SHOWING FAVORITISM

SHOWING FAVORITISM
James 2:1–7
"My brothers, as believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ, don't show favouritism." (v.1)

OUR FAITH IS A SOCIAL PHENOMENON. We do not only practise it privately as individuals; we come together to celebrate it as a people. Hence, we cannot escape the social dimension of our faith. Whenever we meet together, two potential dangers lurk.

Firstly, there is the tendency to judge people by what we see on the outside. Secondly, there is the tendency to discriminate against persons we thus judge to be less worthy. Both tendencies, however human and prevalent they may be, are sinful in the sight of God.

James' readers are evidently guilty of such sins. The verb form in v.1 refers to an action already in existence and may be translated, “Stop showing favouritism!” A vivid (and no doubt common) example is cited: two persons join a congregation for worship. One is treated splendidly because he is splendidly clothed, and the other is handled shabbily because he is shabbily dressed. One is given the best seat, and the other is shown the floor.

Such discrimination becomes obvious when we read about it. It is less obvious when we are actually practising it.

Such partiality is wrong because it inverts God’s order of things. God honours the poor for his faith; we despise him for his poverty. God judges the rich for exploitation; we exalt him for his riches. We are doing the opposite of what God is doing.

Matthew Henry puts it thus: “If a poor man be a good man, we must not value him any whit less for his poverty; and, if a rich man be a bad man, we must not value him any whit more for his riches.”

This is not to say that the poor is to be valued for his poverty as if poverty in itself is a virtue. No, he is honoured by God because he is “rich in faith” (v.5). Neither is the rich to be condemned just because he is rich. Rather, it is because he has exploited the poor, dragged them to court and slandered the name of Christ (vv.6–7). Ultimately, what matters is our inward grace, not our outward show.

The church today (as it was in James’ times) is still one of the few places left where the managing director and the office boy, the one who drives a Mercedes and the one who takes a bus, the professional with a string of degrees and the school drop-out, can sit in the same pew and worship together. God sees the heart, and nothing else.

Do I judge by “outward appearance”? (1 Samuel 16:7)