“…have you not shown partiality among yourselves, and become judges with evil thoughts?”
have you not shown partiality among yourselves,
To show partiality means to separate oneself throughout or wholly from someone. We separate ourselves from someone because of the discriminations we make about them. We think that we are superior to them because of some imagined qualities that we might have.
We made a loud statement to those around us when we showed partiality to some over others.
and become judges with evil thoughts?
The word “thoughts” denotes inward reasoning, an opinion. This is the process whereby someone reasons with himself and consults himself for deliberation. It is an evil system of thought that makes distinctions between the rich and poor.
PRINCIPLE:
Showing favoritism is outside the will of God.
APPLICATION:
When we show partiality toward the rich, we make a statement about our view of the world. We believe in materialism as over against immaterial values. When we make some people’s preferences over others, we set ourselves up as judges of evil thoughts. It is holding one standard for one group and another standard for another.
1 Co 4:7, “For who makes you differ from another? And what do you have that you did not receive? Now if you did indeed receive it, why do you boast as if you had not received it?”
Most of us would never allow these thoughts to be seen by our friends and colleagues. If these thoughts enter our minds, we must deal with them immediately by confession, or they will entrench into our minds and develop into attitudes.
