Respecter of Persons Podcast Episodes

Psalm 68, where it says very simply, God sets the solitary in families. And I think it just speaks to the heart, where he says, I want to bring the lonely, those who feel solitary into relationship. I’m bringing them into my family.  

I have Arlan and Katie Miller in the office studio with me today. Thanks for coming in. It’s great to be here. Honored and excited to be here, Matt. Katie is Arlan’s wife. That’s right. Katie is an employee here at ACCFS also. She does some speaking and editing for us, and it’s an honor to be here together and to talk about this topic today. Very excited to be on Breaking Bread today, Matt. 

So, since you brought that up about God wanting a relationship, there is a phrase repeated through the Scriptures in the New Testament, and it talks about God, and it says what God is not. Okay, and it is the phrase, God is not a respecter of persons. That’s a pretty tall statement to swallow, right? Do I treat, view, relate to people in a very partial way as opposed to impartial? 

Because it’s so counter cultural, Matt, to what we have in society. We are delineated. We are laid out. We are labeled. We are viewed by, fill in the blank, circumstance, race, social status, marital status, you know. I mean, the only place that we see impartiality is politics, right? I mean, everything. Yeah. I think we missed that point. Oh, yeah. Never mind. They’re not impartial there either.  

But God is not a respecter of persons. Now, we’re going to narrow our scope here today to talk about how it’s a challenge not to be a respecter of persons, even within church, right? We think of this as our safe place. A lot of partiality is going on outside of the church building if we are honest with ourselves. What do you think? I mean, do you think that hits right that there’s partiality within church? Do I view people differently within church? Absolutely. Every believer is going to have those they get along with, have some similarities to likes, interests, hobbies, et cetera. 

But do I see those maybe who are on the edge in the same view, in the same respecter of persons that God sees them? Saying that on the edge. What does it mean to be on the edge? Does that make sense? But we do, we have that category. I am totally tracking with you. What subgroups in my church, if we are to illustrate the gospel, if we are to live out and be the body of Christ maybe don’t feel like they have a voice and are part of that partiality that we as mankind can fall into. 

Is it the widow, the widower? Is it the single person? Is it the young professional? The couple with no children? Is it those who have been part of church for many years and have raised children and those children are not part of the church family anymore? What subgroup is there that I can speak to and learn through? 

I think people are asking, you know, they’re sitting in church. Is this me? Is this who I am? Am I central here or am I, as you said it, on the edge? Okay. Do I fit in? Do I fit in? Do I belong here? Do people want me here? Do people see me as part of the heartbeat here or am I a part of the drag on this? 

Does that make sense? It’s a critical piece and I think it speaks to the heart that God is not a respecter of persons. Yeah. God views us in a completely different way. He views us through the gospel of Jesus Christ, through the shed blood of his Son. And when we really start to think through the depths of that, it should change how we view everyone we come in contact with. 

If this doesn’t happen in church, loving all, not being a respecter of persons, then where is it going to happen? Church needs to be that refuge and that special place. You’re absolutely right, Katie. And so really what you’re saying is, this is a unique quality of the church. Absolutely. By its inception, we are made a completely new people group in the likeness of Christ, his blood, right? 

He has broken down the middle wall of partition between all of us, and we are now one in Christ. So, you’re absolutely right, Katie. If not the church, then nowhere. Right? And it speaks to the very heart of who God is. There’s a great Psalm, Psalm 68, where it says very simply, God sets the solitary in families. 

And I think it just speaks to that heart that where he says, I want to bring the lonely, those who feel solitary, I’m bringing them into relationship. I’m bringing them into my family. So, what you’ve just said in that statement too, Arlan, is that God sees church as a solution, right? As his family. 

As a solution for the solitary. It is a place for the solitary to find community. God very much wants to save us into community. Right. And we can violate that when we respect persons. Right. That’s the heartbeat of the episode here is we want to acknowledge that this isn’t always easy to live out. 

And while there are some practical applications to what this would look like, there is a mindset that needs to happen first. An awareness for sure, Matt. And really the genesis of this idea was when you look into Acts 2, at the end of that chapter, it speaks about what the early church looked like. 

And this idea that all of these people from all over came together and were unified. Early church history would also show the division in the status that came about, that when believers in Christianity were together, women were included, and there was no political stratification, and it didn’t matter your wealth status, whether slaves or freemen. Absolutely. If there is a thumbprint of church, if there’s a heartbeat there, you might say, or you could build a very good case, that it is a re identification of a very multiethnic or diverse community group of people in one, right? 

And it reflects family in the true sense of the word in that you bring together differences, right? I mean, our families are different, there are different aspects there. And yet we are extremely tight and unified as one. We are identified as one, and that’s a very powerful concept. But is this the experience that people have at church? 

And Arlan, I would contend, and Katie, I’d like to hear your thoughts. I don’t think that necessarily is the experience of everybody on the other side of this mic that’s saying, I’m not really sure I do fit, or I get how everybody else fits together, but I’m not quite like everybody else. 

Someone out there listening right now who’s like, I love church, but it can be really lonely. It can be scary. I don’t feel a part of it. Why does my voice matter? How do we then as a church, do we do church modeling the gospel to those people and to those voices? How do we include them and pull them away from that edge and away from that border? 

You could have a live stage of someone who is a widow or widower. You know, they had this sense of identity, they had this sense of place within church and then life circumstances changed, and they find themselves in a lonely spot or trying to figure out where do I fit in. And church can amplify that loneliness. 

Absolutely. Right, but our whole premise is that church should dissolve that. It should. Loneliness, right? That’s part of the uniqueness of what church does by definition in its creation. If not at church, then where? Correct. That’s right. Another stage of life would be transition. 

Whether you’re a young professional or newly married transitioning to a different church body. Right. Extremely encouraging and welcoming, often for the new person, but as days and years draw out that can also amplify the differences, maybe from your previous church body or your previous stage of life. 

And maybe there’s no biological connections and you’re forcing yourself to make new relationships, find different roles, find different values within that church body. And that can be tricky to navigate. If you have a church set up that has very strong, established families, and you find yourself in that setting where you’re not part of that strong, established family, it can be a place where you feel like you’re on the outside a little bit. There again, it’s like strength becomes our weakness, right? The strength of church is tight oneness and relationship. And then all of a sudden somebody else moves in, just like you said, and it’s like, okay, how do we bring them in? 

You know, what’s the on ramp, so to speak, into the church? And I think it requires us to have a very, very, gospel centric view of church. I think that’s one thing we want to try to get across here with this episode and try to put our finger on. And I would say a first century view of church where you take those verses to heart where they were together and had all things in common. 

That’s a fascinating thing to think through in today’s culture, where it’s more about, this is my little niche and that’s your little niche, and we have this separation and this individual piece that comes out so strong. So, we’ve talked about widows and widowers. We’ve talked about those who are in transition. 

Let’s place our finger on others that typically feel marginalized when in reality, they’re very central. Sure. We have a church society as a whole that is very marriage centric. And so, if you have someone who is in a single status, whether that’s a younger single or the widow, widower concept, again, they find themselves single after years of marriage, that can begin to become an awkward spot where it doesn’t quite seem to fit. 

I think another one is those brothers and sisters whose children are not in the local church there, or even in our denomination, but I think they do feel like maybe their voice doesn’t need to be heard. Right. And this goes so counter to the gospel, so counter to church. So, when you think of church as a family, oftentimes the next generation is presented. 

And so just not marginalizing marriages that maybe do not have children also in such a family centric portion that their skills and their gifts could continue to be used as well. Yeah. And the church wonderfully answers those questions because our progeny in the church is spiritual, right? It is. And it’s not biological. 

And so, when we have that view, single to widow, to widower, to those whose children have not selected our church to attend are very much in the center. of church. And then there’s a tremendous amount of hope, but it requires us to sometimes get outside of ourselves and think differently as we think about church. 

If I find myself in one of these life stages, I need to take a big picture view and view myself according to the gospel, the truth of the Scriptures and say, you know what? My identity is not just in singleness or in my lack of kids or in my transition or in my whatever, fill in the blank. It is in the church and the gospel, and I need to do my best to engage in that. 

But then the other aspect, I think we want to talk a little bit more about today is how do we respond as individuals who are not in those cases? We go to church, and we look around and we say, what is the opportunity, Lord? What is the opportunity spirit that you want us to engage others and to help extend that identity of family as broadly as we can? 

But I’m going to make this assertion, Arlan. And I think all of us struggle with this. It’s those that are on the outskirts and me reaching out to them. Great point. I could give you a list of criteria that puts me on the outskirts. Right. I don’t think people struggle with this, or I don’t think people have this in their reality like I do. 

And so, I think we are all on the walls, so to speak. Perhaps thinking and wondering, do I fit here? Like, is this me? Is this the heartbeat of me? And wonderfully, the answer is it’s the heartbeat of Christ. And since we’re in Christ, it is our heartbeat, right? But there is some activity there, right? 

And what are some of those activities? What are some things to step forward and make this a reality? But we’ll leave that discussion for our next episode. Thanks, Arlan and Katie for being with us and thanks friends for being along. 

And whenever possible, regardless of what stage, affirming the value of that believer in Christ in what the gospel speaks and not in the stage of life they’re in or the circumstance in which they find themselves. In our last episode, we saw a wide-angle view of church. And God’s intentions to set the solitary into families. Arlan and Katie Miller helped with that conversation. 

We’re going to continue today with what that looks like. One of the biggest things when I think of different stages of life or different believers within church or doing church well, would be to consider how do I love them? How do I see them as God sees them? What is their story? I can’t assume. I’m listening out there. 

I can’t assume that the widow is in such grief that she’s going to turn down a social engagement or the widower doesn’t want to be included because he can’t bring his wife with him. Or if you’ve been through an experience, you can’t assume that they go through the same way that you do. Right? And interpret the world the same way you do. 

Sympathy versus empathy. Peace. Hear their heart. Hear their story. Listen. Well, take the time. What can I ask them if I’m not quite sure and I don’t want to be awkward and I want to embrace their grief or embrace their transition or embrace the struggle of infertility right now or embrace the fact their children don’t worship with us in the local body. 

Ask them, how can I reach out to you? What do you need right now? How can I meet your needs? And that person may not answer. They may not know what can meet their needs at that time to do church well and to love and speak the gospel. But by asking that, I’m reaching out. I need to hear their heart. I need to help that widow. Maybe that lonely time of leaving church every Sunday that I am used to doing with my spouse. 

That’s a lonely time right now. What can I do for you to make that not so lonely? Can I get your car for you? Can I walk you to the door? And Katie, I can see that you have a gift to have those conversations and be up front, but it’s not always about having those hard conversations and broaching those difficult topics. 

To be able to stand next to a person in silence is a skill that we have to learn. And it’s an awkward skill. Absolutely. It’s an awkward skill that I don’t need to necessarily tread the deep waters of issues here. Or have answers. But I am going to stand next to a person and have conversation and reach out and show them I notice them, I love them. 

I’m just like, I love to be noticed and loved and just stood alongside with rather than work out all of my issues. And frankly, take that to that level where you don’t start to respect persons based upon status or situation or circumstance, but that they all become the same. God is not a respecter of persons. 

And how do I reflect that reality? God is not, nor am I. And that is a tremendously welcome attribute. And it speaks to the beauty of the gospel at the heart level, that in God’s eyes, we are all equal. And whenever possible, regardless of what stage, affirming the value of that believer in what Christ and the gospel speaks and not in the stage of life they’re in or the circumstance or transition in which they find themselves. 

When I see you, I don’t see you for your issue. Absolutely. That’s huge in your head. But for us to see people not for their issues, not for their infertility or not for their widow status or not for their single status and that we see them as lively stones together with me using Peter’s words. 

Absolutely, built together a habitation of God using Paul’s words. That’s who we are. We are joint heirs, one of another. And so, I love how he pieces that together. So, it’s like your salvation mingled with my salvation. There’s something going on there. I don’t know what it is, but there’s something going on there. 

Yeah. Does every individual who walks in these doors have an opportunity to engage in the gifting that God has given them? Do they feel included and empowered to do that? You know, if there is someone on the edge or margin or someone who you feel God calling you to reach out to, ask them how they feel, they could be used in this. 

What are their gifts and talents? Well, I think an easy way to do that, Katie, is to ask people’s opinions. Absolutely. We all have opinions. Some more than others. We won’t name names. But just to simply say, you know what? I was reading in 1 Peter and had this thought. What would you think about that? Or what do you think about what’s going on here or there? Not that you’re trying to vet their opinion and bring yours into it. You’re simply saying, I value you. And even by engaging in that, you are engaging in a relationship. And relationships are a powerful thing. 

Our world is based upon isolation. We are creating more and more ways to remove relationships from our lives. And yet, just conversation, relationship, standing beside someone. We have a beautiful setup in the church, the way we do church, and we need to really embrace that. Okay, so here’s another important reality that’s so gospel and church centric that we don’t see anywhere else, and that is the concept of purpose. 

Every employer can go through the roster of his employees, and it’s all tied to a purpose. I have Joe here because of X, Y, or Z. I hired Sally for X, Y, or Z, right? Everything’s tied to purpose. Every area of our life is purpose driven. Does that make sense? But wonderfully, church is not about purpose. 

It’s as much about presence. Right. You are here. Just similar to my children. I don’t think about my children in regard to purpose. So and so gathers the eggs. So and so feeds the fish. You know what I’m saying? And you need to teach me how to do that. Presence. You need to be present. 

If one of them was gone, I would bemoan the lack of presence, not the lack of their purpose. Exactly. So, when we have that view of each other in church, it very much brings us in and starts to take down these walls of, do I fit? Do I not fit? Do I have enough to offer? Do I not have enough to offer? 

It lowers the expectation and the assumptions that we as mankind can create in our own mind because we are sinners saved by grace. And it just lowers that expectation of I am here in the presence. They are here in the presence. The person across the lunch table for me is here in the presence. And how do we in the presence then create a healthy church. But notice what that does, Katie, it requires faith to live like that. Yeah, absolutely. I think that’s exactly what God wants. He always wants us to practice faith. This type of living requires faith. It requires me to look past something that’s apparent and see something that is real. 

And that is a saved person. We’re talking relationships of long term. It’s marathon relationships, this side of the grave for sure, but it is not a sprint to heal that widow’s grief, to help the infertile couple, to come alongside the couple that has no children in church or to get the single person married. 

Absolutely not. It is a long-term investment for the sake of the relationship, not for the sake of the logic that we’ll help them until X happens and then completeness will occur. It’s not a cause and effective relationship. Correct. The neediness of relationships may change depending upon the life stage or the acute desire, the acute need of a specific person or believer at any time. 

But for sure, that relationship is a long-term investment of healthy church. Yeah. But I have another group that I’m going to raise up and we might even look within our church and say, you know, here are my tight group of friends and they’re probably people that align with us. They’re aligned with our practices, our preferences, the way we think, our agreement on certain issues, but yet beautifully our churches include a variety of preferences, thoughts, opinions, practices, right? And certainly, this is an area where we can subdivide, and I don’t believe that would be gospel church centric thinking. Right. So, where should we go? I think we miss a huge opportunity to realize a very simple truth, that sometimes those who view the world just a little bit differently than I do are those who teach me the most, who stretch me just a little bit, and help sanctify me to a more full understanding of who God is and the complexity of who he is and we all have those folks and those brothers and sisters who are growing just a little bit. They stay in our heart a little bit longer than the previous conversation. And so, just being mindful of that and growing like Arlan mentioned and allowing that to do itself where we grow together, and we learn together. 

You know what, I had a brother call me up to actually say, hey, I want to chat. I want to follow up with a conversation that we had. Okay. It was fast. Those usually are a little bit so. Yeah. What is this going to mean? You know, I had a conversation, but you know what? It was so important that we had that follow up conversation because we so quickly fill in and tell stories and fabricate things that aren’t even there. 

And afterwards I told him, I’m so glad that you instigated this because he was unsettled with perhaps some of the gaps that were left and some of the stories that he was running. Right. And we were able to have that back and forth. I think that’s something required in this space, right? 

Where I kind of realize my tendency, if I don’t steward this area of my life, I will run with a bunch of stories that are not true and distance myself, which is very contrary to church. You may distance yourself from that relationship, purposely. And at the end of the day, you and the other person still may have your differences and still may have your specific preferences, but you’ve created a healthy bond, a healthy relationship. 

But that teachableness and that realization which unites is greater than that which divides. Those are powerful principles that frankly were necessary to hold the early church together and are no less necessary today. Oh, I mean, you’re the historians, both of you, the historians, Antioch and the church in Jerusalem. 

You couldn’t get much. I mean, there was a lot of angst. I think this is where wonderfully Romans 14 comes in, where it seems as though God by intention has left enough gray in terms of his mysteries that it allows differences of opinions to be held strongly. Whereby we work out our love for one another. 

Yeah, that bond of love works that perfection of peace. You know, Matt, in all of this conversation, my mind goes back to that Acts 2 description of that early church. And it says there that all that believed were together and had all things common. And it goes on and it talks about how they shared possessions and continued daily with one accord and so on and so forth. 

And at the end it says this, it says, the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved. It really speaks to me and speaks to the idea that the Lord was bringing people into the church to be together, to have things in common. That’s so instructive to me, Arlan, because if I were writing that, I would never say that God added to the church such as should be saved. 

I would say God added to himself those who should be saved. By that, God has said, no, I pull people out and I place them in my family. That’s where he places solitary into the family. Yeah. And I think it really reflects the heart of God that his holiness is towards family with himself. 

The ultimate example of a family with himself through gospel salvation. But then the example that he left here on Earth of the family, of the church community that we are part of. Let’s do church healthy. Let’s illustrate the gospel to what we can and to be the healthy body of Christ. And when it comes down, Katie, to be able to do that it really comes down first, how do I view those in the family of God. And I trust that this conversation has helped elevate that view of people, regardless of status, regardless of history, regardless of family, regardless of transition, regardless of place in their life and situations that those are not in the forefront of the film that we see people through, but we see Christ, we see salvation. 

Thanks for listening. We trust that God was glorified, and this could be helpful.