Daily Bible Reading – 9.24.2021
James 5:1-6, Now listen, you rich people, weep and wail because of the misery that is coming on you. Your wealth has rotted, and moths have eaten your clothes. Your gold and silver are corroded. Their corrosion will testify against you and eat your flesh like fire. You have hoarded wealth in the last days. Look! The wages you failed to pay the workers who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty. You have lived on earth in luxury and self-indulgence. You have fattened yourselves in the day of slaughter. You have condemned and murdered the innocent one, who was not opposing you.
James increases his intensity in denouncing wealthy non-Christians who are mistreating believers and gives us insight into the sins they committed. They hoarded wealth when others were in need. They unjustly refused to pay their employees for the work accomplished. They lived in extreme luxury without a thought of anyone else’s needs.
By doing all of these things, James says, in essence, they have “condemned and murdered the innocent.” They have robbed others from the ability to make a living by being obsessed with the accumulation of wealth at any cost for their own self-indulgent purposes.
Their sin was not being rich but being selfish and unjust stewards of what they had. They were judged because they had failed the test of common decency, let alone, the deeper Christian ethic.
Jesus said it this way in Matthew 6:19-21, “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”
Questions to Consider:
Where do you struggle with this teaching? Where is your heart? How do you envision yourself storing up treasures in heaven?
Weekly Memory Verse:
James 2:12-13, Speak and act as those who are going to be judged by the law that gives freedom, because judgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful. Mercy triumphs over judgment.