James 2:1 My brethren, have not the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with respect of persons.
2 For if there come unto your assembly a man with a gold ring, in goodly apparel, and there come in also a poor man in vile raiment;
3 And ye have respect to him that weareth the gay clothing, and say unto him, Sit thou here in a good place; and say to the poor, Stand thou there, or sit here under my footstool:
4 Are ye not then partial in yourselves, and are become judges of evil thoughts?
I believe what James is trying to say here, is that being a respecter of a person because of his station in life is not consistent with Christianity. Jesus taught that we are not to be a respecter of persons, if we are Christians. James is not condemning this unbeliever for his distracting dress, but the church’s flattering reaction to it. We can easily see from this, that the church is not for just one class of people. This, also, shows that just because a man was rich, did not mean that he could not be saved. The fact that a person was very poor, did not keep him from joining the church either. James is showing them, in this, that they had been showing preference to the rich. In God’s sight, the rich should be given no more privileges than the poor. There are many churches today that would turn away the poor man in this instance.Vile raiment might be just enough to keep them not only at the back, but completely out of the church. The outward appearance of a man does not reveal what is in his heart. The heart determines whether you are a Christian, or not. Church is not for the privileged few, but for all who seek God. We are not to judge man at all, but if we did, we would not judge fairly. We would be thinking of the flesh of man, and God looks at the heart of man.