Ministry of Grace Church

and you should look upon the one wearing the fine clothes and should say to him, "You sit here in a good place," and should say to the poor man, "You stand there," or, "Sit here under my footstool,"

Truth to Learn

Christians need to become “money blind” and treat all people alike regardless of their financial standing.

Behind the Words

The words “should look upon” are translated from the Greek words epiblepō epi. The word epiblepō is a compound word made up of epi, meaning “on” or “over” and blepō, which means “to look.” Hence, it literally means “to look upon” or “to look at.” However, when followed by the word epi, as it is in this verse, it means “to look upon with kindness and favor.” Some versions of the Bible translate this as “show respect to.”

“Wearing” is translated from the Greek word phoreō, which is derived from pherō, meaning “to bring” or “to bear.” This word, however, implies frequent or repetitive action as opposed to one time action. Therefore, phoreō, means “to bear about with or on oneself as a regular course of action.” James is here referring to a person who regularly or habitually wears fine clothing and/or expensive jewelry.

Meaning Explained

Like the last verse, this one does not stand alone without the preceding and following verses. This verse, however, is very tightly coupled with the previous verse as it talks about how we tend to treat wealthy people compared to how we treat the poor and uncomely among us. What James is saying is:

and if you look favorably upon the richly dressed person and offer him the best seat in the sanctuary, and say to the street bum “stand back there by the foyer or sit here in this undesirably place…”

Once again, James is using exaggeration to make his point about how we tend to treat people differently based on the outward appearance. The people we go to church with week after week become family to us and we treat them with warmness. When we have visitors, we often treat them differently because we’re not as familiar with them as we are the rest of our family. The wealthy ones are often treated special, probably because if they like our church and decide to join, they will be able to help us with the financial needs of the church. But street people will only be a further strain on our already stretched financials.

The problem with this is that we are now seeing people as commodities to be desired or avoided. We need to recognize that these are people, whether rich or poor, having feelings and needs. If they are Christians, then they are brothers (or sisters) no matter what their financial standing is. Treating them differently based on their financial position is nothing more than selfishness on our part. It does not glorify God and it does not contribute to the spiritual growth of the body of Christ.

Application

Think of the last time you greeted a visitor in your church. Would you have acted differently toward this person if he or she had spent the previous three nights sleeping under the freeway overpass in the same dirty clothes they wore to church?