his wisdom will become part of your life. That would be my challenge to all of the people.

Glenn 19:24

Then the last part of that, in verse 18, it talks about sowing peace, which brings up this concept of sowing and reaping. If you remember these principles of sowing and reaping where you reap what you sow if you sow one thing, that's what you're going to get. You reap more than you sow. You harvest more than what you sow. You reap in a different season. You sow a seed in the spring, you harvest in the fall. If we sow in one season of our life, then we're going to get a harvest of more than that. But it's usually in a different season of our life and the fruit doesn't always resemble a seed exactly. If you plant an acorn, you're going to get an oak tree, and that's the idea here of the sowing. He's talking about sowing peace in your life. If you sow peace, you're going to reap a harvest and you'll reap more than your harvest. It'll come in its time, but you have to sow it first. If you don't sow it, then you won't reap the fruit later. Thoughts on that, steve.

Steve 20:22

I want to take your acorn and oak tree analogy and take it a little bit further, in that you have this mighty oak that comes from this one acorn that you plant, but then you also have, every year, that Oak tree drops thousands of acorns on itself, thousands more, and over the lifetime of that tree there's tens of thousands of acorns that drop from that tree. Each one of those could then be planted into another oak tree. When you talk about that, you reap more than what you harvest, more than what you sow. Glenn, as James talks about earlier, be careful of what you say. You might be sowing some words that have a devastating effect down the line.

Steve 21:08

Sow peace so that peace can be reaped. That's what he is talking about here in verse 18. I think that's good advice. That's what we should keep in our mind is that I want to do peaceful things. I don't want to do things that are going to cause problems. Keep that in mind. If I do peaceful things, then it's going to produce myriads more of peaceful fruit that comes out, most of which probably you won't see.

Glenn 21:37

Let me read verse 18 again, because there's a very valuable thing here. It gets even better. Verse 18 says and the seed whose fruit is righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace. So if we take that idea in this idea of sowing and reaping, if we sow in peace, we sow this seed in peace. One of the fruits is righteousness. That's what he says. Do you want righteousness in your life? Well, sow some seeds in peace. The fruit is a righteous life. The fruits are righteous life.

Glenn 22:13

Any Christian is going to have a desire for righteousness, and what this is telling us is that we can't really have peace without righteousness. They're connected. If we have sin in our life, you're not going to have peace. But if you get rid of the sin and you sow some seeds in peace, then the fruit is going to be righteousness. They're connected A righteous life. If you're right with God, if you've confessed your sins and you've turned from them. That's when you have true peace. So he's talking about sowing these seeds and reaping this fruit, and the fruit is a peaceful, righteous life. That's what he's saying here.

Glenn 22:53

The contrast between all that horrible list that he just gave and this idea of a peaceful, righteous life. That's what every Christian should strive for. Peace is not just a lack of hostility. It's not just a stopping of the war. Peace includes this deep seated rest. Deep seated rest that's what he means by peace. If we were to look around us and say, do I need peace and righteousness in my home life? Do I need peace and righteousness in my work life? Do I need peace and righteousness at my church or with my neighbors? Well, what do you do? You sow some seeds in peace and you'll reap the righteousness. But you have to go out where there is no peace and sow some seeds of peace and it'll ultimately bear fruit.

Steve 23:45

He says make peace. Make is an action word. It's there to say it's something that you have to actively work at sometimes is to go out. You just don't, as you mentioned, you just don't sit back and it happens all of a sudden. No, go out and make peace, Take it to other people and be active in that peaceful initiative. We're at the end of our time.

Glenn 24:08

We hope you've enjoyed this. This was a wonderful study but we'll be back here next time with chapter four. Chapter four James gets very blunt, very direct. He hits his congregation right between the eyes with a series of serious things that he tells them. We'll be reasoning through that next time, on reasoning through the Bible.

Steve 24:29

Thank you so much for watching and let's make God bless you.