Henry Krabbendam - James - World Evangelical Alliance

to passages such as Luke 6:24ff (Grosheide, 1955, 401; PHDavids, 174;
Laws, 197; Mitton, 175; Stulac, 199-200; Kistemaker, 156), in general to encourage
poor Christians against the backdrop of their exalted standing before
God (Jam. 1:9), and possibly to lead up to his exhortation of patience in the
ensuing verses (Manton, 399). Together with these later verses, then, James
allegedly picks up once again on the so-called great "reversal" theme of
James 1:9-11 and 2:2-7. In the judgment the rich, who presently seem to have
everything going their way, will meet their doom. The poor, on the other
hand, who have a daily battle on their hand and frequently fail to survive, will
be vindicated and end up “on easy street.” One of reasons for this view is that
the poor are addressed as brothers, while the rich are not. This is supposedly a
telling argument for excluding the rich in this context from the Christian
community.
The present Commentary has from the outset emphatically opposed this
kind of interpretation. Throughout his Epistle James addresses the “Twelve
Tribes in the Dispersion.” This OT terminology is figurative in nature, and
indicates that James writes to the Church of Christ in its totality, wherever it
is located, at home or abroad, poor or rich. He addresses the rich-poor issue
three times.
In James 1:9-11 the author deals with the range of trials all the members
of the Christian community will experience. These trials come down either to
a matter of poverty, or to a matter of riches. This suggests the existence of
two categories of people in the economic arena. The Church will always harbor
the “haves” and the “have-nots.” However, it also suggests the presence
of two aspects of life in all categories of people. All of life is checkered. All
believers cope with “riches” and “poverty” at one time or another in the various
areas of their existence, whether educationally, socially, financially, professionally,
etc. He “bluntly” tells them how to deal with both realities in ultimate
categories. In short, the unbelieving rich as a class of people do not
enter into the picture in this passage. Neither does the “reversal” theme.
In James 2:2-7 he chides these very same members of the Christian
community for giving preferential treatment to the rich, whether they are
members, regular attendees or occasional visitors, while slighting their poor
counterparts. He argues that this comes down to both logical and biblical “insanity.”
Frankly, it is totally irrelevant to his argument whether these members,
attendees, or visitors are professing Christians, nominal Christians or
non-Christians. Nevertheless, to denounce rich visitors as necessarily outsiders
is unjustified. There are no clues in the text that would indicate this. Further,
there is no trace of a so-called reversal theme in this context either.
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