Heirs of the kingdom

Listen, my beloved brethren: Has God not chosen the poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which He promised to those who love Him? But you have dishonoured the poor man. Do not the rich oppress you and drag you into the courts? Do they not blaspheme that noble name by which you are called? – James 2.5-7

There is a reason why James uses the illustration of rich and poor rather than any number of other examples of prejudice or partiality. James here drives the point home in a way that his readers are really going to get, possibly in a way that western Christians can’t really get. 

James wrote the ‘twelve tribes scattered abroad.’ He was writing to Christian Jews who were part of a diaspora who had been scattered due to persecution. We have already heard that they were suffering trials and tribulations. They knew what it was like to suffer. 

So James uses that knowledge. ‘You know what it is like to be abused and attacked by those who are well off. They have blasphemed God by their actions and yet you do the same to the poor who love Christ and are as rich in faith as you? It is the poor and needy that Jesus came to save!’

James is telling us here that when we are prejudiced or partial against the poor we are no better than those who persecute the church. We blaspheme God because they were so worthy to Him that He sent His son to die for them. If we dishonour the poor man we dishonour the One who died for them and for us.