{"id":4785,"date":"2009-04-17T14:09:45","date_gmt":"2009-04-17T14:09:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jesuscreed\/2009\/04\/a-brothers-wisdom-36.html"},"modified":"2009-04-17T14:09:45","modified_gmt":"2009-04-17T14:09:45","slug":"a-brothers-wisdom-36","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2009\/04\/a-brothers-wisdom-36.html","title":{"rendered":"A Brother&#8217;s Wisdom 36"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Homeless.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/120\/import\/imgs\/Homeless.jpg\" class=\"mt-image-right\" style=\"margin: 0pt 0pt 20px 20px;float: right\" height=\"263\" width=\"178\" \/><\/span>We finish off the sketch of how the messianic community was kow-towing to the rich and despising the shabbily-dressed. In this letter, the rich are the oppressors and the poor are the oppressed. As we will see next week, the messianists are poor and they need to learn a lesson from looking round about them to see how God works. But for now, James makes his stunning point in James 2:4, and he does so by asking a question:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Have you not discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>James narrows the problem down to judgment, not in the sense of discernment but in the sense of condemning as unworthy.<\/p>\n<p>There is a theology at work here: (1) humans are made as Eikons of God and are therefore equal of our relationship; (2) faith in the Glorious Jesus Christ implicates a person in the One who was poor and in how he treated the poor; (3) the royal law of liberty and the Jesus Creed (James 2:8-10, 11-13) require the messianist to treat others in love and compassion.<\/p>\n<p>But the act of segregating the poor from the rich, and assigning the poor to the floor, is an act of denial of #1, #2, and #3. That is judgment and that is condemnation and that is acting the part of God (cf. 4:11-12) and that is segregating the messianic community into worthies and unworthies. James says this is absolutely wrong.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We finish off the sketch of how the messianic community was kow-towing to the rich and despising the shabbily-dressed. In this letter, the rich are the oppressors and the poor are the oppressed. As we will see next week, the messianists are poor and they need to learn a lesson from looking round about them&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":70,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4785","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-james"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>A Brother&#039;s Wisdom 36 - Jesus Creed<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2009\/04\/a-brothers-wisdom-36.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A Brother&#039;s Wisdom 36 - Jesus Creed\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"We finish off the sketch of how the messianic community was kow-towing to the rich and despising the shabbily-dressed. In this letter, the rich are the oppressors and the poor are the oppressed. As we will see next week, the messianists are poor and they need to learn a lesson from looking round about them&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2009\/04\/a-brothers-wisdom-36.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Jesus Creed\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-04-17T14:09:45+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jesuscreed\/files\/import\/imgs\/Homeless.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Scot McKnight\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"A Brother's Wisdom 36 - Jesus Creed","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2009\/04\/a-brothers-wisdom-36.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"A Brother's Wisdom 36 - Jesus Creed","og_description":"We finish off the sketch of how the messianic community was kow-towing to the rich and despising the shabbily-dressed. In this letter, the rich are the oppressors and the poor are the oppressed. As we will see next week, the messianists are poor and they need to learn a lesson from looking round about them&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2009\/04\/a-brothers-wisdom-36.html","og_site_name":"Jesus Creed","article_published_time":"2009-04-17T14:09:45+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jesuscreed\/files\/import\/imgs\/Homeless.jpg"}],"author":"Scot McKnight","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2009\/04\/a-brothers-wisdom-36.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2009\/04\/a-brothers-wisdom-36.html","name":"A Brother's Wisdom 36 - Jesus Creed","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2009\/04\/a-brothers-wisdom-36.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2009\/04\/a-brothers-wisdom-36.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jesuscreed\/files\/import\/imgs\/Homeless.jpg","datePublished":"2009-04-17T14:09:45+00:00","dateModified":"2009-04-17T14:09:45+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/19879975236b70da80f4cbea933c59d0"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2009\/04\/a-brothers-wisdom-36.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2009\/04\/a-brothers-wisdom-36.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2009\/04\/a-brothers-wisdom-36.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jesuscreed\/files\/import\/imgs\/Homeless.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jesuscreed\/files\/import\/imgs\/Homeless.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2009\/04\/a-brothers-wisdom-36.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"A Brother&#8217;s Wisdom 36"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/","name":"Jesus Creed","description":"Scot McKnight on Jesus and orthodox faith for today","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/19879975236b70da80f4cbea933c59d0","name":"Scot McKnight","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/c10\/c10b0226ed6cfd8319b2b8742ac4088ax96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/c10\/c10b0226ed6cfd8319b2b8742ac4088ax96.jpg","caption":"Scot McKnight"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/author\/smcknight"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4785","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/70"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4785"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4785\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4785"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4785"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4785"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}