Study of James wk 4
Notes
Transcript
James chapter 2 week 4
James chapter 2 week 4
Tonight we are picking up in our study of James, in chapter 2.
We will be looking at the first 13 verses of chapter 2 tonight and this section is titled sin of partiality.
We are to love all people.
James will begin this passage on partiality with an exhortation, and then go into a brief illustration.
Most of this discussion is an argument against partiality.
First, partiality shows inconsistency in one’s conduct: those we reject are the ones God has chosen and those we favor are the godless who God rejects.
Second, partiality is more than an error in judgment; it is an act of sin. The one who shows respect of persons is a transgressor of the law. The law is like a ring or hedge encircling those within. When one breaks this ring he stands outside becoming a transgressor - whether he commits adultery, murder, or shows partiality.
Third, James argues that partiality provokes God’s judgment.
1 My brethren, do not hold your faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ with an attitude of personal favoritism.
God does not play favorites.
The faith of our Lord Jesus Christ includes the fact that God loves the world and that Christ died for it, if God and Christ show grace and mercy without favoritism, so should believers.
The practice of favoritism involved giving benefits to people who had outward advantages such as money, power, or social prominence.
The readers of James were courting the favor of these important people by showing preference for them over the poor.
To these scheming readers James gave a sharp directive, stop it!!
2 For if a man comes into your assembly with a gold ring and dressed in fine clothes, and there also comes in a poor man in dirty clothes,
James presented a likely case of unjust discrimination to reinforce the preceding command against favoritism toward the rich.
A well-dressed rich man and an unsightly poor man pay simultaneous visit to the Christian meeting.
The rich man is attired with all the marks of a man of luxury.
His self-presentation invites public admiration and special honor.
He requires preferential treatment, or he will move on.
The visit of the rich man becomes a test of Christian faith.
The other man is called poor; his clothes are shabby and grimy.
The congregation is now in the uncomfortable position of seeking the favor of the rich and disregarding the neediness of this poor man.
The timing of the visit is a problem.
The congregation had to deal with both, and they would fail to offer both an appropriate welcome.
James is telling us here that we cannot show favoritism, and we definitely cannot be partial to people just because they are rich, Jesus tells us to help the needy.
I take this farther, James is talking about rich and poor because that was the issue in that day, but we need to look at it as black and white or any other way that we may show favoritism.
We cannot do it, no matter what nationality they are, or how they are different from us, we are stilled called by God to love them.
3 and you pay special attention to the one who is wearing the fine clothes, and say, “You sit here in a good place,” and you say to the poor man, “You stand over there, or sit down by my footstool,”
Next James is telling the people that they are putting the rich man in the best seat in the house and making the poor man to sit in a spot where no one can see him.
All people need to hear the Word of God whether they are rich or poor, whether they are black, white, Middle Eastern, or whatever nationality they are, they all need salvation.
James is speaking here in a parable from a teaching like Jesus did in His teachings.
We are not to favor someone because they are rich, and we are not to look down on someone because they are poor or homeless.
The same goes with nationality, we are not to look down on someone because they are of a different race than us, or because they do not look like us.
4 have you not made distinctions among yourselves, and become judges with evil motives?
Evil thoughts of prejudicial bias against the poor had undermined the faith and joy in the church.
All of the believers had become like evil judges - James indicted them all because they condoned the divisive act.
See if we see someone being prejudice towards someone and we do not say something to them then we are just as guilty as they are.
The question is are we as the community of believers united around the principles of Christ rather than those of the perishing world?
Do we follow worldly things or the things of Christ?
See Jesus did not play favoritism, He spoke to the Samaritan women even though that was more or less forbidden of a Jewish man.
See we cannot allow the world to influence our attitude and the way that we treat other people.
We are commanded to love one another.
5 Listen, my beloved brethren: did not God choose the poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which He promised to those who love Him?
Here James says listen or hearken, he wanted the people to listen closely to what he was about to say.
The world may look on poverty-stricken people as insignificant and worthless, but God sees them as abounding in the riches of faith.
Their faith allows them to experience God’s wealth - salvation and is accompanying blessings.
This does not suggest all the poor people are converted, not does it mean God practices a bias against those who are not poor.
The poor God bless are those whose poverty is primarily to be poor in spirit.
Often those who are economically poor are better placed than the wealthy to understand God’s purpose.
They are more likely than the rich to be prospects for conversion.
6 But you have dishonored the poor man. Is it not the rich who oppress you and personally drag you into court?
Instead of giving special honor to the poor, James asserted that his hearers had insulted them.
The act of shamming the poor was inseparable from the simultaneous act of honoring the rich.
The Christian assembly also had failed to confront the rich with regard to all the ways they suspend justice and fairness by defrauding others of what is due them.
These people where the ones that were being exploited by the rich.
Next James tells the believers these are the same people that has dragged you into court.
These people were tolerating the wickedness of the rich and it went too far.
James was kind of asking the people are you on God’s side or the oppressors, or the rich people’s.
7 Do they not blaspheme the fair name by which you have been called?
James ask the people do not the rich people blaspheme the name of the Lord?
Because the rich were attacking believers in the courts as though they were criminals and thieves, it was as though they were attacking the Lord.
When we slander a believer, it is as if we are slandering God.
As believers we are God’s children and He takes offence when someone slanders or persecutes us.
Thus in honoring the rich that had been persecuting the poor and the believers, it is a dishonor to Christ.
Any time we take the side of someone that is against a believer, we are taking sides against Christ.
When we start to show favoritism, it brings in division in the church.
We are all equal and all desire attention.
8 If, however, you are fulfilling the royal law according to the Scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing well.
James said the believers must really keep this law.
They understood the royal law as fulfilling or doing God’s law completely.
This point in the teaching of Jesus was meant as the supreme healing to favoritism and hypocrisy.
No one is outside the boundary of neighbor love.
We are to love our neighbor as our self.
Paul’s meaning in Galatians 5:6 is the only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.
6 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything, but faith working through love.
9 But if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors.
James now indicated what was so wrong about the world’s wealth and its system of honor: to play favorites is to commit sin.
Favoritism is sin that transgresses the royal law.
Favoritism can be to either the rich or the poor, to one group of people or another, and even to one individual person or not.
We are to love everyone no matter if they are rich, poor, black, white, young, or old.
And if we do not we are committing a sin.
10 For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point, he has become guilty of all.
Here we are told that even if we keep the whole law, but yet break one little part of it we are guilty of the entire law.
See we can be the best person and do all kings of good things, and give money to the church and to other charitable organizations but if we do not have love than all those things are invalid.
1 If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.
2 If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.
3 And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing.
When we show favoritism it undermines every other claim of obedient faith.
It is like taking a test and getting 9 out of 10 questions right but by missing that one question we fail the whole test.
11 For He who said, “Do not commit adultery,” also said, “Do not commit murder.” Now if you do not commit adultery, but do commit murder, you have become a transgressor of the law.
Two extreme examples of breaking God’s law are now brought forward: adultery and murder.
If we break one or the other it is we are breaking the entire law.
We are guilty of breaking the law.
Sin is sin, because when we commit a sin we break the law and when breaking the law we break the entire law.
When we show favoritism we break the law and is no difference than if we have committed adultery or murder.
12 So speak and so act as those who are to be judged by the law of liberty.
James exhorted his hearers to speak and act as those who are to be judged by a law that makes them free.
Since favoritism is based on false judgment and turns believers into unjust judges, then needed to remember that they too would be judged.
Christians will be judged according to their consistency of speech and action.
The law of freedom does not condemn but set free.
We are to include all people no matter if they are rich or poor, black or white, young or old.
13 For judgment will be merciless to one who has shown no mercy; mercy triumphs over judgment.
James describes the nature of the second kind of judgment that condemns for every offense as judgment without mercy.
To anyone who has not acted mercifully, no mercy will be shown.
The importance of mercy in human relationships is essential because mercy is a direct indicator of repentance toward God.
Because Christians’ sins are so often toward other people, they are dependent on others’ mercy.
Believers hope for mercy from others because they have received mercy from God.
James offered a principle that is surely one of the highest in all of Scriptures: mercy triumphs over judgment.