“For where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work.”
For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice — the causal nexus shows that envy and selfish ambition necessarily produce akatastasia (disorder/chaos) and panta phyla ponēria (every kind of wickedness). The word 'disorder' echoes the 'restless evil' of the tongue from 3:8, suggesting that uncontrolled passion generates chaos throughout a community. The 'every evil practice' suggests that these vices open a doorway to comprehensive moral breakdown.
Church Fathers on James 3:16
There is, however, another wisdom, which you must repel from you, and pray against its remaining in you; this the same apostle expressed his detestation of when he said, But if you have bitter envying and strife in your hearts, . . . this is not the wisdom which descends from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish. For wherever there is envying and strife, there is also confusion, and every evil work. But the wisdom which is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle,…
Nicene & Post-Nicene / Ante-Nicene Fathers translations · public domain
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