Theophylact of Ohrid, on Jas 4:3

“You ask, and receive not; because you ask amiss: that you may consume it on your concupiscences.”

“So it was with the Pharisee mentioned in the Gospel (Luke 18:10–14). The more he enumerated his virtues, the more he blocked the Divine hearing, and his lofty speech was idle on his lips and turned to foam like a raging wave. But someone will say: if the promise of the Lord Jesus, that truthful Teacher, is true — "everyone who asks receives" (Matt. 7:8) — then how does the present apostle say this? We answer: for one who approaches prayer in the proper way, the aforementioned promise is true; he will not be disappointed in anything he asks for. But whoever, having departed from the purpose of devout prayer, asks in appearance only but does not ask as he ought, in reality does not even ask, and therefore will not receive. Imagine, for example, that a grammar teacher promises to teach grammatical knowledge to everyone who comes to him, but the one desiring to learn comes not as he should and does not exert himself to master what is taught, so that in practice the result does not correspond to the promise. Would anyone justly ascribe the falsehood in this case to the teacher himself? Such a person would act unreasonably, for the one who wished to learn did not come as the teacher required. How then and for what should one ask, someone will say. Listen to the One Who gave the aforementioned promise: "But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness" (Matt. 6:33). Evidently, whoever asks in this way and chiefly for this will not be disappointed in other things either, the receiving of which will not tear him away from salvation. But to the one who asks for what is harmful and destructive, He from Whom comes "every good gift" (Jas. 1:17) will not give. Even the one who asks for knowledge of the Divine or some other spiritual gift, but asks for the sake of his own desires, will not receive, because he asks badly and to his own destruction, and God does not give what is bad.”

Imported from an open dataset — not yet checked against the printed edition.