Scripture Daily

Context No. 918 of 4322 · James

Context · Reflection

James 2:1-7: in context

1My brothers, don’t hold the faith of our glorious Lord Jesus Christ with partiality. 2For if a man with a gold ring, in fine clothing, comes into your synagogue, and a poor man in filthy clothing also comes in, 3and you pay special attention to him who wears the fine clothing and say, “Sit here in a good place;” and you tell the poor man, “Stand there,” or “Sit by my footstool” 4haven’t you shown partiality among yourselves, and become judges with evil thoughts? 5Listen, my beloved brothers. Didn’t God choose those who are poor in this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the Kingdom which he promised to those who love him? 6But you have dishonored the poor man. Don’t the rich oppress you and personally drag you before the courts? 7Don’t they blaspheme the honorable name by which you are called?

James gets very practical about favoritism. Imagine, he says, a rich man in fine clothes and a gold ring walks into your assembly, and a poor man in filthy clothes comes in too. If you fawn over the rich man, give him the good seat, and tell the poor man to stand off to the side or sit on the floor, you have become judges with evil thoughts. Then he presses harder: did not God choose the poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom? And is it not the rich who oppress you and drag you into court?

The sting is that partiality contradicts the faith you claim to hold. You cannot hold the faith of the Lord of glory, James says, while sorting people by their clothes, because that is to judge by exactly the standard God overturns. God has chosen the poor to be rich in faith; the church that flatters the wealthy and sidelines the poor is running its seating chart against God's own choices. And James exposes the plain foolishness of it, too: the very rich you scramble to impress are often the ones exploiting you, and even slandering the name of Christ you bear. The instinct to defer to money and status is so automatic that we do it inside the house of the God who became poor. James is not against the rich as persons; he is against a community whose welcome is quietly for sale, that treats the well-dressed as worth more.

Whom do I instinctively give the good seat, and whom do I leave standing, and what does that reveal about the standard I am actually using to measure people?

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