What does the book of James say about rich people?
James 2:1-7
Rabbi Rev. Dr. Michael H. Koplitz
James 2:1 My brethren, do not hold your faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ with an attitude of personal favoritism. 2 For if a man comes into your assembly with a gold ring and dressed in fine clothes, and there also comes in a poor man in dirty clothes, 3 and you pay special attention to the one who is wearing the fine clothes, and say, “You sit here in a good place,” and you say to the poor man, “You stand over there, or sit down by my footstool,” 4 have you not made distinctions among yourselves, and become judges with evil 1motives? 5 Listen, my beloved brethren: did not God choose the poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which He promised to those who love Him? 6 But you have dishonored the poor man. Is it not the rich who oppress you and personally drag you into court? 7 Do they not blaspheme the fair name by which you have been called?
The book of James is not read very often in the church and only shows up three times in what we call the three-year lectionary. There is a superb reason for this, especially in the Protestant churches, because Martin Luther did not like James. He had a lot of concerns about this book, and he wanted to discard it from his Protestant German Bible. However, his associates told him he already eliminated the 16 books which we call the Apocrypha, and it would be difficult to get his followers to accept more deletions from the Scripture.
A couple of reasons Martin Luther did not like James were because he felt James did not follow the nature of the Gospels. He also believed that James contradicted several of Paul’s teachings. Also, Jesus is it mentioned in the book very often. But since James is in the Bible, we need to consider what it has to say. So now the question becomes why the church does not like to talk about the book of James, especially in industrialized first world countries.
It’s probably because in chapter 1 and a large part of chapter 2, James tells us he dislikes rich people. Since most churchgoers in the United States and Western Europe are financially secure, they probably would not like to hear sermons about how bad they are just because they have money. If we go by the United Nations’ definition of rich, there are very few people in the United States, even those below our poverty level, who would be poor. Again, the book is in the Bible, and we need to deal with it and as one who looks for the original meaning of the Scripture, I can’t just let it go.
What we must understand first is that economics were different during Jesus’s day and for centuries after then they are today. Let’s talk about the economy of Judea and the Galilee when James was writing his book. First, let me note scholars believe James was written around 40 CE. That means James was written even before Paul started writing his letters and over 20 years before the first Gospels were written.
The economy of Judea and Galilee I referred to as a zero-growth economy. There was no growth in the Near East. There was economic growth in other places in the Roman Empire, but not in the Near East. The economy of the Near East was based on agriculture mainly. There were no advances in being able to grow more crops on an acre of land like there is today. Farming in the United States can grow because we learned ways to enrich the soil so that we can get more plants to grow on the same amount of land.
What a zero growth economy means is let’s say you and your neighbor each harvested 100 bushels of wheat each year. If your neighbor wanted to harvest more bushels, let’s say one hundred and 50, then you would have to harvest 50 less. In that way between the two of you, you’ve harvested 200 bushels, which is the same as the year before and will be the same for the next few years. I know that’s a crude example, but I hope you see what I’m saying.
Therefore, in order to get rich in the ancient world, you had to exploit people and basically steal their wealth. There were many ways that could be done. I will not get into all the ways, but the understanding that rich people in Jesus' day got rich by exploiting other people, usually the class underneath, is what James was upset about.
Taking that into account if you have wealth that you earned by not exploiting other people, then there’s nothing wrong with the wealth you have. The author of James could not see the possibility of a growing economy, which means people can get rich without having to take wealth from other people.
This is a great example of understanding the Scripture by understanding the culture of the day. So, in Jesus' day, being rich was not a wonderful thing because you had to exploit people to be rich. I’m sounding like a broken record, but I think you got the idea. So, James did not like people who exploited other people.
Jesus never said that wealth was a bad thing. What he said if you use your wealth to hurt other people or exploit them, then it’s sinful. However, if you use your wealth to help the poor, that’s a good thing. There is always the question of how much wealth does one has to have. I remember an interview done approximately 20 years ago with Bill Gates, who was then the CEO of Microsoft. He was asked how much wealth is enough. He was the wealthiest man in the world. His answer was you can never have enough wealth. He got hammered for that, and public opinion of him and Microsoft went down so much that he became a philanthropist and created a foundation to give away some of his money.
You can always ask yourself the question, how much is enough? It’s a question that every one of us has to answer. I am not able to tell you what you should do. There are scriptural verses that talk about tithing and almsgiving and giving to the poor. At the same time, you don’t want to give away all your income because then you’ll be the one asking for financial help. Therefore, it is a balancing act. It is something that you have to do from your heart and support organizations which help people who are in need.
I believe the best thing we can do for someone in need is to show them how to get back on their feet and support themselves. There were many times when people came into the church that I was serving and wanted us to give them money. I tried to set up a program where if the church gave you money for food, then you had to attend a budgeting class and we would show you how to budget your income so that you could cover your expenses. Would you believe that only one person was willing to come to that class. We laid out a budget for him, he agreed to follow it and within three months he was back begging for money for food.
There must be a point where people must stand on their own therefore, the balancing act of how you help people is the key to helping themselves. As the old saying goes, it’s better to teach a person how to fish than to just constantly give them fish. Again, you must decide how you want to deal with the gifts that God gives you.
