Double-minded (1374) (dipsuchos from dÃs = twice + psuche = soul, mind) is an adjective which literally describes one who has two minds or one who is two-spirited. In context it is the "sin of being two-faced with God, of wavering inconsistency" (Motyer). Double psyche. See also notes on use of dipsuchos in James 1:8. James sharply reproves those readers who had divided affections, on one side longing for the world's trifles while all the while trying to hold on to God! This "spiritual schizophrenia" is exactly what Jesus had warned against in Matthew 6:24 (note). Speaking on behalf of the Holy One of Israel, James is saying that God demands not only undivided affection (single minded heart) but undefiled conduct ("clean hands"). Dipsuchos is the one who hesitates or vacillates between two or more opinions. This person in a sense has a divided loyalty which is manifest by indecision and doubting. Some might see such a person as "fickle" (marked by lack of steadfastness, constancy, or stability -- given to erratic changeableness). This is the man or woman who is uncertain about the truth of something. Spurgeon warns us that... if you are double-minded, your hands and your hearts must both need to be cleansed. The apostle does not say, "Concentrate your thoughts," but he does say, "Cleanse your hearts;" for, to have two objects in life, is a kind of spiritual adultery, from which we need to be purged, so the command is, "Purify your hearts, ye double-minded." Ralph Martin observes that double-minded... is of special importance in this letter. Dipsuchoi (“double-minded”) characterizes those obviously in need of this type of repentance. James had used the term to depict the one who was unstable, who doubted God (Jas 1:8). But in our present context the idea is expanded and made more specific, involving the double-nature (or two-world) syndrome (Sir 2:12: “woe to … the sinner who leads a double life,” neb). The reader who is double-minded seeks to be friendly with the world and with God (Jas 4:4-note). But such double allegiance is impossible. To befriend the world (i.e., resort to worldly methods to bring in the kingdom) is to oppose God and his way. This is reflected in the inconsistent behavior in the Jacobean church (Jas 3:9, 10, 11, 12). (Martin, R. P. Vol. 48: Word Biblical Commentary : James. Dallas: Word, Incorporated) Richison writes that... A double-souled person has a problem with integrity, unity and harmony of soul because he wants to have a soul devoted to God and a soul devoted to the devil at the same time. (James 4:8 James 4:8b James 4:8c) Barton writes that dipsuchos in this verse refers to someone who is trying to maintain a friendship with both God and the world. Purity of heart, then, implies single-mindedness. (Barton, B. B., et al. Life Application Bible Commentary. Romans: Tyndale House Publishers or Logos) Double minded literally means "Two souled" as if two distinct souls were effecting this man's attitudes and actions! One of the souls is oriented as it were toward God and trusts in God, while the other is oriented toward the natural world and disbelieves God. As one writer has put it James is describing a man who is "a walking civil war in which trust and distrust of God wage a continual battle against each other." John Bunyan in Pilgrims Progress (The Seventh Stage) gives a similar picture in his description of "Mr. Facing-both-ways"! Lenski remarks that double-minded... fittingly describes the bad condition of the heart; it is like adulteresses which was used in Jas 4:4-note. They have a hankering after the world while they think that they are holding to God. (Lenski, R. C. H. The Interpretation of the Epistle to the Hebrews and of the Epistle of James. Page 633. 1938) ILLUSTRATION OF DOUBLE MINDED - Driving in country at night when headlights showed up a field mouse dead ahead. He first started toward the left, then right, then left, and finally stood still as the car passed over him. CAUGHT BETWEEN TWO WORLDS - Once when the Cleveland Symphony was performing The Magic Flute by Mozart, an electrical storm caused the lights to go out. Undaunted by the difficulties, the members of the orchestra knew the music so well that they completed the performance in the dark. At the end of the performance, the audience burst into thunderous applause, and a stagehand illuminated the orchestra and conductor with a flashlight so that they could take their bows. It is much the same in the spiritual realm. If you know the Master, you can play His music even in the dark. You can live a holy life in an unholy realm. When caught between two worlds, the secret is learning to see beyond the style of this world to the substance of the next. (Discipleship Journal, May/June 1987) A similar thought is described in the OT passages which describe a person with a divided (versus a whole) heart (1Ki 8:61, 11:4, 15:3,14, 2Ki 20:3, 1Ch 12:38, 28:9, 29:19, 2Chr 15:17, 16:9, 19:9, 25:2). James 1:8-note helps define double-minded as one who is unstable. This is the person who lacks integrity, who claims one thing and lives another. This is the hypocrite in the assembly of believers. The Puritan writer Thomas Manton says that dipsuchos... signifies a person who has two souls, and so it may imply: (1) A hypocrite, since the same word is used with that meaning in Jas 4:8... As he speaks to open sinners to cleanse their hands, so he speaks to secret hypocrites (whom he calls double-minded since they pretend one thing but mean another) to purify their hearts—that is, to grow more inwardly sincere. This word is similar to the Hebrew word for “deceive.” “Their flattering lips speak with deception” (Ps 12:2); in the Hebrew this is “with a heart and a heart,” which is their way of expressing something that is double or deceitful (deceitful weights are “a weight and a weight” in the Hebrew of Pr 20:23). As Theophrastus says of the partridges of Paphlagonia that they had two hearts, so every hypocrite has two hearts or two souls. (2) It implies a person who is distracted and divided in his thoughts, floating between two different opinions, as if he had two minds or two souls. In the apostle’s time there were some Judaizing brethren who sometimes sided with the Jews, sometimes with the Christians. They were not settled in the truth. See also 2Ki 17:33 , “They worshiped the Lord , but they also served their own gods”; they were divided between God and idols. The prophet says this shows a double or divided heart: “Their heart is deceitful, and now they must bear their guilt” (Hos 10:2). Thus Athanasius applied this description to the Eusebians, who sometimes held one thing and then another. (3) In the context of James this may refer to those whose minds were tossed to and fro with various ideas: now lifted up with a wave of presumption, then cast down in a gulf of despair, being torn between hopes and fears concerning their acceptance with God. I prefer this latter sense, as it conveys the apostle’s purpose best. (Manton, T. Exposition of James)