James 2: Favoritism Forbidden?

[tedshr3d]

I was reading through James when I came acoss the second chapter and its explanation for why favoritism is forbidden. "My brothers, as believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Chris, don't show favoritism" (NIV, James 2:1). I thought it was pretty straight-forward until I came across the example that was explained in which you choose to favor the rich man over the poor man-that kind of favoritism. My question is, however, am I not right to have a "best" friend, or love one person over the other? Is this what this verse means, or is it simply saying don't favor one because of their social status or material possessions?

 

[joey_downunder]

I always thought it was only to tell the people of that church not to give special treatment to people who were richer or had higher status than other church members. They were showing favouritism to the wealthy as the world still favours the mega-rich and superstars today.

 

[granpa]

Job 13:7-10 says that we shouldnt even show favouritism/partiality toward God himself.
God is subject to his own laws.

13:7 Will you speak wickedly on God’s behalf?
Will you speak deceitfully for him?
13:8 Will you show him partiality?
Will you argue the case for God?
13:9 Would it turn out well if he would examine you?
Or as one deceives a man would you deceive him?
13:10 He would certainly rebuke you
if you secretly showed partiality!

http://net.bible.org/passage.php?passage=job 13:7-10#n6

 

[JCFantasy23]

I was reading through James when I came acoss the second chapter and its explanation for why favoritism is forbidden. "My brothers, as believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Chris, don't show favoritism" (NIV, James 2:1). I thought it was pretty straight-forward until I came across the example that was explained in which you choose to favor the rich man over the poor man-that kind of favoritism. My question is, however, am I not right to have a "best" friend, or love one person over the other? Is this what this verse means, or is it simply saying don't favor one because of their social status or material possessions?

I doubt this is what this means. It's inevitable we will have best friends, people naturally closed to us. It seems to me Jesus had some disciples He was closer too. Also, with the love - we are directed to love our spouses above some, and of course our children is common sense (for most of us anyway).

 

[contango]

I was reading through James when I came acoss the second chapter and its explanation for why favoritism is forbidden. "My brothers, as believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Chris, don't show favoritism" (NIV, James 2:1). I thought it was pretty straight-forward until I came across the example that was explained in which you choose to favor the rich man over the poor man-that kind of favoritism. My question is, however, am I not right to have a "best" friend, or love one person over the other? Is this what this verse means, or is it simply saying don't favor one because of their social status or material possessions?

I see this passage as telling us not to treat people more or less favourably based on how wealthy they appear to be.

It's very easy to assume someone wearing gold rings and fine apparel is wealthy and therefore likely to put more in the collection, and so treat them more favourably than someone who appears to be poor. So I guess you could sum up that passage as telling us not to judge by appearance, and not to treat others based on what we think we might get back from them.

 

[tedshr3d]

Alright Thank you all very much. I hope I wasn't sounding too naive.

You all summed it up very nicely.

 

[carsoc]

it may be too late to answer... but I am convicted that the context of showing no favoritism includes having no partiality of treatment whether it maybe your best friend or not...