It is certain that the gospel made a powerful appeal to the poorer classes of society among Jews and Gentiles. Jesus claimed it as part of his messianic mission “to preach good tidings to the poor” (Luke 4:18), as Isaiah (60:1 f.) had foretold. He asked the messengers of John the Baptist to take back to Macherus the news that “the poor have the good tidings preached to them” (Luke 7:22) as one proof of his messiahship. Paul enlarges on the choice (1 Cor. 1:27 f.) by God of the foolish, the weak, the despised classes to add to his own glory. The early churches were gathered largely from the proletariat. Slaves and masters, rich and poor, mingled together in fellowship and brotherly love. The papyri discoveries have shown us the world of Jesus and of Paul “in the workaday clothes of their calling.”[66] Deissmann adds: “We should be sorry indeed not to have been told that Jesus came from an artisan’s home in country surroundings.”[67] The fact that Jesus was a carpenter, a workingman in the modern sense of that term, should enlist the sympathy and the interest of all workingmen. They should heed the call of the Carpenter. Here James boldly champions the cause of the poor as against certain rich Jews, probably not members of the church, who have oppressed the Christians and dragged them before courts of justice. With their own hand these rich Jews had dragged Christians before tribunals. Rich Sadducees had done this with Peter and John (Acts 4:1). As one of these potentates, yea, as a tyrant, Paul had once dragged men and women before the Sanhedrin (Acts 8:3; 22:4). He had even tried to make them blaspheme (Acts 26:11). It was not necessary to have special laws against the Christians. As objects of dislike it was easy enough, as Paul found out, to hale them into court. Paul came to know only too well how the tables could be turned on him when he became a Christian. He had to take his own medicine (Acts 13:50; 16:19). Jesus indeed had foretold that just this fate would befall his disciples before the courts of Jews and Gentiles (Matt. 10:17 f.; John 16:2). The anger of these rich Jews against Jesus and Christians leads them actually to blaspheme the name of Christ. The Sadducees will not even call the name of Jesus when they discuss the case of Peter and John. They refer with contempt to “this name” (Acts 4:17), though in the threat they have to name Jesus (v. 18). The disciples rejoiced “that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the Name” (Acts 5:41). So “the honorable name,” “the beautiful name,” “the noble Name” (Moffatt) came to be the shibboleth of the believers in Jesus. His name was to be “the name which is above every name” (Phil. 2:9 f.). It was already the only name with power to save (Acts 4:12), as Peter boldly informed the Sanhedrin. That was the meaning of the name Jesus (Matt. 1:21).