Picture it. It’s Sunday 10.25am and the service is about to start. You hear muffled voices from the welcome team, you turn around, and you notice someone new. What do you do?
Well, first, you use your eyes… and you judge this visitor. What’s their age? What nationality might they be? What do their clothes say? Do they have a wedding ring on their finger, or young children by their feet? We all use our eyes to make such judgements. Are such judgements sensible or sinful?
What James actually says
When the apostle James replays a similar scenario in the first century (James 2:1-4), he says: ‘Have you not discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?’ However, James is not telling Christians to see no difference in those who arrive – to have Sundays services in the dark (if necessary) or to ensure everyone looks the same (like a cult). We judge with our eyes to see important differences in one another. We then use those judgements to make special provision for some. For example, to the deaf or the disabled we really do need to say: ‘Here is a good seat for you.’ (James 2:3) It’s also worth noting at this juncture that James is not shaming the church for having some poorer church members and some richer church members. If anything, the
Last Word: wisdom
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