James 2: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

James tells believers not to treat rich visitors better than poor ones, pointing out that God has chosen the poor of this world to be rich in faith, and that breaking the law at one point makes a person a lawbreaker. He then argues that faith which produces no actions is dead and cannot save, using the examples of ignoring a hungry, poorly clothed brother or sister, the demons who believe and shudder, Abraham offering Isaac, and Rahab receiving the messengers and sending them out another way. The chapter ties the two parts together with the royal law, "Love your neighbor as yourself," and the warning that judgment will be without mercy for anyone who has shown no mercy.

Claim by Claim

1. 2:1
   • The writer addresses his brothers.
   • The writer commands them not to hold the faith of Jesus Christ together with partiality toward persons.
   • Jesus Christ is our Lord.
   • Jesus Christ is of glory.
2. 2:2
   • The case supposed is a man entering your assembly wearing a gold ring and bright, splendid clothing.
   • The case supposed also includes a poor man entering in filthy, shabby clothing.
3. 2:3
   • The case supposed is that you look with favor on the man wearing the splendid clothing.
   • You say to that man, Sit here in a good place.
   • You say to the poor man, Stand there, or sit under my footstool.
4. 2:4
   • The question is asked whether you have not then made distinctions among yourselves.
   • The question is asked whether you have not become judges, and it is left open whether that means judges holding evil thoughts or judges rendering evil decisions.
5. 2:5
   • The writer tells his beloved brothers to listen.
   • The question is asked whether God has not chosen the poor of this world to be rich in faith.
   • The question is asked whether God has not chosen them to be heirs of the kingdom.
   • God promised that kingdom to those who love him.
6. 2:6
   • You have dishonored the poor man.
   • The question is asked whether it is not the rich who oppress you.
   • The question is asked whether it is not the rich who drag you before the courts.
7. 2:7
   • The question is asked whether it is not the rich who blaspheme the good name by which you are called.
8. 2:8
   • If you fulfill the royal law according to the scripture, you do well.
   • The scripture says, You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
9. 2:9
   • If you show partiality toward persons, you commit sin.
   • If you show partiality, you are convicted by the law as transgressors.
10. 2:10
    • Whoever keeps the whole law but stumbles at one point has become guilty of all of it.
11. 2:11
    • The one who said, Do not commit adultery, also said, Do not kill.
    • If you do not commit adultery but do kill, you have become a transgressor of the law.
12. 2:12
    • The command is to speak in a certain way and to act in that same way.
    • You are to speak and act as people who are about to be judged by a law of liberty.
13. 2:13
    • Judgment is without mercy to the one who has shown no mercy.
    • Mercy triumphs over judgment.
14. 2:14
    • The question is asked what profit there is if someone says he has faith but has no works.
    • The writer addresses his brothers.
    • The question is asked whether that faith can save him.
15. 2:15
    • The case supposed is a brother or a sister being naked.
    • The case supposed is that person lacking daily food.
16. 2:16
    • The case supposed is that one of you says to them, Go in peace, be warmed and filled.
    • The case supposed is that you do not give them the things needed for the body.
    • The question is asked what profit there is in that.
17. 2:17
    • So also faith, if it has no works, is dead.
    • Such faith is dead by itself, alone.
18. 2:18
    • Someone will say, You have faith and I have works.
    • The demand is made: show me your faith apart from works.
    • The speaker says he will show his faith by his works.
19. 2:19
    • You believe that God is one, which can be read as believing that there is one God.
    • You do well in believing that.
    • The demons also believe that.
    • The demons shudder.
20. 2:20
    • The question is asked whether you are willing to know something.
    • The person addressed is called an empty, foolish man.
    • Faith without works is dead.
21. 2:21
    • The question is asked whether Abraham our father was not justified by works.
    • Abraham offered up Isaac on the altar.
    • Isaac was Abraham's son.
22. 2:22
    • You see that faith was working together with Abraham's works.
    • Faith was made complete by works.
23. 2:23
    • The scripture was fulfilled.
    • That scripture says Abraham believed God.
    • That scripture says it was reckoned to him as righteousness.
    • Abraham was called the friend of God.
24. 2:24
    • You see that a man is justified by works.
    • A man is not justified by faith only.
25. 2:25
    • The question is asked in the same way whether Rahab the harlot was not justified by works.
    • Rahab was a harlot.
    • Rahab received the messengers.
    • Rahab sent them out by another way.
26. 2:26
    • The body without the spirit is dead.
    • In the same way, faith without works is dead.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

2:1

"Respect of persons" in 1611 English has nothing to do with respect. It renders a phrase built on a Hebrew idiom, "to lift the face," used of a judge who looks at who is standing before him and rules accordingly. It means favoritism. Also, "the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ" is ambiguous in Greek: it can mean faith in Jesus, or the faithfulness shown by Jesus. The wording "the Lord of glory" is likewise awkwardly attached, and may qualify the name rather than stand apart from it.

2:2

"Assembly" here is the Greek word synagoge, which is both the ordinary word for a gathering and the word for a synagogue; this is the only place in the New Testament where a Christian meeting is given that name. A gold ring was not jewelry in the modern sense but a public marker of wealth and social rank in the Roman world, so common as a status signal that rings could be rented for the occasion. "Vile raiment" means cheap, dirty, worn clothing; vile in 1611 meant of low value, not wicked.

2:3

"Gay clothing" means bright, showy, splendid clothing. The modern sense of the word did not exist. "Sit here under my footstool" is literal: sit down on the floor beside the feet of a seated person. A room would have a few benches or chairs, and everyone else stood or sat on the ground, so seating was a visible ranking of the people present.

2:4

The Greek verb behind "partial in yourselves" can mean either "made distinctions among yourselves" or "became divided, wavered, within yourselves," and both senses are defensible here. "Judges of evil thoughts" is a Hebrew-style construction that can mean judges whose reasoning is corrupt, or judges who hand down corrupt verdicts.

2:5

"The poor of this world" means those counted poor by the world's reckoning. The Greek behind "rich in faith" is compressed and can be read as rich in the sphere of faith, or rich by means of faith; the translation has to pick one.

2:6

"Despised" here means dishonored, treated as of no account, rather than merely disliked. "Judgment seats" are law courts. In the Roman system a creditor could physically seize a debtor and haul him before the magistrate, and the wealthy were the ones with the standing and the means to do it.

2:7

"That worthy name by the which ye are called" is literally "the good name that was called over you." This is a Hebrew idiom in which an owner's name is pronounced over property, or a father's over a child, to mark who someone belongs to. It most likely refers to the name of Jesus spoken over converts at baptism.

2:8

"Royal law" translates a word meaning belonging to a king, hence either the law given by the king or the law that outranks the rest. The quoted line is from Leviticus 19:18, part of a passage that also explicitly forbids favoring either the poor or the great in judgment.

2:9

"Convinced" in 1611 English meant convicted, proven guilty in a legal sense, not persuaded of something.

2:10

"Offend" here translates a word meaning to stumble or trip, not to give offense to someone. The image is of a person walking the length of the law and catching a foot once.

2:11

These are the sixth and seventh of the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20, Deuteronomy 5). Adultery is listed before killing, which is the order found in some Greek copies of the Old Testament and in other Jewish writers of the period, rather than the familiar Hebrew order.

2:12

"The law of liberty" is the same phrase used earlier at James 1:25. It describes the law considered as something that releases a person rather than confines him.

2:13

"Mercy rejoiceth against judgment" uses a verb meaning to boast or exult over a defeated opponent. The picture is of a contest that mercy wins, not of two things coexisting peacefully.

2:14

"Works" throughout this chapter means things actually done, actions and deeds of any kind. It does not mean a job, and it does not mean religious ritual. In "can faith save him" the Greek has a definite article, "the faith," pointing back to the merely claimed faith just described, not to faith in general.

2:15

"Naked" in biblical usage normally means badly clothed, lacking the outer garment, rather than wearing nothing at all. The outer cloak doubled as a blanket at night, so being without one was a real physical danger.

2:16

"Depart in peace" was a standard farewell blessing, roughly "goodbye and God keep you." "Be ye warmed and filled" is passive in form, a wish that someone or something else will warm and feed them, spoken by the very person in a position to do it.

2:18

Ancient Greek was written without quotation marks, so it is genuinely unclear where the imagined objector stops speaking: possibly after "I have works," possibly later. The exchange is also hard to follow because the positions attached to "thou" and "I" appear to be the reverse of what the argument needs. Translations differ, and no reading is agreed on.

2:19

"There is one God" echoes the Shema of Deuteronomy 6:4, the confession recited daily by Jews: "Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD." The King James uses "devils" for the Greek word daimonia, which means demons, a class of spirits distinct from the devil himself. "Tremble" translates a vivid word meaning to bristle or shudder, used of hair standing on end.

2:20

"Vain" in 1611 English meant empty or hollow, so "O vain man" addresses someone with nothing in his head, not someone conceited. Some early manuscripts read "idle" or "barren" here rather than "dead," which is why translations vary between useless and dead.

2:21

The reference is to Genesis 22, where Abraham was told to sacrifice Isaac and was stopped before the knife fell. "Offered" is the Greek verb for bringing something up onto an altar; Isaac was not killed. "Justified" is courtroom language: declared to be in the right, given a favorable verdict.

2:22

"Wrought with" means worked together with, as two things pulling in the same direction. "Made perfect" translates a word meaning brought to its intended completion or finished off, not made morally flawless.

2:23

The quotation is Genesis 15:6. "Imputed" is an accounting term: entered in the ledger, credited to an account. "The Friend of God" was a settled title for Abraham in Jewish usage, drawn from passages such as 2 Chronicles 20:7 and Isaiah 41:8.

2:25

Rahab's story is in Joshua 2. She kept a house on the wall of Jericho, hid two Israelite scouts sent to survey the city, lied to the king's men about them, and let the scouts down by a rope to leave by a route that avoided the search party. "Harlot" means prostitute, and "the messengers" are those scouts.

2:26

"Spirit" here translates a word that also means breath. The comparison is to a corpse: a body with the breath gone out of it. Older English "ghost" and "spirit" both carried this sense of the breath that keeps a body animate.