Beware Respect of Persons

J.C. Ryle “Riches and Poverty”

https://www.jcryle.info/2015/10/riches-and-poverty.html

Work hard to do good to all men. Pity the poor, and help in every reasonable endeavor to raise them from their life of poverty. Seek to help to increase knowledge, to promote morality, and to improve the earthly condition of the poor. But never, never forget that you live in a fallen world, that sin is all around you, and that the devil and the demons are everywhere. And be sure that the rich man and Lazarus are emblems of two classes, which will always be in the world until the Lord returns.….. It would be good for us all to remember that every man is tragically poor until he is rich in faith and rich toward God. (James 2:5)

F.B. Meyer  Our Daily Walk

The principle of God's choice is to take what others reject (1 Corinthians 1:28) - the fire-brand plucked from the burning, the feebly-smoking wick, the bruised reed, the younger sons, the halt and lame, the last and least; the things that are foolish, despised, and weak - these are God's choice, that He may bring to nought things that are, that no flesh may glory in His presence.

A.W. Tozer - We Travel an Appointed Way

There is an evil which I have seen under the sun--one that grows and does not diminish. And it is all the more dangerous because it is done without evil aforethought but, as it were, carelessly and without wrong intent.

It is the evil of giving to them that have and withholding from them that have not. It is the evil of blessing with a loud voice them that are already blessed and letting the unblessed and the outcast lie forgotten.

Let a man appear in a local Christian fellowship and let him be one whose fame is bruited abroad, whose presence will add something to the one who entertains him, and immediately a score of homes will be thrown open and every eager hospitality will be extended to him. But the obscure and the unknown must be content to sit on the fringes of the Christian circle and not once be invited into any home.

This is a great evil and an iniquity that awaits the judgment of the great day. And it is so widespread that scarcely any of us can claim to be free from it. So we condemn it only with utter humility and with acknowledgment that we too have been in some measure guilty.

No observant man will attempt to deny that a vast amount of Christian money is being spent on those who do not need it, while the poor and the needy and such as have no helper must often go unnoticed and unhelped, even though they too are Christians and servants of our common Lord. (The modern church would appear to be as blind and partial as the world in this matter.)

Our Lord warned us against the snare of showing kindness only to such as could return such kindness and so cancel out any positive good we may have thought we were doing. By this test, a world of religious activity is being wasted in our churches. To invite in well-fed and well-groomed friends to share our hospitality with the full knowledge that we will be invited to receive the same kindness again on the first convenient evening is in no sense an act of Christian hospitality. It is of the earth earthy; its motive is fleshly; no sacrifice is entailed; its moral content is nil and it will be accounted wood, hay, stubble before the judgment seat of Christ.

The evil here discussed was common among the Pharisees of New Testament times. In Matthew 23, Christ mercilessly exposed the whole thing, and in so doing earned the undying enmity of those who practiced it. The Pharisees were bad not because they entertained their friends but because they would not entertain the poor and the common among the people. One bitter accusation which they hurled against Christ was that He received sinners and ate with them. This they would not stoop to do, and in their high pride, they became seven times worse than the worst among the sinners whom they so coldly rejected.

In spite of our lip-service to democracy, Americans are a decidedly class-conscious people. The very politicians and educators and church leaders among us who sound abroad the praises of the common man and plead for equal rights for all are in private practice as aloof from the plain people as the proudest monarch could ever be. There exists among us an aristocracy composed of famous people, rich men, social lions, actors, public figures and headliners of one kind or another, and these are a class apart. Beneath them, standing off in wild-eyed admiration, are the millions of anonymous men and women who make up the mass of the population. And they have nothing in their favor--except that they were in the heart of Jesus when He died upon the cross.

Within the church also there exists a class consciousness, a reflection of that found in society. This has been brought over into the church from the world. Its spirit is completely foreign to the spirit of Christ, utterly opposed to it, indeed; and yet it determines to a large degree the conduct of Christians. This is the source of the evil we mention here.

Gospel churches which mostly begin with the lowly are usually not content till they attain some degree of wealth and social acceptance. Then they gradually fall into classes, determined largely by the wealth and education of the members. The individuals that comprise the top layer of these various classes go on to become pillars of the religious society and are soon entrenched in places of leadership and influence. It is then that their great temptation comes upon them, the temptation to cater to their own class and to neglect the poor and the ignorant that make up the swarming population around them. They soon become hardened to every appeal of the Holy Spirit toward meekness and humility. Their homes are spotless, their clothes the most expensive, their friends the most exclusive. Apart from some tremendous moral upheaval, they are beyond help. And yet they may be among the most vocal exponents of Bible Christianity and heavy givers to the cause of the church.

Let us not become indignant at this blunt portrayal of facts. Let us rather humble ourselves to serve God's poor. Let us seek to be like Jesus in our devotion to the forgotten of the earth who have nothing to recommend them but their poverty and their heart-hunger and their tears.

Harry Emerson Fosdick

Muretus, a French refugee, humanist and scholar became ill in Lombardy, and sought help from doctors. Thinking he was an ignorant beggar, they discussed his case in Latin saying “Let us try an experiment with this worthless creature.” Muretus  replied “Vilem animan appellus pro qua Christus non dedignatus est moni?” “Will you call worthless one for whom Christ did not disdain to die?”

William Barclay on James 1:9 "Let the lowly brother be proud of his exaltation..."

Christianity brings to the poor man a new sense of his own value.

1. He learns that he matters in the Church (where) social distinctions of the world are obliterated.

2. He learns that he matters in the world (as) every man has a (God given) task to do (Ephesians 2:10).

3. He learns that he matters to God as a man for whom Christ died.