James 3:13

The false Wisdom and the true

13. Who is a wise man and endued with knowledge among you? The adjective corresponding to "endued with knowledge" (literally knowing or understanding) is not found elsewhere in the New Testament, but occurs in the LXX. of Deuteronomy 1:13; Deuteronomy 1:15; Deuteronomy 4:6; Isaiah 5:21. So far as a distinction is intended, it expresses the intellectual, as "wise" does the moral, aspect of wisdom. Both qualities were required in one who claimed to be, as in James 3:1, a "Master" or "Teacher," and St James, in strict sequence of thought, proceeds to point out how the conditions may be fulfilled.

out of a good conversation The tendency of modern usage to restrict the meaning of the substantive to "talk" is in this instance, where the immediate context suggests some such meaning, specially unfortunate, as lowering the range of the precept. Better by, or out of, his good (the word expresses the noblerform of goodness) conduct. Comp. the use of the word in Gal 1:13; 1 Peter 1:15; 1 Peter 1:18, and elsewhere.

with meekness of wisdom Better, in meekness, as expressing not something super-added, but the very form and manner in which the noble conductwas to be shewn. The "meekness" thus defined is thought of as belonging to "wisdom" as its characteristic attribute. St James is hence led back to the thought with which the Epistle opened, that wisdom is the crown and consummation of the character of a true believer; and lest a counterfeit wisdom should be taken for the true, he proceeds to give the notes of difference between them.