Definitely on initial read through you see a lot of condemnation toward wealth... chapter 2- don't give special treatment to the rich... chapter 5- You have lived your life in self-indulgence and luxury!
Chapter 1 is seems backwards when you first read it: (new living translation below) ;)
"Believers who are poor have something to boast about, for God has honored them. And those who are rich should boast that God has humbled them. They will fade away like a little flower in the field. The hot sun rises and the grass withers; the little flower droops and falls, and its beauty fades away. In the same way, the rich will fade away with all of their achievements."
This also makes you be scared to have riches. YIKES. After meditating a few days first I decided to see what the infamous Matthew Henry says:
Good Christians may be rich in the world. Grace and wealth are not wholly inconsistent.
And my favorite thing he says is- BOTH the rich and the poor are commanded to rejoice! I didn't catch that- I was thinking, if you are poor- praise God, but if you are rich, LAMENT because your wealth and YOU are going to be destroyed. NO. James tells us regardless- we are to rejoice! Based on what? Not because God has blessed us with wealth! See below quote.
"For this reason let him that is rich rejoice, not so much in the providence of God, that makes him rich, as in the grace of God, that makes and keeps him humble; and in those trials and exercises that teach him to seek his felicity in and from God, and not from these perishing enjoyments."
O thank you most gracious Father! You give me just what I need. You are constant and the same- yesterday, today, and forever.
"Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have FOR He has said- never will I leave you and never will I forsake you." -Hebrews 13:5
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