James 2

The Sin of Favoritism

¹My brothers and sisters, do not show favoritism as you hold on to the faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ.²³For if someone comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and dressed in fine clothes, and a poor person dressed in filthy clothes also comes in,⁴⁵if you look with favor on the one wearing the fine clothes and say, “Sit here in a good place,” and yet you say to the poor person, “Stand over there,” or “Sit here on the floor by my footstool,”⁶⁷haven’t you made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?⁸

⁹Listen, my dear brothers and sisters: Didn’t God choose the poor in this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom that he has promised to those who love him?¹⁰¹¹Yet you have dishonored the poor. Don’t the rich oppress you and drag you into court?¹²¹³Don’t they blaspheme the good name that was invoked over you?¹⁴

¹⁵Indeed, if you fulfill the royal law prescribed in the Scripture, Love your neighbor as yourself, you are doing well.¹⁶¹⁷If, however, you show favoritism, you commit sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors.¹⁸¹⁹For whoever keeps the entire law, and yet stumbles at one point, is guilty of breaking it all.²⁰²¹For he who said, Do not commit adultery, also said, Do not murder. So if you do not commit adultery, but you murder, you are a lawbreaker.²²

²³Speak and act as those who are to be judged by the law of freedom.²⁴²⁵For judgment is without mercy to the one who has not shown mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment.²⁶

Faith and Works

²⁷What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but does not have works? Can such faith save him?²⁸

²⁹If a brother or sister is without clothes and lacks daily food³⁰³¹and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, stay warm, and be well fed,” but you don’t give them what the body needs, what good is it?³²³³In the same way faith, if it does not have works, is dead by itself.³⁴

³⁵But someone will say, “You have faith, and I have works.” Show me your faith without works, and I will show you faith by my works.³⁶³⁷You believe that God is one. Good! Even the demons believe — and they shudder.³⁸

³⁹Senseless person! Are you willing to learn that faith without works is useless?⁴⁰⁴¹Wasn’t Abraham our father justified by works in offering Isaac his son on the altar?⁴²⁴³You see that faith was active together with his works, and by works, faith was made complete,⁴⁴⁴⁵and the Scripture was fulfilled that says, Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness, and he was called God’s friend.⁴⁶⁴⁷You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone.⁴⁸⁴⁹In the same way, wasn’t Rahab the prostitute also justified by works in receiving the messengers and sending them out by a different route?⁵⁰⁵¹For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead.⁵²