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James 4:13-15
Plans and Tomorrow
James 4:13-15
Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow let’s go into this city and spend a year there, trade, and make a profit.” Yet you don’t know what your life will be like tomorrow. For what is your life? For you are a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. For you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will both live, and do this or that.”
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Why it is worth knowing
- The plan in verse 13 is ordinary business: travel, a year of work, trade and profit
- “You don’t know what your life will be like tomorrow” says out loud what every planner knows
- A vapor appears for a little time and then vanishes; the picture is about how short life is
- “If the Lord wills” keeps the plans and holds them with an open hand
Where it sits: James 4:13-17
Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow let’s go into this city and spend a year there, trade, and make a profit.” Yet you don’t know what your life will be like tomorrow. For what is your life? For you are a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. For you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will both live, and do this or that.” But now you glory in your boasting. All such boasting is evil. To him therefore who knows to do good and doesn’t do it, to him it is sin.
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Background
James writes to believers scattered among the nations, and here he speaks to merchants making business plans: a city, a year, trade and a profit. He does not forbid planning. He reminds them that no one knows what tomorrow holds, compares a life to a vapor, and gives them words to put at the front of every plan: “If the Lord wills.”