James 2:1-4 - “My brothers show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory. For if a man wearing a gold ring and fine clothing comes into your assembly, and a poor man in shabby clothing also comes in, and if you pay attention to the one who wears the fine clothing and say, ‘You sit here in a good place,’ while you say to the poor man, ‘You stand over there,’ or, ‘Sit down at my feet,’ have you not then made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?”
While going to church in the first century looked a little different than today, there are some clues from the Scripture that there were visitors when the Christians assembled. Here the reference is how to treat visitors who come into your assembly.
In this hypothetical situation, both a rich man and a poor man visit on the same Sunday, and James is encouraging us to respond the same to both. The tendency is to give preference to the rich man and to look down on the poor - this is to “make a distinction among yourselves.”
The word distinction literally means to separate. In other words the Bible tells us not to separate people in the church by their appearance or social standing. The church is the only organization in the world where your race, your sex, your socio economic standing, or your position should not matter. There is no distinction in Jesus. We are all the same in Jesus. So as these verses teach today, “show no partiality as you hold the faith.”
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