Pride and Prejudice in Christianity???

In the Book of James, James tells us that there should be no favoritism within the church. As believers there should be a common bond of Christ that removes all pride from our attitudes toward others and with the absence of pride there should be no prejudice toward any individual or group. However, this has not always been the case. Even from the beginning, the church has not always left prejudice aside.

Had Jane Austin addressed this issue in the Church she might have said, “Neither 100 lbs a year nor 10,000, neither master nor servant, neither unmarried at 27 nor married at 16, for all are one in Christ.”

Instead it was Paul who addressed the need for equality in the body in Galatians 3:28,
“Neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”

Jane Austin did attack the issue of misconceptions toward others based on wealth, position in society and family background. Pride and Prejudice is a story that reveals how pride, and from that pride, prejudice can separate people from one another. Her main characters, Elizabeth Bennet and John Darcy are filled with condescension and critical judgments toward all those around them, including one another. It is not until their love for one another over powers their pride that they begin to see that they have judged each other unfairly. They made assumptions about each other even before knowing who the other person was.

This prejudgment of other people is common in the world, but sadly it is just as prevalent in the Church.

Paul wrote what he did in Galatians 3:28 because of the attitudes people within the body of believers had toward others. In Galatians, Paul had to confront Peter about the hypocrisy he had shown toward Gentiles after a group of Jewish believers arrived. Prior to believers from Jerusalem coming to Galatia, Peter had eaten freely with Gentiles believers, but when these other men came he began to pull away from the Gentiles. He was afraid of those Jewish believers who were of the circumcision group coming against him. With his actions, Peter actually caused several other Jews, who had been with him prior to the arrival of those from Jerusalem, to treat the Gentile believers as if they were less than Jewish believers. Paul confronted Peter. He said “We who are Jewish by birth and not ‘Gentile sinners’ know that a man is not justified by observing the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ.” In this, Paul was reminding Peter of the gospel message, the same message that Peter had taken to the Gentiles.

In Acts 10, the Lord called Peter to the home of a Gentile, a Roman soldier by the name of Cornelius. Cornelius and Peter both received visions from the Lord drawing them to one another. One day Cornelius was praying (Cornelius was a religious man apart from Christ) and all of a sudden a man appeared to him in shining clothes. This man told him to send for Peter. Either on that day, or the day right after, Peter was praying as he waited for dinner. He had a vision of a sheet coming down from heaven with animals on it…clean and unclean (there were certain animals Jews could eat and others they could not eat and the sheet contained both types.) In the vision the Lord told Peter to get up and kill and eat. Peter said no Lord. I have never eaten anything unclean before. Then the Lord told Peter that nothing He had created was unclean. At that moment Peter woke up, and the Spirit told him to go down stairs because men were waiting for him. Peter realized that his dream directly related to the men who were waiting for him. The Lord told him to go to the house of a Gentile and proclaim Christ…this was not something a Jew ever did. They believed they would be defiled if they went into the home of a Gentile, so for Peter to be told that he was to go to the Gentiles was a huge thing. God knew that he needed to be prepared and that is why he had the dream when he did. It was not related to food, but instead to mankind. “Nothing I made is unclean,” the Lord told Peter and then He sent him to the Gentiles.

Peter left for Cornelius’ house that very day. When he got there, Acts 10:27 tells us that Peter walked into the house. He is stiff and looks very proud. The crowd parts for him, so it is clear that he is a man of great standing. Everyone bows or curtsies as he passes by. This is the point where he and Elizabeth see each other for the first time. He walks up to the door of Cornelius house and looks around. He has six of his fellow Jewish believers with him. I am sure they stood even further back than Miss Bingley did when she was introduced to the Bennetts. Peter steps into the house, and just as everyone at the ball parts for Mr. Darcy in reverence, Cornelius falls at Peter’s feet. Unlike Darcy, Peter tells Cornelius that he is no different he says, “Stand up….I am only a man myself”.

Imagine Darcy standing there with all these lower ranked country people. He is used to high society, perfect manners and dress and now he is standing among the rabble and expected to dance…he tries to make Lizzy not sound too bad after Bingley asks him why he is not dancing. Bingley points out that Elizabeth Bennet is available and attractive…Darcy says she is tolerable, but not attractive enough to tempt him.

He walks up to the door of Cornelius house and looks around. He has six of his fellow Jewish believers with him. I am sure they stood even further back than Miss Bingley did when she was introduced to the Bennetts. Peter steps into the house, and just as everyone at the ball parts for Mr. Darcy in reverence, Cornelius falls at Peter’s feet. Unlike Darcy, Peter tells Cornelius that he is no different he says, “Stand up….I am only a man myself”.

Peter says this, but not five minutes later…possibly in his nervous state he says, “You are well aware that it is against our law for a Jew to associate with a Gentile or visit him.”
Peter in like manner points out that he should not be in the house of Cornelius, BUT Peter takes a different course than Darcy. God has shown him that he should not call any man impure or unclean. So Peter chooses to obey and he proclaims Christ to the rabble, to the Gentiles.

Through Peter’s obedience, because he chose to over come his own pride and prejudice toward Gentiles, Cornelius and all those in his house believe in Jesus. They believe that He defeated death and gave himself for them. Acts 10:44 says that while Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit came on all who heard the message (the Gentiles not the believing Jews). Peter ORDERED that the Gentiles be baptized in the name of Jesus.

Peter overcame his pride and prejudice through obedience to God, but the other believers…now called the circumcised believers believed because they saw that God does not show partiality. God did not first have Peter explain why Cornelius needed to be circumcised before he could come to faith. No, it was through faith in Christ alone and His work on the cross that Cornelius and the members of his household came to a saving knowledge of Jesus.

Now, I wish all pride and prejudice in Christianity had been swept away that day at Cornelius’ house, but sadly it was not. Peter even struggled with it again later on, and Paul had to confront him about his attitude toward Gentile believers.

Where do our prejudice’s lie today? It is easy to sit back and look at Darcy or even Peter and point out how ridiculous their behavior was, but it is much harder to look at our own pride or our prejudice toward others as ridiculous. I know that I can pretty much justify every feeling I have. I can say well this person makes me uncomfortable, or this person is just wrong, and in that way, I can be right and keep my guard up.

As I thought about what I was going to write on this subject, I tried to think of areas of division we have in the body of Christ today. Where do we run into prejudice?

Is it the kid who is sitting with our kid in youth group, the one who has black everything on? Don’t we all applaud the youth pastor doing outreach until the outreach kid is hanging out with our own kid?

Is it the twenty-two year old women three rows in front of us who has a great figure and wears everything to remind us that she has a great figure? Don’t we wish we could tell her how to dress, but that would mean we would have to actually talk to her…then we might find that we liked her and at that point her dress might not seem as offensive as it did when we were sitting behind her judging her?

Is it the music minister who sings all those loud songs and seems to rock the house every week, instead of leading us to sing in the “right way”? Sometimes we wish he would just sing a hymn, yet when we open our hearts, we realize that How Great is Our God brings a brokenness to our hearts just as powerfully as How Great Thou Art.

Is it that woman with the baby in the middle left? Doesn’t she know there is a cry room she can take her baby too? Doesn’t she know you came to church to hear the pastor preach, not her kid scream? We all say we are thankful for children, until children disturb our time. We need to remember our time as new parents. The fear, weariness and the need to be out with other believers so we could be refreshed to go home and sit up at night little one showing the love of Christ to him.

Or it could be so many other things.

If Peter had allowed his prejudice to out weigh his love for Christ, he would not have been the first one to take the gospel to the Gentiles. The gospel would have still been spread, but Peter would have missed out on seeing that wonderful day when grace was poured out on the Gentiles. When the larger picture of Christ’s great gift was shown…For God so loved the world, that he gave His one and only Son that who ever believed in Him should not perish but have eternal life.” The gift was not to the Jews alone…but to the world.

Darcy overcame his pride and Elizabeth her prejudice when they had the time to get to know one another. When they let their guard down and opened their hearts to one another. Peter overcame his customs and traditions when he listened to the voice of his Lord and obeyed.

We are no different from Darcy or Lizzy or Jane Austin. We struggle in the same ways that Peter and the Jewish believers did. What changed the path that they all were on was them opening themselves up to be known and to know others. I have been very hard on Darcy tonight, but the reason that the thought first came to my to do this devotional is that I am Mr. Darcy. I tend to walk in a room and look around to see where I fit in. In all reality, that is all Mr. Darcy was doing, the difficulty he had was that he was a man of high rank, and therefore he had to be acknowledged. I am sure he would have rather have come in quietly looked around and gotten comfortable before he began to talk to anyone other than those around him. I am much the same way. I have to figure out where I fit in and then I can begin to talk to people. Darcy confesses at one moment that he does not have the “happy manners” that Wickham has sad to say neither do I. We all have weaknesses that cause us to struggle and it is only when we let down our walls and start to see the good in others that we can do away with our prejudices

Neither purple haired post-modern nor suit clad modern, neither stay at home mom nor working woman, neither Hispanic nor white, neither male nor female….for if we are in Christ then we are one.