The problem of prosoplasia...

This week we are starting into James Chapter 2 and right off the bat we are confronted with a significant problem plaguing the church. That is the problem of prosoplasia (pros-o-pol-ape-see'-ah).

This problem is as bad as it sounds... It is like a cancer that has systematically infected and eaten away at the church over the past 2000 years. Really if you dig deeper you find God warning against this problem in Leviticus 19 so we know that the church is not unique in this struggle but that it is a plague on mankind... 

Prosoplasia is the Greek transliteration for the word partiality or favoritism... 

Now before you launch in on attacks let me say this - as with most things there is a time and a place for favoritism... We have our favorite sports teams... (Go Gators!) We have our favorite tv shows or movies... We have our favorite restaurants... 

That isn't the type of favoritism that I am talking about although if you allow it to it can turn into that... 

Now this text doesn’t just apply to poverty. The reason is because of the way this word “partiality” is used elsewhere in the New Testament.

This word in the New Testament literally means “receive according to the face,” or in other words, to make judgments about people based on external appearance.

If you look at Romans 2 you find Paul is dealing with an ethnic and racial (and religious) issue, namely Greeks and Jews.  He says that both are liable to judgment because of their sin. Then gives the reason in verse 11: “For God shows no partiality”—which is the same word as here in James 1.

James might be dealing with the issue in relation to wealth and poverty but we can see as Paul demonstrates we show favoritism in many other ways. Favoritism is present anytime we are making judgments on people based on external appearance…

This could be according to dress, general physical appearance, color of skin, or a host of other characteristics… 

We must guard our hearts against this type of favoritism... 

We are called to be set apart from the ways of this world this means that we must live out our faith and in doing so live out the Word. 

If we show favoritism, we are not showing mercy and if we are not willing to show mercy we are demonstrating that the mercy of Christ is not within us... 

Let's embrace the mercy of Christ today and extend that mercy to those around us! 

How we treat others is the evidence of our relation to Christ. 

Whether we like them or not… 

Whether they like us or not… 

We are called to hold the standard of Christ. The standard of mercy... 

If we have been set free from sin's condemnation and dominion by Christ, then we live in liberty. And in this liberty there is a law—the law of liberty, that is, the law of love. 

We will be judged under this law... 

Good treatment and bad treatment, honor and dishonor, rejection and acceptance should not be based on any earthly standard much less on riches or race.

Let's embrace His mercy and grace together!

See ya Sunday!