Suppose a man comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and fine clothes, and a poor man in shabby clothes also comes in.
This respect of persons, favoring the rich and scorning the poor, has corrupted Christian nations and societies from the earliest days. If you profess faith in Christ the Lord of glory, you cannot measure men by their gold rings and fine clothes when the poorest saint shares equally in the glory you claim to believe in. To cloud His glory by exalting the wealthy is a heinous sin.
AI summary
Commenting on James 2:1-7
For if there come unto your assembly,.... The place of religious worship where saints are assembled together for that purpose; though some think a civil court of judicature is intended, and to which the context seems to incline; see Jam 2:6 a man with a gold ring; on his finger, which shows him to be a man of dignity and wealth; so those of the...
Verse 2. For if there come unto your assembly. Marg., as in Gr., synagogue. It is remarkable that this is the only place in the New Testament where the word synagogue is applied to the Christian church. It is probably employed here because the apostle was writing to those who had been Jews; and it is to be presumed that the word synagogue would be...