(A Devotional Discourse on Divine Impartiality and the Crooked Scale)
The Uncrooked Scale: Why Your Favouritism is a Declaration of War on God’s Community
Listen, my friend. Let me tell you about a battle fought not with spears, but with glances. Not in the streets of our restless cities, but in the hidden chambers of the human heart. It happens in the church foyer after service. It simmers in the family braai where one uncle’s new car is celebrated and another’s unemployment is a silent, awkward ghost. It screams from our social media feeds, where we curate our compassion based on tribe, status, and political chant. We are living in a nation, right here in the shadow of Pretoria’s jacarandas, where the scales of our regard are bent, warped, and utterly crooked.
I saw it just last week. We were in a meeting, voices raised about the very future of our community, tensions high like the Pretoria heat. And there it was—the subtle tilt. The argument from the man in the fine suit was given weight. The same point, made with equal passion by the woman who cleans offices, was met with a patronizing smile and a swift change of subject. The scale tipped. A silent verdict was passed. And in that moment, trust, that fragile mortar holding our community together, crumbled just a little more. This is not mere social clumsiness. This is spiritual sabotage.
The African proverb rings in my soul like a bell: "The wise elder listens to the story of the lion and the lamb before judging the pasture." But we, in our modern foolishness, often only commission the lion’s biography. We hear the roar of the powerful, the influential, the wealthy, the socially media-verified. The lamb’s gentle testimony? Drowned out. Unfunded. Unfollowed.
Here is the Harold Mawela principle, the unshakeable law written into the fabric of God’s kingdom: The measure of your integrity is found in the consistency of your attention. You will never build what God is building if you only listen to the voices your culture has already amplified.
Let us define our terms with biblical precision. Impartiality is not a bland, indifferent “tolerance.” It is the active, costly, deliberate reflection of God’s own character. It is seeing every soul—the street vendor in Akasia, the CEO in Sandton, the undocumented migrant, the aging pensioner—as an imago Dei, a sacred image-bearer of the Creator. To show favouritism is not a peccadillo; it is a profound heresy. It is to look at a masterpiece of the Divine Artist and declare, “This brushstroke has more value than that one.” It is to call unclean what God has called clean.
The Scripture declares unequivocally: “For God does not show favoritism” (Romans 2:11). In the court of Heaven, your tribal surname, your bank balance, your social media clout, your political allegiance—these currencies are void. They hold no value. At the foot of the Cross, the ground is level. The blood of Christ flows with equal potency for the lion and the lamb. Therefore, when we resurrect these earthly hierarchies within the body of Christ, we engage in a grotesque rebellion. We are sewing together again the veil that Jesus’ flesh tore apart.
Now, a common objection arises from our culture, dripping with the pseudo-wisdom of the age: “But we must empower our own. We must lift our tribe, our group, those who have been historically marginalized. Isn’t that just justice?”
Here is the reasoned, biblical response. Listen closely.
Yes, God is a God of justice who lifts the humble. But His method is holy inversion, not tribal replacement. He exalts the humble because they are humble in spirit, not because they belong to a certain group. When our “empowerment” is based on tribal or status loyalty rather than Christ-like character and need, we do not establish God’s justice. We merely sanctify a new form of the old, crooked prejudice. We create a new elite, leaving a new set of lambs unheard at the gate. This is the syncretism we must sound the alarm against: baptizing our cultural partiality and calling it “progressive” or “traditional” ministry. It is neither. It is sin.
Let me structure the core argument with logical clarity:
Premise 1: God the Father is perfectly impartial (Acts 10:34). God the Son ministered to Jew, Samaritan, Roman, rich, poor, saint, and sinner with equal, sacrificial love. God the Spirit is poured out on all flesh.
Premise 2: The Church is called to be the visible representation of this Triune God on earth (Ephesians 3:10).
Conclusion: Therefore, any persistent, unrepentant favouritism within the Church is a direct contradiction of our divine identity and mission. It is a lie about who God is. It makes us false ambassadors.
So what is the practical warfare? How do we straighten the crooked scale?
First, audit your attention. Whose voice in your circle is a gentle bleat, easily ignored? Go and listen. Seek out the story of the lamb. Not to “fix” them, but to honour the image of God in them.
Second, oils the hinges of relationship with the grease of intentionality. Invite the “unlikely” person for coffee. Let your love be just, and your justice be loving. It is a deliberate, counter-cultural act of war against the spirit of division.
Finally, fix your eyes on the only true Scale. Picture, if you will, the Cross. On that brutal, beautiful wood, the ultimate act of impartial love was displayed. Jesus died for the world. Not for a tribe. Not for an income bracket. He stretched out His arms wide enough to embrace every lion and every lamb who would come to Him. That is our model. That is our power.
The world operates on a crooked scale. But you, child of God, are called to wield a different instrument: the plumb line of Heaven. Let it fall on your friendships, your church, your conversations. Where it reveals a lean, repent. Rebuild. For in a nation, and a world, straining under the weight of partiality, a community that masters the uncrooked scale of divine love is not just a nice idea. It is a dazzling, disruptive beacon of the Kingdom to come. It is the proof that Jesus Christ is alive, and that in Him, the pasture is judged rightly, and every voice is heard.
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