James 2 - Worldly FavouritismSample

Paul usually wrote to Gentiles who were nervous that the blessings of the Jewish Messiah were available only to those who submitted to the laws of the Old Testament. 

James addresses a different crowd altogether. His readers are not nervous about missing out on the blessings of the Messiah; they are Jews, after all, the chosen people! In James 2:20-26, the brother of Jesus is doing battle with believers who think that it is possible to have ‘faith’ in God without a commitment to the Messiah’s law of love. 

The father and the prostitute

Continuing on from his insistence that we show mercy to the poor, James provides “evidence that faith without deeds is useless” (2:20). He calls on Abraham as his first witness (2:21-23). Was Abraham’s faith a faith without deeds? No way, says James. Abraham trusted God so much he was willing to sacrifice his son (Genesis 22). His faith was not only a conviction about the existence of God; it was a conviction that was ‘made complete’, that is, shown to be true faith, by his deeds of devotion. And so was fulfilled the statement of Genesis 15:6, “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.” To ‘believe in God’ in the biblical sense, argues James, involves a commitment to action. That’s why verse 24 says “faith alone” does not justify; faith that is alone is not real faith. 

James’ second witness is Rahab, the prostitute from Joshua 2. Rahab’s belief in Israel’s God moved her to show hospitality to some Israelite spies and to help them escape from Jericho without harm. By using this example James is probably subtly suggesting that even a pagan prostitute had a better grasp of true faith than some Christians. 

Generous theology

James would be horrified if we got to the end of chapter 2 thinking only about the doctrines of faith and works. As important as all this theology is, it is not the main point of this part of God’s Word. What theology there is here is intended to move us to perform the particular kinds of deeds described in 2:15-16 (and earlier in 1:27); we are to show practical mercy toward the needy.

The Scriptures do not advocate the giving away of all wealth (except on a few occasions: Matt 19:16-22, 27; Acts 2:44-45), but they do urge us to be generous in proportion to our wealth. In a lovely play on words in 1 Timothy 6:17-18, Paul insists that the “rich in this world” should be “rich in good deeds” which he defines immediately as being “generous and willing to share.” Whether or not I regard myself as rich, the point is that we should be generous according to our means.