SHOWING HONOR VS SHOWING FAVORITISM

It’s not wrong to honor others who are faithful to God with their material possessions—just as it is not wrong to honor Christians for being hospitable, sharing Christ with others, and serving the Lord in other ways. In fact, as we already noted in chapter 3, we are exhorted to actually “honor others.” In terms of being generous, the apostles changed Joseph’s name to “Barnabas (which means Son of Encouragement)” in order to honor him for using his material possessions to serve the church in Jerusalem (Acts 4:36–37). This is about as public as honor can get! But this is far different than showing “favoritism.” All Christians should be honored in various ways for their faithfulness. In terms of generosity, it should be based on faithfulness in the light of what we have—not in terms of quantity.

Prejudice, favoritism, and discrimination in the body of Christ rejects and alienates some Christians and accepts others. This violates the laws of God. Furthermore, this kind of behavior violates the very nature of the functioning body of Christ. We are all one. Every member is important—rich or poor, young or old, black or white, weak or strong, Swedish or Norwegian, those who speak English and those who speak Spanish—or any other language. If we show favoritism, we also destroy the unity, harmony, and oneness in the body of Christ that Christ and Paul both prayed for and commanded.

Why does the sermon argue that favoritism can destroy the unity in the church?