Thoughts on Numbers 22 & James 4

Today’s reading: Numbers 22; James 3-4

As I was thinking and praying about what to write for this post this morning, I was struck by how perfect of an example Balaam is of the double-minded man from James 4.

There have been people throughout church history that take an extreme interpretation of the statement James makes in chapter 4 when he says, “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.” He makes this statement right after saying they ask and do not receive because they ask wrongly to spend it on their passions. This has led to understandings like that pursuing any passion or excitement of the world is necessarily sinful. This can be furthered by James saying at the end of this paragraph, “Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom.” You read this and you understand why whole communities considered anything beyond the most basic necessities of life to be sinful frills. But is that really what James is saying, that if something of the world brings us joy, we become enemies of God to partake of it, and should rather be mournful than joyful?

No, no it’s not. James tells us that he is talking about the double-minded person whose passions are at war within them. James is talking about the Christian who knows they should be living their life for God now, but they also want to keep living for the world, following their passions, and so they ultimately live for the world, but with a thin veneer of godliness spread over top. To this person, James is calling on them to strip off the veneer and make a choice as to where their true allegiance lies.

In church lately we have been going through a series on Ephesians and as we have hit the highly practical second half of the letter, I have really appreciated one point that the pastor keeps coming back to. He keeps reminding us that the immature Christian asks, “What can I do?” while the mature Christian asks, “What should I do?” I think this gets at the heart of what James is saying well. The immature, double-minded Christian wants to know where the line is so that they can tip toe as close to that line as possible. Their passions are for the world, and they want to follow their passions and be fully on the other side of that line, but God says there’s a line, so they stop at the line. But then maybe a toe over the line is okay as long as the majority of their foot is behind the line. And then maybe their foot can go past the line as long as their heel is still touching it. And then, if they’ve already decided it just needs to be part of their body touching the line to not be “over the line,” then they could lay down and stretch as far over the line as possible as long as a toe or a finger is still in contact with the line…

The double-minded person is not concerned about what God wants for them, they are concerned about what they want for themselves, and what God says is less of a guiding principal and more of an obstacle to work around. The mature Christian, on the other hand, still has passions after the world, just like the immature Christian, but recognizes that our creator, savior, and Lord designed us to live differently and is calling us to live differently, and so, though their passions still point toward the world, this person’s concern is not how close they can get to their passions without crossing the line, but instead, what would God have in this area? What would bring honor and glory to the God that has adopted me, sent His Spirit to live in me, and gifted me eternal life?

And this takes us to our example of Balaam from Numbers 22 today. When Balak first sends men to fetch Balaam, God tells Balaam not to go and so he sends Balak’s men away. When they come back a second time, offering an even greater reward, God allows Balaam to go but warns him only to do what God tells him. But then in the very next verse we are told God was angry with Balaam for going and we get the story of the angel of the Lord opposing Balaam on the way. God didn’t suddenly change His mind about it and get angry with Balaam for doing what He said he could do. We see from the angel’s reminder to Balaam, once again, to speak only the word that He tells him, why God was opposing Balaam here. Balaam wanted to go because he wanted the reward, and he was more interested in earning that reward than he was in glorifying God.

While this is all we see of Balaam in Numbers 22, the rest of his story is why I say he is the perfect example of a double-minded man. In the next chapter, Numbers 23, he attempts to curse Israel on behalf of Balak, but seven times God uses him to pronounce blessings instead of curses. But if Balaam can’t curse Israel he doesn’t get the reward from Balak, so what does he do? Evidently he looks at the line God drew and figures out a way around that obstacle. God said he could only speak the words He gave him to prophesy, but that doesn’t mean he can’t help Balak turn God against the people in other ways… So in Numbers 25 we see the women of Midian seducing the men of Israel into sexual sin and the worship of Baal of Peor, and in Numbers 31 we find out that that was at the suggestion of Balaam. God wouldn’t allow him to curse Israel, but did God ever say he wasn’t allowed to help Balak lead Israel away from Yahweh to make them bring a curse on themselves? Nope! Balaam was led by his passions to ask, “What can I do?” rather than being led by a love of the Lord to ask, “What should I do?”

This is the mentality James is warning us about in James 4. It’s not policing how much joy we get from something and trying to decide whether that thing is from the world or from the Lord, but it’s about having a mindset that would rather see God glorified than my passions pursued. When James tells us to let our laughter be turned to mourning, he is not saying laughter is bad or that mourning is the more righteous state, but he is making the same kind of statement Jesus did when He told us to pluck out our eye if it causes us to sin, because it is better to enter heaven with one eye than with two eyes to run into hell. James is saying that, even if it were to lead to mourning over joy in your passions, it is better to follow the Lord.

For Balaam, it was clear the Lord loved Israel and desired Israel’s good, so if Balaam’s desire is for the Lord, his goal should be to see the Lord’s desire realized. But Balaam wanted to have his cake and eat it to. He wanted his reward, even if that meant destroying something God cared about, so his focus solely came to how to accomplish what he wanted without technically violating what God had told him.

Lord, give us the clarity to recognize where we are living like Balaam, chasing after our own passions rather than yours. Grow in us the willingness to set our own passions aside in deference to yours when they do not align, and change our hearts to love the things you love and prefer what you prefer so that our lives might more fully glorify you!