A.D. 407 – 1871 5 witnesses
“Bear their greed as patiently as you can! Those people destroy themselves, not you. For while they rob you of your money, they strip themselves of God's favor and help. For the one who bases his life on greed and gathers all the wealth of the world around him is in fact the poorest of all.”
“But ye have despised the poor,.... Or dishonoured, and reproached them, by showing respect of persons, in preferring the rich to them, and in distinguishing them in such a manner as was to their contempt and injury; which is a reproaching not only of them, but their Maker; and is in effect saying, that God has done either a weak or a wrong thing, in choosing them to be rich in faith, and heirs of a kingdom, it being directly contrary to his conduct: do not rich men oppress you, and draw you before the judgment seats? which may be understood either of rich men that were unbelievers; and these either the Heathen magistrates, who ruled over them in a tyrannical way, and with rigour, and often summoned them before them, and persecuted them with violence; or their own countrymen, the Jews, who stirred up the chief men of the Gentiles against them, and drew them to their judgment seats, as they drew Paul to the judgment seat of Gallio, Act 13:50 or else of rich professors of religion, who assumed a despotic power over the poor brethren of the church, and loved to have the pre-eminence over them, as Diotrephes did, and set up tribunals in the churches, and tried and condemned them in an arbitrary way; or else upon civil accounts had them before heathen magistrates, and went to law with them in their courts, before unbelievers, which is a practice condemned in Co1 6:1, and seeing now rich men used them so ill, the apostle mentions this as an argument to dissuade them from respect of persons; seeing they had but little reason to show so much regard unto them, who had treated them in so evil a manner: this is not to be understood of all rich men; nor is the apostle's design to destroy that natural and civil order there is among men, by reason of their different stations, offices, and circumstances; it being highly proper that honour should he given to whom honour is due, but not to the dishonour of another.”
“Do not rich men oppress you - The administration of justice was at this time in a miserable state of corruption among the Jews; but a Christian was one who was to expect no justice any where but from his God. The words καταδυναστευουσιν, exceedingly oppress, and ἑλκουσιν εις κριτηρια, drag you to courts of justice, show how grievously oppressed and maltreated the Christians were by their countrymen the Jews, who made law a pretext to afflict their bodies, and spoil them of their property.”
“The world's judgment of the poor contrasted with God's. ye--Christians, from whom better things might have been expected; there is no marvel that men of the world do so. despised--literally, "dishonored." To dishonor the poor is to dishonor those whom God honors, and so to invert the order of God [CALVIN]. rich--as a class. oppress--literally, "abuse their power against" you. draw you--Translate, "is it not they (those very persons whom ye partially prefer, Jam 2:1-4) that drag you (namely, with violence)" [ALFORD]. before . . . judgment seats--instituting persecutions for religion, as well as oppressive lawsuits, against you.”
“Do not the rich. He shows more openly whom he had called rich above, namely those who prefer riches to Christ, and, being themselves strangers to the faith, oppress by power those who believe, and drag them to the judgement-seats of the more powerful. And there is another reason why they are not to be chosen, because they bring evils upon the faithful.”
The in-app commentary runs from the Fathers to the early-modern record, then stops — that's where the public-domain sources end, not where the reading does. For the modern reading, follow the sources directly.