Is Showing Partiality Always a Sin?

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Partiality, Liberal Double Standards, and New York School Admissions

Welcome to the Rap Report with Andrew Rapaport, where we provide biblical interpretations and applications. This is a ministry of Striving for Eternity. For more content or to request a speaker or seminar for your church, go to strivingforeternity .org.

Well, something happened to me this week that made me think in a little different terms. Have you ever had that experience? I had that this week talking with my sister who lives in New York City, and we were discussing schools.

I found this very interesting. I don't know, maybe you're not in the New York City area and you don't know how New York works, but New York is kind of, shh, don't tell anybody, it's a little bit liberal.

More liberal than most places in the United States, except for maybe California. But the reality is, I found it very interesting with something that she mentioned to me, because anywhere else that you go in the United States, you typically find that the school system is going to be based on where you live for public school.

So, if you live in one area, the people you go to school with are all going to be basically people that live around you, but oh no, not so much in New York. New York, the land where everybody likes to say that they want to have fairness for all.

At least that's what the liberals like to say, but that's not actually how they apply it, especially when it comes to their own children. So, it was interesting that I had been talking to her earlier in the week and was planning to come on and talk about this topic, only to hear that Al Mohler spoke about this.

That's right. It actually got into the news, and I was unaware of that until Al Mohler brought it out. And so, there is some debate about what's going on in the New York school system. You see, New York, where they want to say that everyone should be fair, and they are very, very concerned about making sure that everyone tolerates others, but when it comes to their own children, well, if they can't afford private school, what do we see happen?

In New York, if you're not aware, and we're going to get into a much different topic in this show. This is going to jump off into another topic that I think is going to be very important to deal with from a biblical nature.

But what we end up seeing as we look at New York is the fact that the way that they choose to do things is that they are going to argue for admission, almost like college admission, to schools. In other words, it's not based on where you live, but it's based on how you perform.

That's so strange if you follow liberalism at all, because that's something they like to say is not the case. They like to say that when it comes to liberalism that they're open-minded and all this, but what we end up looking at with this is the fact that they seem to have a double standard.

They seem to believe that when it comes to their children in their district, they don't want their kids just going to school with anyone, and so they assign a process for children to go to school with people who are at the same levels as them.

Why is that so interesting? Well, because I also remember that there's a lot that they do with busing, and they bus people into other districts with the idea if they take underprivileged children and put them into areas of more privilege, somehow that is going to make those underprivileged do better, and it would never, ever, ever have the effect of making the other students who would actually do better do worse because they're influenced by the other students.

No, that could never happen. Now, the reality of what we see is that there is something that we can look at biblically here that is in play, and that is the idea of showing preference or favoritism, and really what you see is they are showing favoritism, though they would hate to have it worded that way, but they are.

They are showing favoritism to their own people. They're people who are going to perform like they will perform, and so what you end up seeing is that here you have a case that there is favoritism. Now, is that wrong?

I want you to think about that for a moment because a lot of people think that favoritism should never be displayed. In fact, there's some who believe that favoritism is always wrong, but is that the case?

Well, I want us to think about this because there is some scripture that talks about favoritism, and I think that we have to be honest. When we talk about favoritism, you will always show favoritism. Does that sound unbiblical?

Look, if I was to put you in a situation where you are, imagine, you are in a restaurant and somebody is going to come in with guns. Now, put yourself in that situation, and you're sitting at the table with your family, along with many other families.

Who are you going to seek to save first? Are you going to run across the restaurant to someone else who may be eating alone? Maybe there's a woman that's all by herself or a child that's sitting by himself.

Are you going to run and abandon your family to go to that family, or are you going to show a favoritism to your own family? Well, obviously, you have a responsibility to care for your family, and you're going to, immediately, without thinking, you're going to show a favoritism to your family.

So, the question is, we must ask, what does favoritism end up meaning? Because this is the thing that people will often argue. What they think of favoritism, they're thinking of the case that there is a favorability that is unfair.

Now, favoritism means, a dictionary definition at least, means a showing of special favor. And that is not unusual. In fact, that's going to be very common. But we end up seeing very clearly in Scripture that we are not to show partiality.

I think the clearest text we can look at with this is going to be in James chapter 2. So, let us read James chapter 2, starting in verse 1, because this passage is quite clear, but I don't think this fits for all situations.

Because one of the things you must think about whenever you look to Scripture is, you must read in context. So, let us first read this passage, and then understand the context that's going on. And I want to look at some other passages to see, does the Bible actually teach no showing of partiality the way some argue?

In other words, the way that some argue is that we are not to show preferential treatment toward anybody. Everybody is to be treated absolutely equal in every way. By the way, this is the way some people try to slip in the argument that women can be pastors and preachers.

Why? Because we're not supposed to show partiality. They want to slip that in and say, see, the reality is God would say we shouldn't show partiality. We're all equal. We're going to look at a passage that they use very often to argue that case.

But before we get there, let's look at what James chapter 2 says. My brothers, show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory. For if a man wearing a gold ring and fine clothing comes into your assembly, and a poor man in shabby clothes also comes in, and if you pay attention to the one wearing the fine clothes and say, you sit here in the good place.

While you say to the poor man, you stand over there or sit down at my feet. You have not then made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts. Listen, my beloved brothers, has not God chosen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom, which he has promised to those who love him?

But you've dishonored the poor man and are not the rich the ones who oppress you and the ones who drag you into courts and they are the ones who blaspheme the honorable name by which you were called? So when we look at this passage, we end up seeing here that James is talking about partiality.

We should not show partiality. Well, I agree, we should not. Then as we look at this, the idea here is that this is a term or the idea of someone coming into the church. The idea that you see is this is a person who comes in and I assume from the looks of this he's not a believer because the description of someone is someone who is because they have money but they oppress us as Christians.

Therefore, that wouldn't be descriptive of a Christian. In other words, I think the picture here is you have a believer in Christ who's poor and shabby and or maybe he's not even a believer in Christ but comes in and because you see the wealthy man you give him special treatment.

You honor him just because of his money. Now, this is the issue. You're not honoring him because he's just another human being. You're honoring him for the money, maybe for what he could do for you. But the idea here is the contrast is when you have someone come into the church, you're seeking to honor those who can provide more for you or give you some status.

Maybe they can donate more to the church or maybe it's that you want to be in good standing with them because you don't want to be suffering their oppression or whatever it may be. But clearly the issue is not that these are two people that you're treating as image bearers of Christ and an equal footing or image bearers of God.

What you see here is that they're making a distinction and in verse 6 it says you have dishonored the poor man. So the issue is here is that that favoritism is not biblical. This favoritism is based on, I think from looking at this text, a selfish motive.

The rich man has more to offer. The poor man does not. And therefore you will turn to the rich man and make an argument for what he can do for you. I mean the very next verse in this passage where I stopped in verse 8, it's going to talk about whether you love your neighbor as yourself.

So the issue at stake here is the love that we have for our fellow man. So here you end up having the showing of partiality. In verse 9 it says, but if you show partiality you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors.

That sounds serious. This doesn't seem like a light thing that is being expressed by James. This seems something very serious because he goes on in verse 10 and says, for whoever keeps the whole law but falls in one point is guilty of all.

So if you fail in this point of showing partiality, he says you're guilty of the whole law. Again, that sounds very, very serious, does it not? So when we say we shouldn't show partiality, we must remember a couple things.

First, as we look at this book, we see in this book James is specifically teaching what genuine faith looks like. So as we learn how to interpret the Bible, notice what I'm doing. First thing I want to do as examining this passage is look at the immediate context that we have and then look at the broader context of the book.

So what we have here is he's giving a very specific example. Someone comes in the church and he's got the money. You got that old smelly homeless guy and just go away from me. I don't want you around.

You have nothing to offer me. But this rich guy does. Well, the issue there is that the motive, I believe, that we end up looking at is a sinful one. We end up seeing that here someone who has something to offer us but is willing to drag you into court, but you'll honor him over a poor person who has nothing to offer to you.

In fact, being friends with them may embarrass you in front of others. You see, that's the context that we see in this passage. What you end up noticing is it is some very strong language, and it is. But is this saying that if your family was to come in that you shouldn't offer them a seat because there's a homeless person there?

Well, now you get into a different issue. But let's hold that issue for a bit, think about that, as I want to look into another verse of Scripture. And this is the one that isn't specifically dealing with partiality, but I did mention that this is the verse that many people try to slip in to argue that women can be pastors.

And we end up seeing this starting in Galatians chapter 3. Well, let's start in verse 23. Now, before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed.

So then the law was given our guardian unto Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian, for in Christ you see you are all sons of God, through faith, for as many of you were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.

Now, this is the verse, verse 28. For neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female, for all are one in Christ. Now, why did I read starting in verse 23 to give you the context?

Why? The focus that many people say that we shouldn't show favoritism or preference is verse 28. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female, you're all one in Christ.

That is true. We are all one in Christ. Look at the context. What's it talking about? It's talking about salvation. Notice, this has nothing to do with roles in the church. So, when people try to use that to say women can be pastors, I'm sorry, that's not what the text says.

We don't see that in the text here. So, that's not what it says, but what are we seeing? Well, though favoritism or partiality is not mentioned here, we see that this is teaching that same idea, that when it comes to salvation here, we shouldn't be treating anyone different.

Why would this be? Well, let's start with Jew or Greek. When it comes to a Jew or a Greek, the Jews would have thought that they had preference. They were the chosen people. They were the ones that God's word came to.

They were always the favored people. So, they thought. But Paul is saying no. There is no difference between a Jew or a Greek. That would be a Greek would just refer to any of the Gentiles, any non-Jew.

So, whether you're a Jew or not a Jew, we all come to Christ the same way. Well, what about a slave or free? Well, a slave in Roman culture was property, didn't have rights, and a free man did. And so, what we see here is he's saying no.

Even your economic status has no bearing on salvation. Salvation is offered to all, whether you're free or a slave. You can be offered the gift of salvation, male or female. Well, that was a very male-dominant culture.

And so, again, this is what he's doing in each of these. He's hitting on the Jews. He's hitting on the freemen. He's hitting on the men. And saying that none of you have a preference, a favoritism, even though the culture says so.

So, our culture does not define who can come to Christ. So, God does not show favoritism when it comes to the issue of salvation. You know, I think Peter brings this up. If you look in Acts chapter 10 and verse 34, and this is what is a verse that I think ties us to this Galatians 3 passage, what you see there is that it says in Acts 10, 34, so Peter opened his mouth.

Now, I've got to give some context here. I just don't have time to go into all of it. But this is right after Peter gets this vision where he's told by God to go into a Gentile home, something that a Jewish person should not do.

What ends up happening? He goes into the Gentile home and he ends up seeing that God brings salvation to the Gentiles. This is a mind blow for Peter. You have to understand how much this is going to radically change Peter's mind.

I mean, Peter is in a Jewish culture where Jews don't have anything to do with the Gentiles. They're not going to go into a Gentile home. That would make him unclean. Think about the time when you had the leaders of Israel giving Christ over to the Gentiles to basically put him to death, but they don't want to go in the Gentile home because that would make him unclean for Passover.

I mean, think about that. I mean, that is an insane thing to think about. Here these men are offering up someone they know is an innocent man unto death, but they don't want to defile themselves by entering into a Gentile home.

I mean, this is one of the ironies of Scripture that you end up seeing how blind people can be when they're stuck in some religious blinding. Here you have guys killing an innocent man, killing a man they know claims to be God and has proven he is God.

And they're going to kill him and offer him up as a sacrifice, basically, to their own power base, and you end up seeing that they don't want to defile themselves by going into a Gentile home? Well, Peter has this vision.

God shows him some food. He says, Lord, I've never eaten anything that's unclean. He says, don't call unclean what I call clean. Peter gets the idea. He understands the message. He goes into a Gentile home, and that's where we pick up.

So Peter opened his mouth and said, truly, I understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation, anyone who fears him and does what is right and acceptable to him, as for the word that he sent to Israel, preaching good news of peace through Jesus Christ, he is Lord of all.

You yourselves know what happened throughout all Judea. Now, what you end up seeing here is he has a radical realization that God is offering the gospel to the Gentiles. A little further down in that passage, we see he had some other Jewish people with him, and what you end up seeing is that the others are amazed.

They can't believe that the Holy Spirit descends upon these Gentiles and fills them with the same Holy Spirit that was promised to the Jews in Jeremiah 31 and Ezekiel 36. That same promise was made, and so in verse 45, it says, and the other believers from among the circumcised who came with Peter were amazed because the gift of the Spirit was poured out even on the Gentiles.

Even those Gentiles, those wicked nasty Gentiles. Yes, God shows no favoritism when it comes to salvation, and we shouldn't show favoritism when it comes to people coming in the church or people that would try to show favoritism toward those who might be able to offer more to us.

In other words, when we share the gospel, share it to everybody, because everybody has a right to hear. Everybody can be saved if God so chooses to save them. The gospel goes out no longer just to the Jews.

Jews are not to keep it to themselves. No, it's to go to all people everywhere, and so this is something that is different. But does this mean we never, ever, ever show partiality to anyone? That is the question, and we're going to answer that right after this break.

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Partiality, Family Responsibility, and the Motive of the Heart

All right, so we're back, and let me try to answer this question. The reality is, is that it is very similar to passages when you have Jesus say, love your neighbor as yourself. Now, do we know of any passage of scripture that commands us, or in fact encourages us, to love ourselves?

No, no. It's a foregone conclusion that we will love ourselves. It is also a foregone conclusion that we're going to show preferential treatment to our own family over a stranger. Now, that doesn't mean that God is going to show preferential treatment over your family when it comes to salvation, and it doesn't mean that if you come into the church and two strangers come in, that we should treat one any different than the other.

The issue is that we shouldn't treat people differently because of their outward appearance, their finances, or what they can offer to us. That would be a sinful favoritism, or showing of partiality. But what we see here is that God is basically letting us know that we, you and I, should be treating people equally when it comes to different things.

But I do think that when it comes to issues, there's going to be a natural thing of showing a favoritism or a preference. Now, let me tell you where this comes into play. Now, I know how some people use this when I'm talking of New York.

You end up seeing that even the liberals understand this. They'll say that there shouldn't be a showing of partiality for others, but their own kids know. They want to make sure that their kids don't mess with the restaurant from shore.

That's why they make sure that they have those private schools, or at least their kids go to the better schools that they can afford, or that they can get into. If you want an example of this, I mean, just look at the whole issue where the people in Hollywood with the college admissions, and see how they tried to use their bargaining to make sure their kids got into the better schools.

Well, that's going to be the way everyone's going to behave with certain people like family. But the thing that I want us to see with this is, we should not be showing partiality. We should be working to not do that.

But there was a argument made against, well, really against pro-life. It was an attempt to be a gotcha type question. Maybe you saw this going around some time ago on the internet, but the argument went like this.

You're in a clinic for helping women get pregnant, and they have frozen embryos. Now, there's a fire. You have a choice. You can save your own child, or you can run in and save a thousand children in the embryonic state.

What do you do? The gotcha is that if you don't run and get the thousand, the thousand are supposed to count as more than the one. If you don't go save the thousand, it must mean because you're showing a favoritism, which is not what they often think about, but you are.

And the issue is they want to say, if you don't go save the thousand, somehow you really don't believe that those thousand embryos are really living people. Well, you're going to show preference to your child.

Why? Because you have a responsibility to your child. You know who should grab those thousand embryos? The doctors and nurses who have the responsibility to show the favoritism or the preference to care for them.

That's not my responsibility in that scenario. My responsibility is to my child. And so in a case like that, yes, I have a responsibility. And that comes into play. So there is this notion where we can't carry this favoritism too far.

There are people who might try to. There are people who will try to argue that when it comes to certain issues, we must show no preferential treatment at all. Now, I find it interesting in our culture because the way this often gets applied is only to Christians.

Have you noticed that? Christians are not to show preferential treatment toward others. We are to treat the heterosexual equal to the homosexual. We are to treat black equal to white. We are to treat whatever.

There have all these different things. So let us examine these. Should we treat everyone equally? Well, maybe. But do we? I mean, is that biblical? Think about this. Is everyone treated as a pastor? No, there's plenty of people who don't qualify as pastor.

And so we show a preferential treatment to your pastor. In fact, we end up seeing in scripture that we are to show a favoritism to the pastor. We are to give him a double honor to those who preach well.

Well, is that showing favoritism because others aren't the pastor? Well, others aren't qualified to be pastor. So clearly God has set up some things where there is going to be separation between people.

So can we treat everyone absolutely equal? I don't think that's ever going to happen. And it can't happen. And the liberals know that they won't do that either. Although they say that for Christians somehow they're not doing things right.

Now, I would say if it comes to issues of black or white, you have a church and you have an all-white church and a black person comes into your church. If you don't treat that person as you treat any white person that comes into your church, then according to James 2, you are in sin.

Remember that strong language that James had there, because that is exactly what you're doing. God will have strong language for you if that's what you're doing. You are, as it says in James 2, 9, committing sin.

I want that to sink in. There are some churches where they will not allow a black person to come in. Why? They are showing a sinful favoritism. Now, you have that black person and a white person. They both come in the church and they want to be members.

If you turn and say that the white person could be a member but not the black, you are in sin, according to James 2. Now, you have a different scenario, the one our culture wants to put on us. You have the homosexual, the person who practices homosexuality and is not repentant of it, and they come in your church and they would like to be a member, and another person comes in the church who professes to have been converted to Christ, and they want to be a member.

Do you treat them both equally? No, you don't. The person who's a believer in Christ, you welcome them with open arms, because they are a believer. But the person who refuses to repent of sin, whatever the sin is, homosexuality or anything else, that they're in a lifestyle of sin and they identify that way and they refuse to change, no, you don't.

You don't welcome them in because you'd have to discipline them right out. I mean, they're not professing to be a believer by their lifestyle. And so you must judge that rightly. And so the thing to focus in on is why are we showing preference?

In that case, you are showing a preference to a believer over an unbeliever in the church. In fact, we end up seeing in Paul, he tells us, if you have a person, he's a believer, you go to someone's house, you have some meat offered to idols, but the believer, he's a new believer, you know, he's got an issue with that meat offered unto idols because he grew up where you don't eat that stuff.

And he's just got this issue with it. It's a sin against his conscience. Paul says, given the choice of evangelism to the unbeliever or protecting a believer's conscience, you protect your brother. You show favoritism, shall we say, to your brother.

In other words, you have to choose between two people, eating the meat offered to an idol so that you have a chance to evangelize or don't eat a meat offered to idol so you could save your brother from feeling like he's in sin.

You show preferential treatment to your brother in Christ before the unbeliever. Now, that may be something many of us, when we think about it, we don't often talk that way. I mean, there's so many Christians that what you end up hearing them do is that they'll say, no, it's the gospel.

It's the gospel. We got to go. Hey, if it offends you, get over it. You're a believer. We have to go share the gospel. That's not what God would say. God does not say that the gospel is more important than your brother's conscience.

Your brother's conscience is more important. Therefore, that's a showing of favoritism. So right there, you end up seeing that this command of favoritism cannot be universal and is not universal because God does show some areas of a favoritism, but not a sinful favoritism.

So now we get to the heart of the issue. Some favoritism is sinful and some is not. Now the question, how do you know? How do you know which favoritism is sinful and which is not? Well, we're going to get to that right after this break.

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Blessings.

Partiality, Motive, and Biblical Standards for Preference

Okay, so how do we tell whether a preferential treatment, a favoritism, a partiality, is sinful or not? Well, the answer actually comes from James, because he says it's a sin. But what do you see? It's based on the motive of your heart.

What's your motive? Are you showing preferential treatment because it's what God's word says, and therefore you're going to show a preference? If you're looking to get married and you're a believer, you better show preference to all believers over an unbeliever when you marry.

You shouldn't be even thinking about marrying an unbeliever if you're a believer. Scripture's clear on that. So what's your motive? Obedience to God. Where in the case that James gives us, that preferential treatment is really about me getting something, what the person can offer me.

You see the difference? One is for God, one is for self. It makes it clear. Sometimes we would justify that. Oh boy, have I seen this in ministry. I have seen people that they'll see someone that has a lot of money, and they know that person can maybe help with donations.

And boy, do they treat them different. Oh, let me dote on you. Let me take care of you. Anything I can get for you. And to someone else that doesn't offer money, you don't see that same reaction. No, they will have a justification for it.

A lot of times they'll sit there and say, ah, but it's for a good cause. I'm just doing it to raise money for the ministry. It's ministry. It's spiritual. Not if you're doing it where you're doing that for the wealthy person and treating the person without money differently because you're trying to get something from them.

Do you see the difference? I really want you to see that there is a difference there. It's on things that we have certain responsibilities or certain obedience to Christ. When we're showing favoritism or partiality because of that, that's not going to be a sinful thing.

But if our motive is to get something from someone, that is going to be a sinful thing. So when you are tempted to show partiality, you must evaluate your own heart. Look at your heart and ask, why am I doing this?

What is the purpose? So I want us to look at this just because, you know, it struck me the way that, just the way in New York does with admissions. Why? Because it really is a showing of partiality. That's exactly what the missions office is going to do.

They're going to evaluate people and look at where the student's grades are or where the parents come from, their economic status, or whatever they may want to look at. And they're going to look at those things and that is going to be showing of preference.

You go to take a job and what do you see? You see people who end up arguing that they're going to prefer one candidate over another candidate, hopefully based upon performance and past experience. Not always, sometimes it's who you know.

But this is the thing that struck me as I was talking to my sister because the liberals would always argue that we must not show any preferential treatment. We should treat everyone fairly and yet we end up seeing in the liberal city of New York they don't do that.

They end up showing a favoritism. Now the question is, is that favoritism wrong? Well, I don't know the hearts of those who make that decision. Are they doing it based upon grades? Well, if they're going to do it based upon performance that you have in school and how you do, I would think that's fair.

I mean, is that not similar to what we see in Scripture when it says about qualifications of pastor or deacons? Does it not provide a qualification? If you meet these requirements then you could be a pastor or deacons but if you don't then you can't.

That sounds a little bit similar that there's a qualification and yet in that qualification that is showing of a preference. But is it a sinful preference? I would say no. I would say that we don't show equal preference in all circumstances but in this case I think that we have to say by what standard.