Charles Ellicott Commentary James 2:16

"and one of you say unto them, Go in peace, be ye warmed and filled; and yet ye give them not the things needful to the body; what doth it profit?" — James 2:16 (ASV)

And one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled.—Knowing the style of the rugged Apostle as we do, is it unlikely that he was drawing from anything other than real life? Perhaps it was a scene in his own experience during that very famine foretold by Agabus (Acts 11:28–30).

However, there seems to be a worse interpretation of the words, beginning so softly with the Eastern benediction: namely, “You are warming and filling yourselves.” It is the rebuke of cool prosperity to persistent adversity: “Why such impatience? God is one, and our Father: He will provide.” No amount of faith could clothe the shivering limbs and still the hunger pangs; what greater mockery than to be taunted with texts and godly precepts, the usual outcome of a spurious and cheap benevolence.

Notwithstanding ye give them not.—The “one of you” in the beginning of the verse, then, was representative of the whole body addressed by Saint James; and now by his use of the plural “ye,” we see that no individual was singled out for condemnation: the offence was wider and worse.