James goes on to illustrate that the kind of faith which expresses itself only in words, without demonstrable actions, is useless.

If a brother or sister is ill-clad is sometimes understood to be referring to an actual situation in the church. If this is the case we may wish to keep the conditional particle as If. However, it can also be taken as referring entirely to a hypothetical situation, as in 2.2-4. In this case we may render the particle in English as “Suppose” (Good News Translation, New International Version). The words brother or sister can be used loosely of any man and woman, but more likely it is a reference to a fellow Christian (compare “a fellow-Christian, whether man or woman,” Revised English Bible).

It is possible that James still has the “poor” in view (see 2.6). This person is ill-clad and in lack of daily food. The adjective ill-clad in Greek can mean “naked” (New Revised Standard Version) or “has no clothes to wear” (Phillips, Barclay; similarly New American Bible). It is unlikely that James is here talking about this person as totally “naked.” So it is best taken to mean “inadequately dressed” or “insufficiently clothed,” referring possibly to the poor wearing only the under garment without the outer garment. It is therefore ill-clad, “in rags” (Revised English Bible), or more generally “need clothes” (Good News Translation). The expression in lack of here does not necessarily mean “has nothing to eat” (Phillips) or “no food for the day” (New American Bible), but more “don’t have enough to eat” (Good News Translation) or “has not enough food to live on” (New Jerusalem Bible). The word daily in daily food appears only here in the New Testament. It can mean “the food supply day by day,” meaning daily food (Revised Standard Version; so also New International Version, New Revised Standard Version), or simply the day’s supply of food, namely “food for the day” (New English Bible, Revised English Bible). Basically the two adjectives describe someone who is so poor that even the very basic needs of life, such as clothing and food, cannot be satisfied; they present a picture of someone who is cold and hungry. If so the following may well be an alternative translation model:
• Suppose there are fellow Christians who are always cold and hungry.

This translation would fit in well with the next verse, which has the words “be warmed.”

Quoted with permission from Loh, I-Jin and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on The Letter from James. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1997. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .