MONDAY
Read Leviticus 19:15. The fact is that James readers were in the habit of being partial. Showing partiality to the rich was not the only type of favoritism they practiced. James begs them to stop practicing this negative behavior. Can this perversion of true religion be equated to our modern concept of discrimination?


TUESDAY
Read James 2:3. What is the point of the illustration James uses in verse two? The point of the illustration was not the rich and poor attending the same synagogue, but the reaction from believers. So is this passage a clear prohibition against preferential treatment of people based on economic or social status?


WEDNESDAY
Read Mark 6:2-4. Wealth has always been the chief reason for preferential treatment. Verses 3 and 4 reveal a clear prohibition against preferential treatment of people based on economic status. However, wealth is not the only reason for partiality - another is education. The rejection of Jesus as God’s Son was largely because of His what?


THURSDAY
Read Luke 9:58; James 2:4. How did Jesus Himself reveal He was not successful by the world’s standards? James drives home his point with a rhetorical question in verse 4, have you not discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts? By making a distinction between classes of people we set ourselves as judges of evil thoughts.


FRIDAY
Read James 1:6; 2:4, Matthew 7:15-23. The Bible does not speak against discernment or discrimination based on valid standards; for instance, we should distinguish true teachers from false teachers on the basis of their lives and characters (Matthew 7:15-23). To discriminate according to wealth is tomix worldly values with heavenly ones, to try to serve both God and money (mammon, Matthew 6:24). Is this the essence of the double-minded, unstablecharacter that James wants to root out of his readers (James 1:8)?

Presented by Jeff Rosenthal, Lead Pastor
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