James 2:1 - Printer Friendly

ESV: My brothers, show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory.

NIV: My brothers and sisters, believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ must not show favoritism.

NASB: My brothers and sisters, do not hold your faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ with an attitude of personal favoritism.

CSB: My brothers and sisters, do not show favoritism as you hold on to the faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ.

NLT: My dear brothers and sisters, how can you claim to have faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ if you favor some people over others?

KJV: My brethren, have not the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with respect of persons.

NKJV: My brethren, do not hold the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with partiality.

In the previous chapter, James urged his Christian readers to believe God thoroughly. Their trust in Christ should change the way they think about money in this life (James 1:9–11). If we really believe that eternal riches await God's children in heaven, and that this life will be over in a moment, we should drastically reduce the importance we attach to money. In those verses, he showed how the poor should rejoice in their future rewards, and the rich should not rely on their possessions. This lead into a description of how Christians ought to obey the Word of God, not merely hear it.

Here, James starts to unpack the implications of those ideas. James begins with the issue of giving better treatment to wealthy people than to poor people. Apparently, this human tendency was a problem even in the early church. Christians were under heavy persecution. "If we treat the rich and powerful people well," they may have thought, "they will treat us well." James will insist that shows a lack of faith in the God who provides for us.

He begins in this verse with a command to Christians to do the opposite: show no partiality or favoritism. Period. True believers trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the Lord of Glory (or the glorious Lord).

The implication here is that the Lord of Glory is fully capable of providing all we need at all times and forever. His glory will be ours for eternity. If you are trusting the Lord to meet all of your needs, why show favoritism to anyone in hopes that they will provide for you (or avoid harming you)?

In the following verses, James will paint a picture of what faithless favoritism might look at a gathering of believers.

James 2:1–13 continues the prior passage's focus on Christians living out what the Word of God says. Those who hold the faith of Christ should obey the command to love our neighbors as ourselves. This includes not showing favoritism to the rich over the poor. Christians should trust God to provide for and protect them, instead of seeking the favor of the very group of people who were oppressing them in the first place. According to the gospel, all of us are lawbreakers. Christians, as people who believe they will be judged by the law that gives freedom, should treat all others as equals.

Genuine saving faith in God leads to good and loving actions: ''works.'' In chapter 1, James discussed the importance of acting on the words of God, not merely hearing them. Favoritism to the rich over the poor demonstrates a lack of faith. In fact, this is a sin. Following up on these ideas, James insists that ''faith'' which doesn't result in good works is dead. Such belief is merely intellectual agreement. It is not trust, or true, biblical saving faith. James doesn't deny that belief in God is essential to salvation, nor does he claim that works are necessary to obtain salvation. Rather, he makes the case that works are to faith what the breath is to the body: a sign of life. A ''faith'' without works is like a body without breath: dead.

In chapter 1, James taught that a saving belief in God changes how a Christian looks at trials in their lives. It affects where they turn for help, and who they credit for good. Believers hear the Word and do it. In this chapter, James insists that our faith in God should keep us from showing favoritism to the rich and powerful on earth and should provoke us to love our poor neighbors as ourselves. He also makes the case that so-called-''faith'' which does not result in works, is not saving faith, at all. Despite controversy, this does not clash with Paul's view of salvation by grace alone. James refers to good works as an expected outcome of salvation, not the source of it. In the following chapters, he will continue to show what a life of genuine faith looks like.

The book of James is about specifically understanding what saving faith looks like. How does faith in Christ reveal itself in a believer's life? What choices does real trust in God lead us to make? Those are the questions James answers. Most scholars believe the writer was Jesus' half-brother, a son born to Joseph and Mary after Jesus' birth. James may not have come to believe Jesus was the Messiah until after the resurrection. Eventually, though, he became one of the leaders of the Christian church in Jerusalem. This is possibly the earliest-written of all the New Testament books, around AD 40–50. James addresses his letter to Jewish Christians scattered around the known world.