---
title: James 2:1
url: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/james-2-1/
markdown: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/james-2-1.md
type: verse
perspective: Protestant (historic Nicene) response to Jehovah's Witness teaching
reference: James 2:1
testament: NT
section: Letters
index: https://jw-apologetics.app/llms.txt
---

# James 2:1

## Text (Berean Standard Bible)

> My brothers, as you hold out your faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ, do not show favoritism.

## NWT Wording of the Key Phrase

- NWT (2013 revision): "My brothers, you are not holding to the faith of our glorious Lord Jesus Christ while showing favoritism, are you?"

## JW Usage

Read as a practical instruction about impartiality in the congregation, which it certainly is. The title attached to Jesus draws no attention in the NWT, where it appears as the adjective "glorious" rather than as a name. A Witness would have no reason to notice that anything is being claimed about Christ here at all.

## Protestant Usage

Worth raising precisely because nobody expects a Christological argument in a passage about seating arrangements. James — the brother of Jesus, writing to Jewish believers — refers to him in passing as the Lord of glory. "Glory" is not a decorative word in a Jewish writer's vocabulary. The Shekinah glory is God's own presence; Psalm 24 calls Jehovah the King of glory; Isaiah 42:8 has Jehovah say he will not give his glory to another. James attaches it to his own brother without argument or defence, as something his readers already accept. Paul does the same at 1 Corinthians 2:8, and the two writers are independent of each other. That is the useful point: the title is not a conclusion either of them is arguing for. It is a shared assumption showing through in a sentence about something else. Compare 1 Corinthians 2:8.

## NWT Issue

The NWT reads "our glorious Lord Jesus Christ," turning a genitive title into an adjective. The Greek is tou kyriou hemon Iesou Christou tes doxes — "our Lord Jesus Christ, the [Lord] of glory." The same flattening appears at 1 Corinthians 2:8. Rendered as an adjective, the phrase reads as praise; rendered as it stands, it is a title that Psalm 24 and Isaiah 42:8 reserve for Jehovah.

## Arguments Using This Verse

- [If Jesus Is God, Who Raised Him?](https://jw-apologetics.app/arguments/god-cannot-die-jw-closing.md) — Acts 20:28 / 1 Corinthians 2:8 — the two natures of the one Person [Deity of Christ]