Unprejudiced Love

“Listen, my beloved brothers, has not God chosen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom, which he has promised to those who love him? But you have dishonored the poor man. Are not the rich the ones who oppress you, and the ones who drag you into court? Are they not the ones who blaspheme the honorable name by which you were called?” - James 2:5-7

At this point in this epistle, James is exhorting believing Christians to not show favoritism, particularly towards the rich rather than the poor. This was a serious problem in James’ time. We notice at the beginning of the book that James mentions the “twelve tribes of the dispersion.” This was referring to Jewish Christians who had spread out because of the constant persecution they were facing. However, once the Christians split, disagreements amongst the split sections were notorious. Hostility between the churches of the dispersion and amongst new believers trying to enter the church were growing.  

People didn’t want to accept new people entering the church for fear of persecution from inside the church, and they didn’t want to associate with other churches of the dispersion because of disagreements concerning theology and religious practice. It actually became somewhat common for subtle competitions to arise between the different churches. Wealth was one of these competitions. 

As a result of all of this, Christians were especially friendly to rich people trying to enter the church because of the possibility of further wealth within their church. The opposite was true when a poor person would come into their church; not much care or love was shown to these people because they were seen as being more of a burden on the church than anything else. James lovingly corrects the churches of the dispersion, encouraging them to not show partiality towards rich people, but to treat rich and poor people equally. In order to drive his point home, he points out that the rich are the very people persecuting the church: “Are not the rich the ones who oppress you, and the ones who drag you into court?” Furthermore, he explains to the church that the rich people are the “ones who blaspheme the honorable name by which you were called.” That is, Jesus’ name. 

Many of the people in the first churches were actually poor themselves and they were beginning to reject other poor people. In essence, they had forgotten who they were. They were once poor and once lost; they just had Christ in their life now. The poor man had found wealth in Christ, but the churches which James is writing to had forgotten that their wealth in Christ was only truly wealth if resting upon Christ. And Christ loved the poor; poor in spirit, poor in ability, poor in wealth, poor in love. That is not to say that Christ didn’t love the rich as well, but the rich didn’t love him (obviously thats a generalization that doesn’t always hold true). The rich were able to find wealth in something else: their possessions. But the poor had no wealth, and only found wealth in Christ, and they clung to that truth. 

Christians today need to remove prejudices from their views

 of people. A person is a person and their is nothing more to it. You were lost, they are lost; you were poor, they are poor; you were ill-tempered, they are ill-tempered. How dare we Christians judge others for what we were once guilty of ourselves? Should we not show abundant grace, similar to that which Christ presented to us through his death? If we cannot learn to love those who wish to become part of the body of Christ, or those who already are, how will we ever love those who want no part in our religion? Christ told us to love our enemies but I truly believe this is impossible without first learning to love our brother and sisters. One cannot love your enemies without first loving your family. May we be disciplined, encouraged, and content to love whoever God should bring to us, and may we treat them with unprejudiced, undying love.