JAMES makes one of the supreme tests of the religious life the attitude to others. For him, the Christian Community is essentially a democracy, more exactly a brotherhood, in which all superficial differences as between rich and poor drop away. Hence his injunction against "respect of persons," and especially against the unjust treatment of the poor by the rich. He is concerned also that there shall be gentleness of speech within the brotherhood. He had evidently had experience of "the railing tongue," or had heard of churches disrupted by it, and much that he has to say bears upon the necessity of being "swift to hear, slow to speak." The unkindly tongue is the expression of an unkindly temper, and an unkindly temper is alien to the name of Christ and to the perfect law.
James also recognizes that consistent discipleship of Jesus will bring persecutions and testings. ... He does not mean that Christians are to wrap themselves in a robe of righteous "superiority," but that there are some things that, as Christians, it is not possible for them to do. The refusal to do them cannot be made without cost, but the cost is itself intended as a disciplining and refining influence.
— From The Abingdon Bible Commentary.
