James 2:5

Hearken, my beloved brethren; did not God choose them that are poor as to the world to be rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom which he promised to them that love him?

"Blessed are ye poor, for yours is the kingdom of God" (Luke 6:20), thus said Jesus; and there can hardly be any doubt that James had such words in view here. Christ did not teach that the poor are saved because of their poverty, nor that the rich are condemned because of their wealth; and yet the singular fact may not be denied that in the journey required of all that they leave everything for the Master, the poor having less distance to go, in greater numbers find the Lord of glory. It is true in every age, as in that of Paul, that not many mighty, not many noble are called.

Again, we have this blunt paraphrase from Lenski:

You acted as if this were what your Christian faith had taught you, whereas it taught you the very opposite. Look at your own numbers! How many of you would be heirs of the kingdom if God would act as you do?[12]

There is also the counter-productivity of such conspicuous partiality. As a matter of fact, the poor visitor at church is a hundred times more likely to become a Christian than the wealthy visitor; and it is a sin against the growth of the church to exhibit the kind of partiality that would tend to discourage the poor.

As Russell pointed out, God's choice of the poor is not based upon their poverty alone:

The phrase means more than the mere accident of temporal poverty. It relates rather to indifference to worldly possessions and is qualified by the final words of the verse, "to them that love him."[13]

[12] R. C. H. Lenski, op. cit., p. 568.

[13] John William Russell, Compact Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1964), p. 573.