¹My brethren, do not hold your faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ with an attitude of personal favoritism. ²For 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, ³and 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,” ⁴have you not made distinctions among yourselves, and become judges with evil motives?

Favoritism is the treatment of others based on things or attributes not intrinsic to their common humanity. Liberation theology proponents have sought to remove the discrepancies of wealth and influence through religiously motivated political action. To them, the gospel message is worthless if it deals only with esoteric equality and eternal perfection and not with the improvement of life in this world. Social gospel activists follow in the same vein, although being driven more by social discourse and developing institutions to meet the needs of others. Others, taking biblical passages like here in James, undergird full-blown political systems like communism, socialism, or anti-captialism.

While these issues are beyond the scope of this writing, we must not ignore the individual mandate James give to each of us, specifically within the church. Whatever the political and cultural wars going on in the world around us, the fellowship of believers should be different, “unstained by the world.” We, of all peoples on the earth, should not be showing favoritism toward those who are affluent. James is not condemning those who are wealthy or even criticizing them for being well-to-do. No! He is speaking to those of us who kowtow to them. The problem is not with the wealthy but with those of us who give them preferential treatment.

James, in his acerbic, biting way, roundly condemns such behavior as being motivated by evil, worldly thinking. Think about it: why do we defer to wealthy people? Do we glory in thoughts like this? “Our church has {fill in the blank: Susan the celebrity, Bob the billionaire, Sam the superstar} attending! We must be pretty great to attract such a person. Let’s treat them with honor, so they continue to come. Maybe they will give us some of their money.” Do we not like to measure our own status in the eyes of others by the position of those with whom we associate?

The other side of the favoritism coin is treating unfavorably those with little or no status or wealth in the world’s eyes. This goes completely contrary to the heart of our glorious Lord Jesus Christ, who is the only one to be favored in our congregations. He is the great leveler (James 1:9–11).

Lord, help me see the need of those less fortunate by showing them favor.