Fairness

I know how much most of you guys love fishing. None love fishing more than Elwood Lumpkins, a member of this Board. I hate to see someone suffer so much as he has with health problems. I have read as others express their loss of fishing time due to health, family and personal reasons as well. I have fished with Elwood a few times, and it didn’t take me long to realize his passion for fishing. I know the feeling of letting go of something I am passionate about when I sold my last sportbike because of aging. I am addicted to speed and having to let go of that thrill was and is still depressing for me as I am sure not being able to fish some day will be just as difficult. As I go through life having worked in a hospital, I have seen people adjust their lives with great difficulty due to accidents, disease, carelessness, wrong decision making, and disasters. We have all asked the question why do some people have to suffer while others seem to go through life without much suffering at all. It just doesn’t seem to be fair.

In the past couple of years, I have spent some time to answer this question for myself. Maybe my research on this subject will help someone understand as well. Being a Christian my research led me to what the Bible had to say on the subject. For most of us our concept of God’s fairness is greatly misunderstood because of our own concept of fairness. Fairness as we know it is a nebulous concept defined by one’s feeling and experiences. Since God is absolute, and righteousness is defined by the absolute, concepts of fairness is irrelevant to Him. We all crave justice and fairness, and we become discouraged when it is not achieved. In our way of thinking, if someone commits a crime, that person should be punished. If a person is treated well, that person should be treated well in return. If a person works hard, that person should receive his/her “fair share.” When a mass-murderer and rapist before he is executed sincerely accepts Christ, is that fair? If a man professes to be an atheist always helps his neighbors, donates to charity, helps the poor and lives a moral life and still goes to Hell, is this fair? Again, God’s concept of fairness is much different than ours. However, in God’s view, we all would be condemned because we all have rejected His laws and saving grace at one time or another. How “fair” it was that God sent His Son to be crucified for our sins?

Actually, God doesn’t have a lot to say about fairness, at least the way we understand it. When we look at the original Hebrew and Greek, words used to describe “fairness” mean “to be treated with impartiality or equality or to be just…nothing on fairness. The reason “fairness” is not in the original translations is because “fairness” is a human concept tainted by selfishness. Fairness may be centered on what is politically correct at the time or what man “thinks” is right. For the most part today, “fairness” implies what is coming to us. What about me?

In God’s view of “fairness”, it can be found in the “parable of the worker’s in the vineyard (Matthew 20:1-16). Not only does this parable teach that we can receive salvation and all of God’s blessing even late in life, but it teaches us the fundamental principles of “fairness.” The actions of the landowner were completely unfair, as we view “fairness”, but they were completely just. In this parable, both the early workers and the late workers received the same. The early workers were not happy because had they worked longer, harder and were paid the same as the late workers, and they were paid after the late workers were paid. The landowner paid exactly the amount he said he would pay to those who started early to work. The early workers could not accept the fact the landowner was “generous” to the late workers. Actually, the early workers were upset that the landowner was not “generous” to them, and the late workers got more than they deserved. For the landowner, it was not a matter of “fairness” to those who deserve it. It was a matter of “generosity” to those who did not deserve it. Generosity is not fair. Generosity is an undeserved gift for services not rendered. Real generosity is never deserved. God will be generous to those who you would least expect, even those who don’t deserve it. This is hard for us to understand because we live in a world where the fittest, strongest, richest and best are first.

We cannot dictate to God how He should act or who He should be generous too. Demanding “fairness” from God means getting what we deserve, and what we deserve from God is rejection because of our sins. What is “fair” is death (Romans 6:23). This is why we don’t need “fairness” from God. What we need is grace from God. Christ was crucified so that we as sinners might be forgiven our sins and receive eternal life. This is God’s generosity. “For our sake He made Him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God” (Matthew 20:21). If we come to God thinking we deserve something, Jesus says we will go away disappointed. It is only when we come knowing we have nothing to offer that we receive God’s gracious gift of life.

No passing pain can compare to god’s goodness. When tragedies occur, Satan is at his best, and it is then he will seek to destroy our faith and trust in God. Despair and depression are Satan’s tools to enter our souls. Our responsibility to God should not be extracted in view of our suffering. Our tolerance to suffering must be viewed in light of the Crucifixion.

Amen! Very interesting and thought provoking. Thanks for the explanation. You mentioned Elwood and I wanted to ask you if he is sick again or if you were using his past trials to enable our understanding of your message.

Elwood is still having some new problems that has force him in selling some of his fishing equipment, and I hope somehow he will be able to fish as he so enjoys again this coming year. He has his striper gear posted on the tackle board.

We humans tend to think of "fairness" in mortal, human terms reflective of our short, short time "alive" here on Earth.

I know that God views "fairness" in terms of a much larger picture than the eyeblink of our existence here.

Bonefish that was very well written and thought provoking.

Good post.