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THE PERIL OF SNOBBERY WITHIN THE CHURCH

James 2:2–4

For, if a man comes into your assembly with his fingers covered with gold rings and dressed in elegant clothes and a poor man comes in dressed in shabby clothes, and you pay special attention to the man who is dressed in elegant clothes and you say to him: ‘Will you sit here, please?’ and you say to the poor man: ‘You stand there!’ or ‘Squat on the floor beside my footstool!’ have you not drawn distinctions within your minds, and have you not become judges whose thoughts are evil?’

IT is James’ fear that snobbery may invade the Church. He draws a picture of two men entering the Christian assembly. The one is well dressed, and his fingers are covered with gold rings. In the ancient world, the more ostentatious people wore rings on every finger except the middle one, and wore far more than one on each finger. ‘We adorn our fingers with rings,’ said Seneca, ‘and we distribute gems over every joint.’ The early Christian theologian Clement of Alexandria recommends that Christians should wear only one ring, and that it should be worn on the little finger. It ought to have on it a religious emblem, such as a dove, a fish or an anchor, and the justification for wearing it is that it might be used as a seal.

So, into the Christian assembly comes an elegantly dressed man wearing many rings. The other is a poor man dressed in poor clothes because he has no others to wear, and unadorned by any jewels. The rich man is ushered to a special seat with all ceremony and respect, while the poor man is told to stand, or to squat on the floor, beside the footstool of the well-to-do.

That the picture is not exaggerated is seen from certain instructions in some early service order books. In his commentary, J. H. Ropes quotes a typical passage from the Ethiopic Statutes of the Apostles: ‘If any other man or woman enters in fine clothes, either a man of the district or from other districts, being brethren, thou, presbyter, while thou speakest the word which is concerning God, or while thou hearest or readest, thou shalt not respect persons, nor leave thy ministering to command places for them, but remain quiet, for the brethren shall receive them, and if they have no place for them, the lover of brothers and sisters, will rise, and leave a place for them . . . And if a poor man or woman of the district or of other districts should come in and there is no place for them, thou, presbyter, make place for such with all thy heart, even if thou wilt sit on the ground, that there should not be the respecting of the person of man but of God.’ Here is an identical picture. It is even suggested that, when a rich man entered, the leader of the service might stop the service and escort the man to a special seat.

There is no doubt that there must have been social problems in the early Church. The Church was the only place in the ancient world where social distinctions did not exist. There must have been a certain initial awkwardness when a master found himself sitting next to his slave or when a master arrived at a service in which his slave was actually the leader and the dispenser of the sacrament. The gap between the slave, who in law was nothing more than a living tool, and the master was so wide as to cause problems of approach on either side. Further, in its early days the Church was predominantly poor and humble, and therefore if a rich man was converted and came to the Christian fellowship, there must have been a very real temptation to make a fuss of him and treat him as a special trophy for Christ.

The Church must be the one place where all distinctions are wiped out. There can be no distinctions of rank and prestige when we meet in the presence of the King of glory. There can be no distinctions of merit when we meet in the presence of the supreme holiness of God. In his presence, all earthly distinctions are less than the dust and all earthly righteousness is as filthy rags. In the presence of God, all are one.

In verse 4, there is a problem of translation. The word diekrithēte can have two meanings. (1) It can mean ‘You are wavering in your judgments if you act like that.’ That is to say, ‘If you pay special honour to the rich, you are torn between the standards of the world and the standards of God, and you can’t make up your mind which you are going to apply.’ (2) It may mean ‘You are guilty of making class distinctions which in the Christian fellowship should not exist.’ We prefer the second meaning, because James goes on to say: ‘If you do that, you are judges whose thoughts are evil.’ That is to say, ‘You are breaking the commandment of him who said, “Judge not that you be not judged”’ (Matthew 7:1).