Warning to the Rich: Part 1 - James 5:1

Warning to the Rich: Part 1 - James 5:1
Written by LaRosa Johnson
Tuesday, October 14, 2008

When last we were together, we gave a complete overview of the entire chapter of James 5. Today we're going to dive right into the text and begin to extract the Biblical truth and see what James has to say concerning the rich. Our study today is going to focus on the first verse as we get a picture of who James is addressing at this point in the letter and what he had to say to them. To begin, if all hearts and minds are ready for studying God's truth, let us open our Bibles to James 5:1.

Quote :

James 5:1 (NASB) - Come now, you rich, weep and howl for your miseries which are coming upon you.

James begins this portion of Scripture in much the same way that he did in 4:13 when he focused on those who were foolishly boasting about future plans, while failing to take into account the plan of God. As before, this is an interjection that James uses in order to call attention to a particular audience that he is about to address. This time around he is addressing the wealthy among the congregation. By using the phrase, "come now," James is directly bringing attention to these believers, and again to bring a word of condemnation to them.

Let's spend a few minutes talking about the rich because this has become a point of contention among numerous commentators. It's quite obvious that we're talking about people who have a significant amount of money, there's no question about that; we all know who and what the wealthy are. So, that isn't the question. The question is this: are these wealthy people believers or unbelievers? There are a good number of commentators who would say that they are unbelievers. They feel that it is quite obvious from the text that these are unbelievers because this behavior is completely unbecoming of a follower of Jesus Christ. They also state that because the opening of the letter doesn't explicitly state that it is to a group of believers (only to the twelve tribes dispersed abroad) it leaves it open for James to also address unbelievers who may have been in the midst of these groups of Jews. However, there are many problems with this assessment, but one major one is that it fails to take into account the numerous times (15 total) throughout this letter where James refers to his readers as brethren (i.e. brothers in faith), which makes it pretty obvious that he is speaking to fellow believers. Plus it ignores the plain reading of the text and its language, where just a few verses prior (4:11) he referred to them as brethren. Another argument states that these are people who have associated themselves with the church and profess to be believers, but really aren't. This is a possibility, but still probably isn't the best stance to take.

In a fair reading of the text, the best possible understanding is that James is once again referring to believers, which is the stance that we will hold to. Given all that James had written in chapter 4 concerning believers who were going after their fleshly desires, it is not that far of a stretch to think that the rich believer could also have a sin pattern that matches the description that James is now choosing to speak against. And again, a plain reading of the text leads us to the conclusion that these are indeed believers, albeit carnal, when kept in context. So this is what we're dealing with here; we're looking at a believer who is caught up in a sin pattern, just as we had previously.

Now that we know who James is addressing, we can move forward with the remainder of the verse. In much the same manner as in the previous chapter when telling the carnal believer that they needed to "be miserable, and mourn and weep" (4:9), James is telling these wealthy believers that they need to do the same thing; they need to "weep and howl." In a more illustrative fashion, effectively James is telling them that they need to burst into weeping while howling with grief, if you take a fairly literal translation of the Greek text. What is it that should invoke such a response? The passage states that it is because of the miseries that are about to come upon them. This "coming upon" is used in a futuristic and prophetic sense, stating that these miseries are not yet happening but are going to be coming upon them. It is when these miseries come that their response is going to be to weep and howl. The remaining verses in this section fill in what these miseries are (vv. 2-3) and the reasons as to why they are even coming upon them (vv. 4-6). In terms of our study in this verse, the point to be made is that these wealthy carnal believers are soon going to come under judgment because of matters that concern their use of money (hence why they are specifically called out).

Having laid the groundwork for this passage, I feel that we have a good understanding of what we're dealing with here. We realize that we aren't talking about unbelievers or false converts, but we are talking about actual believers who have gotten caught up in a pattern of sin that needs addressing. From there, we find out that they are coming under judgment because of the use or management of their wealth. Next time we will get into verses 2 & 3 and begin to look at what this judgment is, followed by a look at why they're being judged to begin with. Until then, keep your armor on and stay grounded in His Word.

devotion courtesy of Trailblazin Ministries
http://www.trailblazinministries.com/devotions/james077.php