James 2:8–13 (ESV)
The Sin of Partiality
8 If
you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing well. 9 But if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors.
10 For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it. 11 For he who said, “Do not commit adultery,” also said, “Do not murder.” If
you do not commit adultery but do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law. 12 So speak and so act as those who are to be judged under the law of liberty. 13 For judgment is without
mercy to one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment.
James rebukes an act that is inconsistent with the righteous life: judging others based
on their appearance, wealth, or status. The desire for wealth leads us to lift up the wealthy and look down on the poor. This is not God’s way. He shows no partiality but calls all people to faith in Christ and grants the same gift of salvation to all
in the waters of Baptism. James calls us to look at one another as those for whom Christ died because the name of Christ has been given to us in Baptism (v 7). He gives all His people a new identity that the world cannot give. We live together in Him, serving
and building up one another until His return.
I pray: Forgive me, Lord, for looking at the face and not the heart. May Your name, spoken over me in my
Baptism, be glorified in my life as I serve Your people. Amen.[1]