Does James 2 Teach Social Justice Styled "Inclusion?"

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Welcome to Conversations That Matter Podcast. My name is John Harris. We are gonna do a short

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Bible study today. And if you're in a place where you can grab a Bible, this might be a good time to do it because we're gonna be going back and forth between a couple different passages.

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And it's short, it's simple. It's something that I kind of thought should be obvious to those reading the book of James.

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But what I'm finding is there are a number of verses that social justice advocates like to use to further their case.

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And if you haven't noticed, equality or equity is the term that's being used now.

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Inclusion and diversity are some of the main words. Those are probably the three main ones that you hear all the time.

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And Christian social justice advocates like to find verses that parallel the social justice concept they're trying to promote.

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So, and there's a number of verses that obviously we could talk about and I plan to talk about a lot more.

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I have talked about many, but if you're trying to, for instance, forward the idea that we need to redistribute wealth and that's part of equality, then you might go to the book of Acts and you might try to use the early church as an example of that.

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Unfortunately, that's completely out of context because that's just about the church. That's not about the civil realm.

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And it's very clear that this is something that is voluntary. This is not something that is universal.

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It's not a universal cry to abandon private property. In fact, private property rights are explicitly defended in a sense,

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Ananias and Sapphira. I mean, right after the early church is sharing all things in common, what are they told?

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Well, was it not yours when you had it? Why did you lie to the Holy Spirit? And so that's a good example of a social justice advocate using a

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Bible verse improperly to promote their cause. Well, today I wanna look at another passage which

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I have heard used several times and I think it will be used probably several more times.

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And I wanna help you because I'm sure you're hearing these kinds of things if you go to a church or have gone to a church or have friends influenced by churches or parachurches that are promoting the social justice ideas within Christianity.

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This is a passage that you've likely heard twisted. And so I wanna read it. It's James 2 and I put responding to Ed Stetzer et al because one of the people that I heard advocate this was

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Ed Stetzer. He preached a sermon on this and I thought, man, he missed the mark and many have.

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And so I want to just kind of maybe point out the obvious if you will, but take you through a few things to help make the obvious more clear and give you some, just some ammunition in case you get into a discussion or at least give you food for thought.

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Maybe this is an argument you've been taken in by that partiality, inclusivity are what

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James 2 is teaching and therefore it's a universal call to always be inclusive. We should eliminate national borders.

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If you ever think that prioritizing your culture or prioritizing your, even your family or your state or your country, et cetera, if you think those things are evil or wrong because James 2 told you they were evil and wrong, well, we need to have a conversation about James 2 because that's not really what

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James 2 is teaching. And so, and not that those things can't be evil and wrong depending on how they're done and that kind of thing, but we don't get that kind of, that ethic from James 2.

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And so I wanna go through James 2 and if you're sitting under preaching where you're hearing the abuse of this passage, you may wanna consider either confronting your pastor or honestly leaving your church.

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And I don't say that lightly, but this is the kind of thing that is so basic in my mind that if someone went through seminary especially and they're promoting this kind of twisted understanding of James, I just don't know how you could trust them to be discerning in other areas of scripture.

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So anyway, let's read the passage though. Let's get into this. It's James 2 and let's read verses one through 13.

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It says, Listen, my beloved brothers and sisters, did

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God not choose the poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom, which he promised to those who love him, but you have dishonored the poor man.

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Is it not the rich who oppress you and personally drag you into court? Do not blaspheme the good name by which you have been called.

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If however you are fulfilling the royal law according to the scripture, you shall love your neighbor as yourself, you are doing well.

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But if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as violators.

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For whoever keeps the whole law yet stumbles in one point has become guilty of all. For he who said do not commit adultery also said do not murder.

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Now, if you do not commit adultery, but do murder, you have become a violator of the law. So speak, so act as those who are to be judged by the law of freedom.

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For judgment will be merciless to the one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment.

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Now, oftentimes when this passage is twisted, it is presented as a universal cry against any kind of distinction.

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Racism obviously would be part of this. Sexism would be part of this. It's used to promote the idea that your church needs to be perhaps

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LGBTQ, et cetera, inclusive. These are the kinds of things that you often hear.

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Sometimes this is expanded to be a promotion even of illegal migration or the idea that we should not have deportations or strict borders.

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These are the kinds of things that get packed into the passage that I just read to you. But my challenge is, do we actually see any of those things in the passage?

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And if we are to, in fact, try to apply this to our day and age, where would you or who would you put in the place of the rich?

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Who would you put in the place of the poor? If you had to identify, if you were trying to apply this for your congregation.

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And I wanna, before we even get into some of the Greek words and other parallel passages,

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I wanna just go through this one more time. And I want you to think as I add some comments, who in our modern day and age would be considered the poor man or the rich man in this passage?

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So in verse two, he says, for if a man comes into your assembly with a gold ring and his dress and bright clothes, and a poor man in dirty clothes also comes in and you pay special attention to the one who is wearing the bright clothes and say, you sit here in a good place, and you say to the poor man, you stand over there or sit down by my footstool, have you not made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil motives?

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Now, the problem obviously is the evil motives. It's the motivation for why you would make that kind of a separation and treat someone who has the gold ring and in bright clothes as better or different than the one who comes in with a poor man's clothes.

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And, you know, just a cursory reading, I mean, have you ever experienced this in your church? Now, likely, and it's possible you have, maybe you've seen that exact scenario, but for most of us, we probably haven't seen the exact scenario of someone walking in and they're treated better simply because their clothes are very expensive and someone else's clothes are less expensive.

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And the reason for that is because we live, most of us who are probably hearing this podcast, some of you are not, but for the vast majority,

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I would say, of those who listen, probably are sitting in the United States of America somewhere as you're listening or doing work or whatever you're doing with your time.

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And you live in a very, by global standards and historical standards, rich country.

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In general, when someone comes in, you're looking at a number of factors and everyone does.

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Everyone sees a number of factors. When they see someone, they're looking at their expression and the clothes perhaps factor into that.

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There's a whole number of things that make up the perception that you might have of someone, external qualities.

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And in our culture, in our country, those who are listening, even in other parts of the

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Western world, probably can relate to this. It's not so much the level of money or the clothes you wear that reflects the level of money you have.

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It may, it's possible. But there are other things. There are other considerations. There are, there's outward beauty.

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How handsome someone may look. That could affect maybe how someone would treat them.

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It could be that they're well -known. It could be that they have a platform. They're liked by the media. I mean, think of a church.

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We'll take, let's say like Hillsong, New York City, right? Here's, some of you may not consider that a church. Maybe I shouldn't have used that example.

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I just know, I happen to know that a lot of celebrities go to that church. Justin Bieber goes to that church.

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And I remember years ago, I was training someone for a job and they told me that they were actually part, they were living in Australia.

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They were part of Hillsong over there. And this was not a Christian related job. This was totally unrelated. This was a contracting job, but I was training them and they were part of the team that came over from Australia to New York City to plant that church.

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And they were very close to those who were planting it. In fact, that was the job of this person.

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That was her former job. And she told me though, one of the things that put a very bad taste in her mouth was that the pastor started hanging out with celebrities and catering to celebrities and dropping his schedule to go meet with celebrities and would discriminate against those with whom he was actually better acquainted.

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He was closer, they were part of the team. They were actually people he worked with. He didn't care about them as much.

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This is at least what she said. I'm not saying it's accurate, but she felt that a celebrity was treated better and could money factor into that?

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Sure, money could factor into that, but there's so many other things that also factor into that. Recognition.

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I mean, hey, maybe we have these beliefs that aren't in keeping with the current culture and where the direction of the

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United States and the Western world. Maybe if we have someone vouching for us, like a Justin Bieber, who has a big platform, maybe he can help defend us.

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Maybe he can give us some social credit, as they say.

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I know Jonathan Lehman likes to talk about that kind of thing. Investing that social capital when we really have a battle down the road.

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I mean, there's so many things that could factor into that, but the bottom line is someone like a celebrity, like a

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Justin Bieber, could be the rich man in this story and someone who could even have perhaps more money.

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Let's say Donald Trump walked in. He walked into McLean Bible Church a few years ago. Donald Trump has a lot of money, right?

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I mean, look, half the country. Really, I mean, on some level, they respect

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Donald Trump enough to vote for him. Yet, look at how that situation played out. It wasn't about the way he was dressed.

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It wasn't about how rich he was. It was about how he was perceived in the eyes of the media, in the eyes of those at that church that prompted the statement that the pastor there,

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David Platt, made the next, I think it was the next day, where he kind of distanced himself from praying for Donald Trump when

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Donald Trump unexpectedly showed up and tried to kind of defend himself of why he would do this and do some damage control and disassociate from Donald Trump.

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And so you can see how in our current context, if you were going to apply a passage like James 2, you're gonna have to look at the kinds of, the value system that exists in this particular context and apply it to this.

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And so this is my argument, and I could probably keep reading and give you other reasons why

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I see this, but for the sake of time, suffice it to say, the evil motives are the problem.

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It's the motive behind why you would treat someone differently in the context of a church. That's the problem here.

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And it goes on, hey, isn't the rich the ones who oppress you? Aren't they the ones who blaspheme?

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Well, look at our context. Who are the ones who are oppressing Christians? Who are the ones who blaspheme the

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Lord? It's probably those in the entertainment industry, the media, the academic institutions.

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I mean, these are the people that control. These are the people that exert their influence in ways that are against the church of Jesus Christ.

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It's a parallel, very much it's a parallel to the rich in James chapter two.

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When you start describing who the rich are, that's who you're seeing. And yes, many times in our culture, those are the people with the money.

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Those are the people that have not just money, but all sorts of other privileges allocated to them because of how they help reinforce the current narrative.

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And so if we're gonna try to apply this honestly, I think an honest look at our culture, an honest look at, and I mean broadly speaking culture, an honest look at the passage, you're not gonna come up with the interpretation that these evil corporate rich Republicans are the ones who we should not be favoring.

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And there's such a problem in the churches with favoring evil rich Republicans in fact, and I'm not saying in a particular church that may not be the case, it could be.

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But if you look at the lay of the land, it seems to be more like whoever promotes the worldly social justice driven rhetoric, those who are big elites in Hollywood and in other institutions, those are the ones that get this kind of preferential treatment by and large.

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It's more risky to treat someone, even if they're rich, who is a political conservative, social conservative, or even a religious conservative, biblical conservative, it's more risky to treat them with partiality.

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So I just wanna point that out. This isn't even, I wasn't planning on saying that actually, this isn't even my main, this isn't the meat of this.

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But if you really wanna try to come up with a modern parallel, you would probably flip this whole, you would flip on the head the interpretation that most social justice driven preachers have given to this.

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So I wanna point that out. Now, let's get into this though. Let's get into the meat of this. I want to examine this word partiality because the deal is the social justice movement runs off of equity, inclusion, diversity, right?

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And partiality has been deemed to be a parallel or a synonym to the word inclusion.

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I should say no partiality. The opposite of partiality. So exclusion and partiality would be the same thing.

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So we don't wanna be partial. We don't wanna be exclusive. We wanna be inclusive, right? That's what you hear coming from the world right now, the world system.

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And so mining James for the parallel to the concept of partiality that exists in the world,

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I think is what's going on. Now, let me give you a few translations here. ESV, NASB, and the

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KJV, and how they translate verse one. It says, my brothers and sisters, do not hold your faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ with an attitude of personal favoritism.

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ESV says partiality. The King James Version says respect of person.

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So all these things are supposed to be a parallel with the idea of exclusion and how bad exclusion is and racism and xenophobia and et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

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Now the word here, prosopalatia is partiality or favoritism.

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And that's the word that's used here. Now I'm gonna give you the immediate context and we'll look at some other passages in which this word is also used, this word for partiality.

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In verse one, obviously we have, again, my brothers and sisters, do not hold your faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ.

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I'm emphasizing that with an attitude of personal favoritism. Now I emphasize that to show the context in which partiality is not to be shown.

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Personal favoritism is not to be shown in the context of what? Faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ.

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That's the context. It's not a universal call. It's specifically within the boundaries of the church.

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Within the boundaries of the church. Look, here's, let me give you a scenario example to make this more clear.

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Look at the disciples, the original apostles, I should say, that the Lord called to himself.

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And there's a range of different kinds of people. But you have people that, you know, the Lord chooses the weak things to shame the strong.

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And you have people who are not exactly high on the social totem pole that are chosen even.

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But yet in the context of the church, they have much authority because they're apostles. And it's the same today.

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If you walk into a church, you could have someone who is a shepherd over the sheep, who is a bivocational person who works at the dollar store.

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Sweeps floors for a living. Does other kinds of tasks that are considered menial.

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And there's nothing wrong with that. I mean, you could have someone that in the eyes of the world, whether you were going by a business standard or social credit of some kind, get used to that word, by the way, with the great reset coming, possibly.

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They could be very low on the totem pole. And yet they exercise authority in the church because it's the spirit who gives.

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You aren't given authority or you are not given your spiritual gifting by nature of having someone else ordain you.

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Ordination is important, but that's actually not where the gift comes from. That's not where the office comes from. That's a recognition of what the

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Holy Spirit has done. Hopefully, you don't get those kinds of things from any external system.

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You get them from God himself. And God is not a respecter of persons. He can give those kinds of gifts and that kind of authority to someone who is low on the totem pole economically or socially.

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But when you walk into a church, those distinctions don't matter. So someone could be, you could have a situation where someone is very rich, commands hundreds of men and women, and runs a huge business that's well -known in the community, he's well -respected, and he comes into the church and he does not hold any kind of office in that church.

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He could be the one that actually cleans the toilets and that's his spiritual gift of service, and that's what he does.

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That's very possible. And then you can have someone else who's checking people out at the dollar store who is actually the one in authority, who is discipling that person.

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And this is one of the things about the church. The church transcends these social classes in that way.

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And when we read James, the argument that he's making is that in the context of a church, those social hierarchies don't actually mean what they mean outside the church.

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He's not ripping them down outside the church, he's just saying that you should not be trying to benefit yourself by ingratiating yourself to someone because outside the context of the church, they are somebody.

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And they can give you, selfishly, they can give you some kind of benefit for how you treat them in the church.

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You're not supposed to be taking bribes, you're not supposed to be catering to someone. You actually need to treat them on a spiritual level, a spiritual plane, as equal with someone who may be poor or not as popular or whatever the case is, but is also in the body of Christ on the same spiritual plane.

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Now, here's where it gets interesting. If we continue reading, go to verse 14 of James chapter two.

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It says, what good is it, my brothers, if someone claims to have faith, but has no deeds? Can such faith save him?

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You believe that God is one, good for you. Even the demons believe that and shudder, as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead.

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Now, why did I read that? Well, I read that because that is the very next section. So we have this cry against partiality, and in the very next section, what do we find?

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Partiality, we find a contrast. People who have faith, supposedly, or say they do, but they don't have deeds, are contrasted with people who have faith and have deeds to back them up.

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So there's two kinds of different people there, and faith without deeds is dead. Those who have faith, they say, but no deeds are condemned.

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Well, how in the world do you reconcile that with the first part of chapter two?

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We're not supposed to show partiality, and then the very next thing James does is he shows partiality.

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He makes a distinction between two different groups of people. So he can't be giving a universal cry to always being inclusive.

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That can't be what he's doing. He can't be saying that we should never make a distinction between people groups, ever, because if he was doing that, then the very next part of the passage wouldn't make any sense.

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He's being very specific with the partiality that he's talking about, the context in which that partiality exists and the motivation for the partiality.

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Those are the problems. Now, let's look at some other passages in which we find the same word used for partiality.

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I'm gonna read them to you. Romans 2, 10 through 11. Let's actually start with verse six here.

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God will render to each person according to his deeds. To those who, by perseverance in doing good, seek for glory and honor and immortality, eternal life.

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But to those who are selfishly ambitious and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, wrath, and indignation.

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Okay, we have a contrast there. There are those who seek eternal life. There are those who are selfishly ambitious.

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There's a contrast being made, right? A distinction being made. One group is not included in the other group.

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There's a separation there. Let's keep reading, verse nine. There will be tribulation and distress for every soul of man who does evil, of the

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Jew first and also of the Greek. But glory and honor and peace to everyone who does good, to the Jew first and also to the

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Greek. For there is no partiality with God. Now, again, in verses nine and 10, we have another distinction.

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So we have actually two distinctions in this passage. We have those who are seeking eternal life versus those who are selfishly ambitious.

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And then we have Jews versus Greeks, two separate groups of people.

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And then in verse 11, Paul says, for there is no partiality with God. Well, clearly there is partiality with God.

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Isn't there? Because we just read about two different groups that God is gonna be partial to. God's gonna be partial to those who are seeking eternal life.

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He's gonna be partial, and he's actually partial to the Jews first. And the word there is protos.

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He doesn't, you know, it's not chronology. It's not chronos. It's protos, which means first, before, principle, most important.

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And here's an example of a place in which it's used. Jesus answered, and this is after he was asked the question, what's the greatest commandment?

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And Jesus answered, the foremost, same word, the foremost, the protos, is hear,

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O Lord, the Lord is one Lord. Now, that's Mark 2, 12, 29. Well, he's not saying, when he's saying the foremost, he's saying, this is the most important one.

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This is the big one. This is the one that brings the other ones together and explains them. This is, you can't miss this one, right?

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He's placing emphasis on it, just like emphasis is being placed on the

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Jew first. Colossians 3, 25, the word is also used, not protos, but the word for partiality.

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For he who does wrong will receive the consequences of the wrong which he has done, and that without partiality.

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So, there are people who are gonna do wrong and have consequences, and there are people that are not gonna do wrong.

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And again, Paul says, without partiality, they're gonna be judged.

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Well, what is this talking about? Again, this is equality before the law. And it's the same thing in Romans 2, equality before the law.

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No partiality means treating someone equally before the law, upholding the standard of righteousness.

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And if they fall short of the standard, they are judged. And even if the judgment comes to the

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Jews first, the standard is going to apply to those who break it.

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It's partial in those ways. The lack of partiality, the no partiality, is in the sense that God is going to judge them both by the same standard.

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He's fair in that respect. Same thing Colossians 3, 25 says. Now, let's read Ephesians 6, 9.

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Now, this is gonna be interesting to many of you. Slaves, we'll start at verse five. Slaves, be obedient to those who are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling in the sincerity of your heart as to Christ.

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And then let's jump to verse nine. Masters, do the same to them and stop your threatening, knowing that he who is both their master and yours in heaven, and there is no partiality with him.

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Well, what in the world? We have God giving instructions to slaves to be obedient to their masters, and masters to treat their slaves correctly.

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I mean, you'd think there's some partiality going on there. Different commands given, one is more passive, one's more active, one has leadership or authority, one does not.

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And yet, in that same very passage where the social institution in the

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Roman world that existed then of slavery is being, in a sense, it is being reinforced by the

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Roman world by a biblical command reinforced in the sense that God is not telling anyone to tear it down for Christians, he's telling them how to interact in the system.

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So he's reinforcing how to behave within this social arrangement. I'm not saying

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God is pro -slavery, in that God, you know, this was a perpetual command for systems in which slavery does not exist.

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And this may be a discussion for another day, but slavery in scripture, when we see that, we see, you know, borrower slave to the lender, we see examples of what we would consider today as civil slavery.

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There actually, if you look at even the United States today and they say, well, we got rid of slavery. Well, in a sense, yes, a certain kind, but we also traded it in for other kinds of slavery.

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How much debt are we in, in this country? How many of us are in spiritual slavery?

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How many of us are in civil slavery that in a civil slavery that's getting perpetually worse?

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So that's a discussion for another time, but I do believe that we can actually look in a passage like this and we can find principles that do actually apply to today.

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I believe all scripture is given to us to be applied today. And so I don't,

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I just want to make it clear. I'm not negating what Paul's saying and saying it just doesn't apply at all. It applies in a different context.

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But that being said, in the context in which Paul was writing, in which God was giving these instructions through Paul, he says there's no partiality.

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So reinforcing how Christians are to behave in this social arrangement, which today we would consider absolutely barbaric according to modern standards.

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And yet, and one of the reasons is because it shows, it's not inclusive, that's what we hear today. But yet in that same exact passage,

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God is saying he's not partial. There's no partiality with God. And why? Again, it's equality before the law.

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He's gonna judge the master and the slave by the same standard. Doesn't matter if you were a master with authority on this earth, you're going to be in trouble for your sin if you sin.

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That's the point. And that should put the fear of God in everyone who has any kind of authority and those who don't.

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But if you have authority, it's not gonna save you. Don't think it will. So in all these passages, what

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I wanted to point out was that we have statements about God not having any partiality.

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And yet clearly, they are only statements that will apply in a certain sense. God has no partiality in a certain sense, in a certain context.

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He does make distinctions. There is partiality. He does show favor on certain individuals based on other factors.

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So this isn't a universal against partiality. It's not a universal call. It is specific, and we have to get that right.

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So don't let people use these passages, especially the one in James, against you to say, well, we should always be inclusive.

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We need to make sure that we tear down our national borders. We shouldn't ever deport anyone. We should allow illegal migration.

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To give one example, all refugees should be able to come here because James 2. Well, that's not what James 2 is talking about.

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And that's very clear. It's abundantly clear. Now, the other word in this passage, in verse four that's used, is the word for distinctions.

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Diacrino, or diacrino, and it means to separate, distinguish, discern one thing from another. I doubt, hesitate, waiver.

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So there's a broad kind of range for this word. Let me read for you three different passages and how they translate it.

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One is the NASB, distinctions. Have you not made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil motives?

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King James Version says, partial in yourselves. And then the Holman Christian Standard Bible says, haven't you discriminated among yourselves?

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And that's a word we use often today. We hear it a lot, that discrimination is evil. You should never discriminate against anyone.

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And again, James is appealed to. James 2, verse four, you should never discriminate. Well, obviously that's not true in a universal sense because we find, as I just read,

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James doing that very thing. He discriminates in the next few verses. But it's in a different context.

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The discrimination that's being talked about in the first part of James is a discrimination within the church, within the faith in Jesus Christ.

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There are no distinctions between the availability of salvation and the access to Christ within the church, the access to worship.

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These kinds of things are not some things in which there are distinctions.

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And I think of the verse right now, or not the verse, the passage, and it's ironic today as I'm recording this, the statue of Robert E.

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Lee was taken out of the, I think it was the US Capitol, which is a real shame because I think it was

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Ralph Northam who probably has his own problems trying to prove that he's not a racist because of his yearbook from years ago, said this is a step forward.

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And I had put on Twitter, no, it's not, it's a step backward. It's a step away from chivalry and honor and duty and truth.

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And I said, because sources that weren't taken seriously until five minutes ago are all of a sudden twisted by the historical profession to vilify a guy who, if you study

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Robert E. Lee, if you actually do some primary source research, or if you read a good secondary biography that's probably not written within the past 10 or 20 years, then you will find that this is a guy who does not represent any of the things that people want to make him represent.

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He's a racist. He was, for his time, he was, you know, liked slavery, wanted to forward slavery.

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I mean, you find out, and I don't have time to go over it now, but you find out this guy was actually an honorable Christian gentleman. And that's how he was viewed for a long time until like five seconds ago.

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And so, you know, I put that there and I said, look, if we're gonna start doing this and taking spurious accusations against people seriously that were never taken seriously by the historical profession then we've just destroyed all of history.

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We can just vilify anyone we want to vilify. And that's a terrible thing.

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But one of the things Robert E. Lee had said, which is coming to my mind, and it relates to this, and I've heard it attributed to others, but I think

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Lee might've been the one to actually first popularize this. He said the ground is level at the foot of the cross.

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And one of the reasons for that was after the war there was this story, and you can go look it up, where there was a union garrison, there was a couple of union troops who wanted to kind of make a scene in this

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Episcopal church where Lee attended. And they marched a black person up to the front to take communion before anyone else in the church, kind of as a needle in the eye.

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And I've talked about this before. Most of those in the North weren't on this moral crusade because they just cared so much for black people.

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This was most likely in trying to offend, purposely offend and reinforce the idea that those who they have just conquered are at the lowest end of the social scale.

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That's what they're trying to communicate. And Robert E. Lee goes up next to this individual.

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And as the story goes, puts his arm around him, takes communion with him. And that's what he says, the ground is level at the foot of the cross.

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And he's absolutely right. It does not matter what your social standing is outside the church.

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It doesn't matter where you exist in any kind of caste system, whether you're unpopular on social media, whether you're rich or you're poor, the ground is level at the foot of the cross.

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And as we're reading this, that same idea I think is what James is trying to put out there.

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He's saying, look, evil motives, evil motives. It's wrong to try to favor someone because you think you're gonna get a social advantage through it.

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That's the kind of thing that's wrong to discriminate in that sense for the purpose of benefiting yourself and doing so within the church.

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This is not an institution for your own personal gain, et cetera. Now, let's look at some examples of this word being used for discrimination.

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Here's an example. It's used in a positive way. First Corinthians chapter six, verse four. So if you have law courts dealing with matters of this life, do you appoint them as judges who are of no account in the church?

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I say this to your shame. Is it so that there is not among you one wise man who will be able to decide between his brethren?

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But brother goes to law with brother and that before unbelievers. Now, what is he saying here?

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He's saying you should be deciding. You should be discriminating. You need to make discriminations within the church because it's shameful for Christians to be suing each other outside the church.

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This needs to be handled inside the church. And that requires judgment. That requires discrimination of some kind.

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Making distinctions, deciding a case. Now, here's where it's used negatively. This is Acts 15 at the

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Jerusalem council, verse seven. After there had been much debate, Peter stood up and said to them, brethren, you know that in the early days

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God made a choice among you that by mouth the Gentiles would hear the word of the gospel and believe.

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And God who knows the heart testified to them, giving them the Holy Spirit, just as he also did to us. And he made no distinction between us and them, cleansing their hearts by faith.

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So you have here Peter saying, look, were there distinctions between the Jews and the Gentiles?

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You bet there were. God gave a whole entire law. And a big aspect of that was to distinguish, to make

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Israel a special people, a different people, to reinforce those differences. But yet when it comes to knowing

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God, when it comes to salvation, giving them the Holy Spirit, God has decided that he will give those who are not

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Jews, that those same advantages, those special privileges. Now, that is what

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Peter's talking about in Acts 15. Neither of these passages are universal cries that discrimination is always wrong.

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It is discrimination within a certain context. Discrimination to subvert the unity of the body of Christ, discrimination to give the impression that someone has greater access to God or to worship, discrimination in order to benefit yourself within the confines of the church.

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These are the kinds of things that are being talked about. Discrimination to think you're spiritually superior to someone else because of your ethnicity or some such thing.

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Now, let's keep going here. And this is really, this is the heart of it. This is what I really want.

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This is the takeaway and where I'm gonna kind of give you my final thoughts on this. The ultimate question here, the relevant question is, is

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God inclusive? Is God inclusive in a universal sense? And the answer is yes and no.

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The answer is yes in the sense that God made salvation, mercy, judgment, and providence all available to humans, universally available.

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Salvation, we just read it. It doesn't matter who you are. Any kind of person can become saved.

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Mercy, I mean, the fact that you're alive is mercy. I mean, we deserve, according to scripture, because of our evil, punishment, eternity, hell.

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And God gives us mercy. He gives us opportunity in that mercy to live apart from that for a period of time.

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And for those who are in Christ, forever. Judgment, he will judge us all equally before his law.

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We're equal in that sense. That's something in which everyone's included. And then providence, the rainfalls and the righteous and the wicked.

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I mean, we all have to deal with certain realities. So in that sense, yeah,

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God's inclusive. But in many other senses, and this is not exhaustive, he is not inclusive.

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God chose Israel and gave them special blessings over other nations. In fact, even those who are strangers in their land, although they were required to obey the law of Israel, for instance, they did not receive the benefits of the year of Jubilee.

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That was specific to ethnic Jews. God showed, I mean, is that racism?

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That God showed favoritism to a certain ethnicity? God chose the church and instituted special social bonds between Christians.

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The one and others are for Christians. Our duties, first to the household of faith, Christians. And of course, the church being the bride of Christ.

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God made salvation conditional upon repentance. Those who don't repent will not receive those blessings. God decreed national boundaries for all peoples.

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We see that in Acts 17. And this is what he did through spreading out people throughout the world.

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Boundaries, borders, those aren't bad things. God decreed those kinds of things. God reinforced the legitimacy of social arrangements and creation norms.

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So husbands and wives, parents and children, kings and subjects, shepherds and sheep within the church, you know, pastors and congregants, and then slaves and masters.

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These are all things explicitly in scripture in many areas we find distinctions in these roles.

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And there is an element of rulership of authority that goes with those on, you know, for instance, husbands have an element of authority that wives do not have in that relationship according to scripture.

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All right, again, this is according to what the Bible teaches on these things. Is that God being inclusive?

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Well, not according to today's standards, but according to biblical standards, I mean,

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God is being as inclusive as he wants to be because he's giving them all, salvation, mercy, judgment, and providence.

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But he's being exclusive in the sense of ordaining certain roles. And then also giving certain instructions within social arrangements for behavior for Christians.

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God protects the rights of property owners. And we see this all throughout the Old Testament law that God does this.

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We see this in Jesus's parables. Think of the parable, even of the vineyard. It is up to those who are those paying workers to deem what the wage should be.

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God protects the weak and provides for the needy. Find this all throughout scripture.

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God is the defender of those who are weak. He protects the needy. Is that fair? Well, I mean, it is a form of discrimination.

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It doesn't say that he does that for everyone. God punishes lawbreakers.

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God blesses certain people and curses others. Certain nations are specifically cursed in ways that other nations are not.

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Is that fair? Well, God seems to think that it's perfectly fine.

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It's a reflection of his character. And that's not an exhaustive list. You could probably come up with other examples of this, but we cannot find in James 2 a universal, and that's the key word, a universal call for inclusion.

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And I would like to end with pointing out the fact that social justice itself is extremely exclusive.

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And that's one of the ironies of this whole thing. Inclusion is actually exclusion. When they use the word inclusion as a battering ram to beat up anyone who they deem to be exclusive.

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Well, once you start doing that, you're not being inclusive anymore. You're excluding someone. That's what cancel culture is.

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You're excluding someone from certain social privileges. That's not being inclusive, right? So the whole thing is hypocritical.

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It is bad exegesis and it defies common sense to use James 2 to forward the notion that God or we as Christians need to just roll over, play dead whenever organizations like Black Lives Matter promote their narrative because we wanna be inclusive.

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And that this is some universal cry and within our country, this means that you shouldn't vote for Republicans or it's insinuated that you shouldn't because they're exclusive mean people because they actually think we have a nation and that nation should put the interests of its people first.

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I mean, James 2 is not teaching that, but many Christians unfortunately today are preaching that it does.

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And so I just wanted to give you some tools, give you some understanding of how to deal with that. I hope that that helps you in dealing with this.

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It is not wrong as a husband to favor your wife above other women. That's your role.

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It is not wrong to favor your children in certain ways. I mean, you're supposed to be providing for them, not providing for the whole world.

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And there's a human scale element to this as well. You can only do so much within the boundaries that God has enabled you to exist.

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And it's not wrong to love your people specifically, the people that, the place in which you live, the people that come from the family culture,

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I should say, the culture that you exist in to defend that, to enjoy that.

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There's nothing shameful about that at all. To be upset when, as I said earlier, when monuments that reflect your culture, heroes that reflect your culture are ripped down or destroyed,

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I mean, that's exclusion right there. It's not wrong to be upset about those things. And James two does not teach that it is wrong.

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So I hope that helps you. I hope that you'll have some ammunition next time you hear this ridiculous argument and God bless.