James 4:4 You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.
Adultery is where a person shares love and commitment with someone other than his or her spouse. Ancient Israel was adulterous because of its worship of idols and false gods. James calls his readers adulterous because they are following in the same path. They are sharing their love with the world and not exclusively for God. At first, this seems to be a strong statement. But the rest of the verse shows how subtle spiritual adultery can be. All it takes is friendship with the world. What does friendship with the world look like? What is involved? Friends give each other time and attention. They invest themselves in the other person. Over time, they begin to look like the people they hang out with. If we begin to let our values be determined by the world, we are committing spiritual adultery with the world. If we allow our love to be divided between God and things of this world, however broad we need to understand this idea, then we have compromised our first love. Just like church in Ephesus in Revelation 2:1-7, we abandon our first love which was devoted to God and begin to love other things or even people. There is a difference between the type of friendship to which James is referring and having an effective mission to the world by being involved with it. In other words, we may have friends in the world who are non-believers, but we cannot let the values or worldview of these friends become what we value or follow. We cannot compromise our morality or allegiance. James uses very strong language in this verse to get the attention of his readers. We must take seriously how we live and what influences our thinking.
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