Double-Minded | Torn Between Two Worlds

Double-Minded | Torn Between Two Worlds

In the movie City Slickers, Billy Crystal plays a confused, dissatisfied thirty-something character with a vague sense that life is passing him by.  Jack Palance, – ancient, leathery, wise to the ways of the world (“a saddlebag with eyes”) – asks Crystal if he would like to know the secret to life.

“It’s this,” Palance says, holding up a single, index finger.

“The secret to life is your finger?” asks Crystal

“It’s one thing,” Palance replies.  “The secret of life is pursuing one thing.”

John Ortberg reviews this movie scene and states:

“Somehow this resonates deeply with Billy Crystal’s character.  His life is scattered.  He is torn between his obligation to his family and his desire for career advancement; between his need for security and his appetite for excitement.  He is divided somehow.  His life is about many things, and so, he senses, it is about nothing.

So what is that one thing?  Jack Palance can’t tell Billy Crystal.  ‘You have to find it yourself.'”[1]

the double-minded man is a divided man

If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him. But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways. James 1.5-8, NKJV

Double-minded comes from the Greek word dipsuchos. The root words are duo and psuche. Duo means two or twain (two parts of the whole). Psuche means breath, life, or soul.

Double-minded means two-souled. The Full Life Bible Commentary adds:

“James has developed the image of a ‘double-minded [dipsuchos] man’ from the Jewish concept of the ‘divided heart’ or ‘two inclinations.’  The issues here is not being torn by two contradictory ideas or beliefs, but being torn by two desires.”[2]

The double-minded man is torn between two worlds.
The double-minded man is a divided man!

a double-minded man can’t make up his mind!

Who is wise and understanding among you? Let him show by good conduct that his works are done in the meekness of wisdom. But if you have bitter envy and self-seeking in your hearts, do not boast and lie against the truth. This wisdom does not descend from above, but is earthly, sensual, demonic. For where envy and self-seeking exist, confusion and every evil thing are there. James 3.13-16

Theologians link a Passage in James 3 to his discussion about the double-minded man.

“The problem with ‘earthly, unspiritual’ wisdom is that it arises from the human soul.  As such, it shares the divided desires of the ‘double-minded.’  It is capable of good (‘we praise our Lord and Father,’ 3:9), but most often leads to ‘every evil practice.’”[3]

The double-minded can praise God and curse men.

But no man can tame the tongue. It is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison. With it we bless our God and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in the similitude of God. James 3.8-9

People can raise their hands in Church, praise the Lord, and bless the preacher.  Then they spew criticism, bitterness, strife, and gossip the rest of the week.

The double-minded are caught between two mindsets, true wisdom…

Who is wise and understanding among you? Let him show by good conduct that his works are done in the meekness of wisdom… But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy. Now the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace. James 3.13, 17-18

…true wisdom vs. earthly wisdom…

But if you have bitter envy and self-seeking in your hearts, do not boast and lie against the truth. This wisdom does not descend from above, but is earthly, sensual, demonic. For where envy and self-seeking exist, confusion and every evil thing are there. James 3.14-16

We fuel earthly wisdom with envy and selfishness (verse 14).

We fuel earthly wisdom with sensuality (verse 15).  How much of our language centers around innuendo, interchanges with others that are fine on one level, but are overtures on another?  This is sensual wisdom, or someone who is “worldly wise.”

James looks at envy, selfishness, and sensuality, and says these types of “street smarts” are demonic (verse 15)!

The double-minded man is torn between two ways of thinking.
The double-minded man can’t make up his mind!

a double-minded man is a spiritual adulterer

But He gives more grace. Therefore He says:

Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded. James 4.6-8

Again James uses the term double-minded. In the context of these verses, James is showing us that we must be purified from it.

We must be purified because James calls it spiritual adultery.

Where do wars and fights come from among you? Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members? You lust and do not have.

James goes a little further.

You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war. Yet you do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures. Adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you think that the Scripture says in vain, “The Spirit who dwells in us yearns jealously”? James 4.1-5

When people attach themselves to the pleasures (verse 3) of this world, and strike up a friendship with the world (verse 4), they are splitting their souls in two.

We can’t have it both ways!  No riding the fence!  We can’t live as hypocrites!

The double-minded man is torn between two spiritual lovers, the world and God.
The double-minded man is a spiritual adulterer!

“Soren Kierkegaard saw double-mindedness as the essential disease of the human spirit… The disease diagnosed by Kierkegaard is the failure to achieve simplicity – to have a life that is integrated, that is focused on one thing.”[4]

notes:

pic credit: Lucian Petrean | 05.07.2020 | pexels

1. John Ortberg, The Life You’ve Always Wanted: Spiritual Disciplines for Ordinary People (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2002), 175.
2. Timothy B. Cargal, “James,” in French L. Arrington & Roger Stronstad (Eds.), Full Life Bible Commentary to the New Testament: An International Commentary for Spirit-filled Christians (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1999), 1408.
3. Ibid., 1421.
4. Ortberg, 175.