James 2

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¹My brothers and sisters, do not hold your faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ with an attitude of personal favoritism. ✦ ²For if a man comes into your assembly with a gold ring and is dressed in bright clothes, and a poor man in dirty clothes also comes in, ✦ ³and you pay special attention to the one who is wearing the bright 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,” ✦ ⁴have you not made distinctions among yourselves, and become judges with evil motives? ✦ ⁵Listen, my beloved brothers and sisters: did God not choose the poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which He promised to those who love Him? ✦ ⁶But you have dishonored the poor man. Is it not the rich who oppress you and personally drag you into court? ✦ ⁷Do they not blaspheme the good name by which you have been called? ✦ ⁸If, however, you are fulfilling the royal law according to the Scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing well. ✦ ⁹But if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the Law as violators. ✦ ¹⁰For whoever keeps the whole Law, yet stumbles in one point, has become guilty of all. ✦ ¹¹For He who said, “Do not commit adultery,” also said, “Do not murder.” Now if you do not commit adultery, but do murder, you have become a violator of the Law. ✦ ¹²So speak, and so act, as those who are to be judged by the law of freedom. ✦ ¹³For judgment will be merciless to one who has shown no mercy; mercy triumphs over judgment. ✦ ¹⁴What use is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone says he has faith, but he has no works? Can that faith save him? ✦ ¹⁵If a brother or sister is without clothing and in need of daily food, ✦ ¹⁶and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and be filled,” yet you do not give them what is necessary for their body, what use is that? ✦ ¹⁷In the same way, faith also, if it has no works, is dead, being by itself. ✦ ¹⁸But someone may well say, “You have faith and I have works; show me your faith without the works, and I will show you my faith by my works.” ✦ ¹⁹You believe that God is one. You do well; the demons also believe, and shudder. ✦ ²⁰But are you willing to acknowledge, you foolish person, that faith without works is useless? ✦ ²¹Was our father Abraham not justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar? ✦ ²²You see that faith was working with his works, and as a result of the works, faith was perfected; ✦ ²³and the Scripture was fulfilled which says, “And Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness,” and he was called a friend of God. ✦ ²⁴You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone. ✦ ²⁵In the same way, was Rahab the prostitute not justified by works also when she received the messengers and sent them out by another way? ✦ ²⁶For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead. ✦

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Where this chapter connects

Jas 2 ·30 Heb 11 ·9 Jas 1 ·8 Matt 25 ·7 Rom 4 ·7 1 Tim 1 ·6 Gal 5 ·6 Jude 1 ·5

Christ at the center

The wisdom from above and the royal law of love are the life of those who belong to 'our glorious Lord Jesus Christ' — faith in him made visible in works.

How James 2 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.

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★ Start hereAudioThrough the WordThrough the Word · ~10 min/chapter · Free · evangelical
A clear ~10-minute audio teaching for every one of the Bible's 1,189 chapters — the most systematic free way to study chapter by chapter.

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SermonChuck Smith — C2000 SeriesChuck Smith · Free · evangelical
Free verse-by-verse audio through the entire Bible from the founder of Calvary Chapel.

Commentaries & study tools

VideoBibleProject — James videosBibleProject · Lay · Free · evangelical
Free animated overview and word-study videos for this book.
VideoWatch teaching on James 2YouTube · Lay · Free
Sermons and chapter teaching from across YouTube.
CommentaryEnduring Word — James 2David Guzik · Lay · Free · evangelical
Readable, verse-by-verse exposition of the whole chapter.
CommentaryMatthew Henry on JamesMatthew Henry · Pastoral · Free · evangelical
The beloved Puritan exposition of this whole book — warm, devotional, and verse by verse (free, CCEL).
ReferenceBlue Letter Bible — James 2Blue Letter Bible · Seminary · Free
Interlinear, lexicon, and study tools across the chapter.

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