In this verse James gathers up the sum and substance of all that he has had to say so far. He has just spoken of peace and of good fruits. He has been insisting on righteous deeds and not mere words, upon a live faith, not a dead creed. “And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace for them that make peace.” “And the peacemakers who sow in peace reap righteousness” (Moffatt). The fruit is righteousness (genitive of apposition). The figure of sowing is common enough. It is the slow process of soil, seed, plant, blossom, fruit, harvest. This is the life of piety (wisdom) that James lays before his readers. The phraseology occurs elsewhere (Psalm 1:3). Thus Proverbs 11:30: “The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life.” So in Amos 6:12 we have “fruit of righteousness.” In the New Testament note Philippians 1:11, “filled with the fruits of righteousness,” and Hebrews 12:11, “peaceable fruit.” There is a difficulty here in the fact that the fruit instead of the seed is sown. But such a prolepsis of thought is not unknown, as in Psalm 97:11: “Light is sown for the righteous.” The sower sows in peace, and the harvest of righteousness is gathered in peace. The peacemaker has the rainbow promise of his harvest in due time if he does not faint nor grow weary. “They who make peace show likeness to God, the great maker of peace” (Hort). X The Outer and the Inner Life Oesterley thinks it inconceivable that 4:1-12 could have been addressed to Jewish churches at an early date, while they were still in the fresh glow of the new faith in Christ. He says, “These verses reveal an appalling state of moral depravity in these _Diaspora_ congregations; strife, self-indulgence, lust, murder, covetousness, adultery, envy, pride and slander are rife; the conception of the nature of prayer seems to have been altogether wrong among these people, and they appear to be given over wholly to a life of pleasure. It must have been terrible for the writer to contemplate such a sink of iniquity.” Yes, but James does not say that _all_ the Christians were guilty of these sins. It was bad enough without overstating the situation. Besides, we have the state of affairs in the church at Corinth to guide us as to the possibility of sins in a young church, and the state of affairs among the Galatian churches is not much better (cf. “so soon departing”). Covetousness and strife early appear in the church in Jerusalem, as we know from Acts 4 and 5. Reaction comes only too swiftly, as is noted after all great revivals; for instance, the years following the Welsh revival. Within a year or two after Paul left Thessalonica discipline was sorely needed in the church there, as we know from 1 and 2 Thessalonians.