Biblion Bible Commentary
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Faith Held with Partiality
James 2:1-4
1 My brothers, don’t hold the faith of our glorious Lord Jesus Christ with partiality. · WEB
The scene is specific enough to be a report rather than an example, and the charge is that the seating has made judges of the congregation.
Verse 1 states the principle and its grammar matters: do not hold the faith of our glorious Lord Jesus Christ with partiality. The two are presented as incompatible in the way holding two objects in one hand is incompatible — the faith and the favoritism cannot both be held.
The word for partiality is a Semitic idiom rendered literally into Greek, receiving a face, and it is used in Scripture of the judgment God refuses to practice.
Verses 2 and 3 then describe the scene, and it is detailed to a degree that suggests something observed. A gold ring and bright clothing; another man in filthy clothes. And the seating is quoted: sit here in a good place against stand there or sit by my footstool. The letter does not say the poor man was turned away. He was admitted and positioned.
Verse 4 delivers the charge in a question, and it has two parts. They have made distinctions among themselves — the verb is the one used earlier of the doubter who is divided James 1:6, so the same word for internal division is now applied to a community.
And they have become judges with evil thoughts. That is the more serious half. In seating two men by their clothing the congregation has constituted itself a court, adopted a standard, and delivered a verdict — which is exactly the role verse 1 said the faith excludes.
settled What this mark means