Creator, Father, King #190

My dear brothers and sisters, how can you claim to have faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ if you favor some people over others?

First-century Palestine was a hotbed of frustration and animosity. The Jews hated being ruled and taxed by their cruel Roman overlords. But when they saw their own countrymen collecting taxes on Rome’s behalf—well, that really got them steamed!

In addition to what Rome required, many tax collectors charged the people an extra percentage to enrich themselves (Luke 3:13; 19:8). The Romans didn’t care, and the oppressed Jewish citizenry were often helpless to resist. As such, Jewish tax collectors were considered reprehensible traitors and hopelessly outside of God’s grace. They were often used to illustrate the worst of society (Matthew 5:46; 18:17; and 21:31).

All this made what Jesus did in Matthew 9:9-13 unthinkable to the Jewish religious leaders. One day, Jesus called Matthew, a Jewish tax collector, to be one of his twelve disciples, and he later went to dine at Matthew’s house with some other tax collectors and social outcasts. Huffing and puffing with self-righteous indignation, the Pharisees asked Jesus’ disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with such scum?” (verse 11).

Jesus’ answer was beautiful: “I have come to call not those who think they are righteous, but those who know they are sinners” (verse 13).

What’s It Mean?

Jesus doesn’t play favorites, and he doesn’t want us to either. As today’s verse and many other Bible passages make clear, God hates preferential treatment. In fact, Romans 2:11 spells it out clearly: “God does not show favoritism.”

That’s because he created all people equal, as his image-bearers. We must never show partiality toward others based on race, gender, popularity, outward appearance, money, or any other trivial, human means of segregation (Psalm 82:2; Proverbs 24:23; James 2:1-13; and 1 Timothy 5:21).

When God’s Son lived on the earth, he consistently made time for the marginalized, outcasts, and riffraff of society. Jesus showed love to tax collectors, lepers, Samaritans, the demon-possessed, the poor, sick, crippled, and many others whom Israel’s religious elite deemed “unworthy.”

What about you? Do you consistently drift toward the “in” crowd? Do you show favoritism in your interactions with others based on shallow human factors?

Or do you treat everyone as God’s image-bearer and love them equally, reaching out to those who are hurting and rejected? There is no place for showing favoritism as a Christian!

Now What?

Befriend someone outside your normal social circles today.

Did You Know?

According to the ancient historian Philo, some first-century tax collectors would resort to extortion and/or imprisoning a man’s family members if he fled without paying his debts.