Partiality
In James 2:1-7, James addresses the problems of partiality in our individual dealings with people and particularly in the church. I don't know if it is human tendency in general or not, but it seems that people look up to other people who are perceived better than themselves. Perhaps that is measured by how someone looks - physical attributes. Perhaps it is measured by their educational level - PhD better than elementary student. Perhaps it is measured by their standing in society - the posh crowd versus the criminal. Or perhaps it is measured by financial standards - billionaire versus pauper. Perhaps it is measured by their abilities - musicians and sports figures come to mind.
Whatever measure is used, people do tend to judge. Rarely are judgments made on just one scale, and for the above measures listed, there is certainly some overlap between each. Those high on one of the above measures may well end up rating higher on several, and vice versa. But James cautions us that how we act based on our own internal judgments matters a great deal. If we give preference in the kingdom of God to someone who is rich and ignore the pauper, we are doing wrong by many measures. After all, many of these measures that we judge people by are based on or greatly influenced by inherited characteristics that the person had little control over.
Take looks for example. We are born with inherited characteristics that limit how we look to others. Some are born to be tall, others short. Some struggle with weight and some have metabolisms that let them eat anything and as much of anything that they want and never gain an ounce. I have a few cousins like that. Sigh. Some things like hair color or eye color or to an extent bodily characteristics can be altered given enough interest and money. But mostly, you'll just look like you were meant to look. People do judge based on looks.
You have some control over your educational accomplishments, but even here, the best schools are more available to those well off - either due to the neighborhoods they live in or their ability to afford top tier private schools and colleges. The best you can do is to excel to your greatest ability wherever you find yourself. But there will be judging in your adult life based on what you have been able to do. If you've dropped out, you will be judged poorly and if you go to an Ivy League college, you'll be looked up to. Whether you took underwater basket weaving or actually put in some effort for a hard engineering, medical, or other STEM degree doesn't seem as important to some as where you graduated from. Underwater basket weaving from Harvard is somehow tougher than from your state college. And I picked underwater basket weaving so it would be clear I wasn't denigrating any real degree. You do you.
For society, what clubs or organizations you belong to will dictate many of your life relationships. Chamber of Commerce, Rotary, or other clubs may help you network in business. Of course the Country Club helps too. Bridge groups, sewing clubs, book reading clubs, the symphony crowd, the rodeo crowd, and other associations will give people opinions about you based on how they perceive those groups function in society.
Regardless, there is a lot of judging in the world today. And there always has been. Now James doesn't touch on most of the issues I mentioned above. My list isn't inclusive either. He looks mainly to financial issues.
James reminds us of a principle that Christ said. It is hard for rich people to make it to heaven. They have faith in themselves and their own abilities and frequently find no use for God. The poor of the world frequently have to have faith in God because God is the only entity helping them out and seeing them through their day. They can't rely on their own selves for any of a number of reasons.
So he warns the church that you need to see people like God sees people. Maybe it would be ideal if every person had blinders on when dealing with new people so they could get to know each other without any external stimulus other than talking to each other. Wouldn't it be ideal if people nominated you to do jobs in the church based on what God told them about you instead of what you could find out on Google, Facebook, Twitter, or name your favorite social platform? If you think God would mention bad things about you, then fix those things in your life.
James says that when you elevate someone in the church because they look rich, thinking that person will feel goodly about your church and maybe donate, for example, you're putting your faith in man instead of God. If their opinions or teachings mean more than those of the poor individual who is full of the Holy Spirit, then you have a problem. He reminds the reader that the rich are frequently the oppressors in this world.
Even if the oppression is not physical as might have been the case in the early church, you only have to look at the statistics of income inequality in America to see that there is still oppression in one form or another today. How many buildings or sports complexes are named after big donors? How much greater would their reward in heaven have been if they had paid all their employees better and provided them better benefits? I suspect it would be mind boggling to them. And rewards in heaven are eternal. They don't pass away like they do here today. The rich frequently have their own agendas which don't line up with God's agendas. Most are focused only on getting richer - of moving up a few places on the Forbes lists, or equivalent.
Don't be fooled. Look at everyone through God's eyes.
The Law
James states in James 2:8-13 something that might be considered shocking to most today. He says that if you don't love your neighbor as yourself, you've committed a sin. That is something that doesn't register with most of the Christians today. But it was a command from Christ, just like all His other commands.
We tend to think of the law as just the few big commandments - Do not commit adultery, do not kill. We think we are doing good because we don't do those big bad things. Yet there is no grey with God. James reminds us that if we offend in the smallest part of the law, we are just as guilty before God as if we had done a big crime. And not loving your neighbor is a command just like Thou shalt not kill.
Now I'll admit that I have a hard time applying the love your neighbor as yourself today. I honestly don't think it is as easy to do as it was back in the Bible days. If you see someone on the street corner with a sign, it's entirely possible that they have a decent car parked nearby and are just raising a little cash. It's also possible they're homeless and destitute. God is the only one who knows for sure. So I suggest that you listen to Him when you see someone needy.
In most population centers in the country, you won't know the vast majority of the people you meet. In a small town, you might know everyone in town. Perhaps that is why smaller towns can seem warmer to people than big cities because they know what is going on. Even if they wouldn't help a person who they know is a drunk, they'd help their family. In the big city you just don't know and it is frequently dangerous to involve yourself in someone else's life. This is particularly true for the elderly or women. Additionally, the mental health crisis is something that people in New Testament times didn't have as high a percentage of to deal with. It can make any interaction dangerous. Just listen to God via the Holy Spirit.
But this also gets back to judgments that we make. We have to listen to God in spite of the judgments we have formed about the people we see. Sometimes that is hard to do. Personalities can go both ways. In some cases, a person who has come from nothing may be more are compassionate because they've been where the person of interest is now. In other cases, they may think I climbed out without help and so can they. Again, just listen to God via the Holy Spirit.
Closing this section, James says that if we have not been merciful to people, we will be judged without mercy. Nobody wants God's judgment at all. So we need to understand this. God sees our hearts and all we say and do. He sees our interactions with people. Think about what Christianity stands for - or is supposed to stand for. "What would Jesus do?" is an apt question to ask. Not everyone who was sick or injured when he walked the earth was healed. Not everyone who lost a loved one had them restored to life. He initiated the actions He saw the Father wanting to do, and thus His prayers and actions always worked. Let us get to the point in our walk with God via the Holy Spirit that we are to that point as well.
Our Works
In the last section of chapter 2 (James 2:14-26), James turns to the things we do and our faith. The Bible is clear that works don't save us (Ephesians 2:4-9).
2:4 But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us,
2:5 Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;)
2:6 And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus:
2:7 That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.
2:8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:
2:9 Not of works, lest any man should boast.
However, that doesn't mean that works are not important for the Christian to do. James 2:14-18 speaks of the intersection of and reaction between faith and works. James says that just having faith isn't enough. Christianity should change your very being. He uses the example of seeing someone who is destitute. If you tell them to go in peace, warmed and filled, but do no works to help them, are they any better off for your faith? Clearly, they are not. And they will leave your presence with a negative image of Christianity that will hard to overcome if you do not help them out. James ends this section with the declaration that faith accompanied by works is a tremendous thing to behold, but faith alone will not touch the world.
He goes further to say that if you aren't trying to do things for God then eventually your faith will die as well, and you will lose what connection you have to God. James 2:19 throws out a comment that faith and belief is not enough. It is good to believe there is a God, but a lack of understanding of God and His expectations will get you into trouble. The devils also clearly believe in God. They've gone against Him face to face in times past. They fight His forces over every soul out there. And they know that the prophecies are in place that eventually they, and all they have kept from kept from being saved will end up in the lake of fire that burns eternally. They tremble for a good reason as they know their time is short. And it's much shorter now that Israel has been made a nation and the technology for the mark of the beast is in place.
We need to be just as aware that the time is short. If the fields were white unto harvest in Jesus day (John 4:35), how much more so are they today. Every generation has to make a choice for or against Christ. Every generation is white. But the population is huge on Earth compared to Christ's day. How much more work is there to do to harvest? How many more will Satan claim because we have failed in unity with God and each other to do His work?
James uses the example of Abraham's faith in taking Isaac to be sacrificed on the alter. He had faith in God. God put his faith to the test. In the end, Abraham was faithful and God provided a substitute sacrifice for the offering and he was called a "Friend of God". What a tremendous thing to be called. Would that we were all as close to God as that. He also mentions the walled city of Jericho where Rahab hid the spies of Israel and then sent them out when it was safe. She put her faith in a God that she had only barely heard about and in the enemy spies that were coming to scout out the city. Her faith was rewarded.
I'd end my comments on this section with a general overall note. Our faith in the blood of Jesus to cover our sin and make us acceptable to God is what saves us. And faith should be enough. But think of how much harder it would have been if Jesus and the New Testament saints had done no works at all. Would your faith in Jesus and God be as strong as it is if there were no records of healing, miracles like thousands fed, a ship transported from point A to B instantaneously, seas calming, or the rest? If there weren't healing and miracles and the other gifts of the Spirit in operation today, would your faith be as strong?
We needed the record of God's work in the Old Testament and New Testament, whether done through men like Moses, Jesus, and the apostles and others, or done by God Himself. Those records give us the faith we need in the first place, along with showing the nature of God. We needed the works of countless scribes over the human history recording and handing down copy after copy of the scriptures so that we would have them today. Having multiple copies of each helps solidify the truth of each book. And then in modern times, when God works in our own lives it also builds our faith in everything we have read and heard. Faith should be enough, but all too often we're like the man who cried out for help with his lack of faith (Mark 9:24). We need the works to help us in our unbelief.
As works multiply, so does faith. Christ declared that where He was from, He could do few works because of the people's unbelief. God was just as powerful in Jesus' home town area as He was anywhere else. But with unbelief in God's power and care for them, the people weren't able to receive the blessings God wanted to give them. Their history with Roman occupation and few works, combined with perhaps a lack of remembering the power of the God they served, combined to erode their faith. Faith needs works to stay healthy over long periods of time. It sometimes needs it over short periods. And also, we need to stop judging. Many problems of faith in His home town were due to people judging Him as just the guy who grew up there instead of accepting who He really was.
Probably everyone here has prayer requests that they wonder if will ever get answered. We wonder if things will ever change for the better in our life or the lives of people we know. We don't know God's timing and can't predict what change He will bring. But as we see other works being done, whether by God or Christians helping Christians or non-Christians because it's what we're called to do, it helps our faith to stay strong that God has an answer for us. Works don't have to be done by you or for you to help your faith. You just need to know the work of God is still being done someplace.
And married to that statement is this. If God has done a work in your life or in that of someone you know, testify about it. Make it worth something. What would your faith be like if nobody had testified of the works of the apostles and Jesus in the New Testament. I'll bet it wouldn't be as strong as it is today! Share what God has done for you or through you. The world needs to hear it. I can count at least four separate divine healing instances of people I know. I know of one instance of an angel appearing in time of need. I've heard one testimony of a resurrection. Some of the details of a couple have grown fuzzy over time. But I remember the truth that God is still at work.
Manuel Prabhudas gives a great testimony message of what God is doing for the church in France. Ty Buckingham has a good example in the sermon about 19 minutes in of what it is like to be led of the Holy Spirit in everyday life to work a healing for a person he didn't know. It takes about 10 minutes for the whole story to be told. But his entire sermon is good about the Holy Spirit. Pastor Mellendorf gives a message with another example of God working today about 1:07:35 in and going for about four minutes or so. God is at work. Build your faith, because He is at work. Share what you've heard God is doing. If you'd like to read some of the things He's said recently, you can read the items on the God's Word for Today on the awmach.org site.