The Price of a Crooked Soul Text: Proverbs 28:21
Introduction: Justice on the Auction Block
We live in an age that is obsessed with justice, or at least with the vocabulary of it. Our culture is awash in cries for fairness, equity, and impartiality. But the world's conception of justice is a house built on sand. It is a justice defined by envy, grievance, and shifting public opinion. It is a justice that is, ironically, entirely partial. It shows favor to approved victim groups and despises those who have been designated as oppressors, regardless of the actual facts in any particular case. This is not justice; it is a mob with a thesaurus.
The Word of God, however, gives us the grammar of true justice. And true justice begins with the character of the Judge of all the earth, who is Himself no respecter of persons. God's law is a plumb line. It does not bend for the rich, nor does it bend for the poor. It does not adjust its findings based on social status, political affiliation, or melanin content. To pervert judgment is to call God a liar. It is to take His scales and put your thumb on one side.
The book of Proverbs is intensely practical, and it brings this high-minded talk of justice down to the dusty floor of everyday life. It warns us not only of the great and monstrous perversions of justice, the kind that make headlines, but also of the small, seemingly insignificant compromises that rot the soul from within. And that is what our text today is about. It is about the cheapness of sin, the low price of a corrupted conscience, and the way a man can sell his integrity for pocket change.
The Text
To show partiality is not good,
Even for a piece of bread a man will transgress.
(Proverbs 28:21 LSB)
The Unqualified Evil of Partiality
The first clause is a straightforward, unvarnished declaration:
"To show partiality is not good..." (Proverbs 28:21a)
The Hebrew for "to show partiality" is literally "to recognize a face." It means to make a judgment not based on the objective merits of the case, but on who the person is. You look at their face, you see their wealth, their poverty, their influence, their family connections, or their insignificance, and you adjust your verdict accordingly. The Scriptures are relentless in their condemnation of this. "You shall not be partial to the poor or defer to the great, but in righteousness shall you judge your neighbor" (Leviticus 19:15). Notice the balance. It is a sin to favor the rich man because he can reward you, and it is equally a sin to favor the poor man out of a misguided, sentimental pity that ignores his actual guilt or innocence.
God's law is not a tool for social engineering; it is a standard of righteousness. Justice is not about achieving equal outcomes; it is about applying the same standard to all parties impartially. When a judge, or a pastor, or a father, or any Christian in a position of responsibility, shows partiality, he is playing God, and doing a very bad job of it. He is importing his own prejudices and preferences into a matter that belongs to the Lord.
The phrase "is not good" is a classic Hebrew understatement. It does not mean it is merely a social faux pas or a minor ethical lapse. In the moral universe of the Bible, what is "not good" is evil. It is a direct contradiction of the character of God, of whom it is said, "For the LORD your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God, who is not partial and takes no bribe" (Deuteronomy 10:17). When we show partiality, we are acting in a profoundly ungodly way. We are demonstrating that we fear man more than we fear God, and that we value the approval of others more than the approval of the One who will judge us all.
The Cheapness of the Transgression
The second clause reveals something deeply unsettling about the nature of a compromised heart.
"...Even for a piece of bread a man will transgress." (Proverbs 28:21b)
This is where the proverb lands its punch. We might imagine that a man would only pervert justice for a significant bribe, for a life-changing sum of money, for a kingdom. But the Holy Spirit tells us that once the principle of impartiality has been abandoned, the price of corruption drops dramatically. A man who can be bought will eventually be bought for pennies.
The "piece of bread" represents a trivial amount. It is a handful of barley, a scrap from the table. It signifies that the man who has decided that justice is for sale has no floor to his price. His integrity is gone, and so he will sell a verdict for whatever he can get. The prophet Ezekiel condemns the false prophetesses who profane God "for handfuls of barley and for pieces of bread" (Ezekiel 13:19). The issue is not the amount of the bribe, but the fact that a bribe is taken at all.
This teaches us a crucial lesson about the deceitfulness of sin. No one starts out by betraying their country for a nickel. They start with small compromises. The judge who accepts a lavish dinner from a litigant. The pastor who softens a hard doctrine because a wealthy donor is in the pews. The parent who overlooks the sin of their favorite child while punishing the other for less. These are the "piece of bread" compromises. But they sear the conscience. They establish a precedent. They tell the heart that righteousness is negotiable. And once that is established, the next compromise is easier, and the price gets lower and lower. The man who will transgress for a piece of bread has already surrendered the fort; he is just haggling over the price of the rubble.
Our World of Partiality
We must not read this proverb and imagine it only applies to bewigged judges in some ancient courtroom. We swim in a sea of partiality. Our entire political system runs on it. Politicians craft policies not based on what is righteous or wise, but on what will please the demographic that will get them elected. They show partiality to their donors, to their party, and to the howling mob on social media.
The church is not immune. James warns us sternly about showing partiality between the rich man with the gold ring and the poor man in shabby clothes (James 2:1-9). When we fawn over the talented, the wealthy, or the influential in our congregations, while ignoring the simple, the needy, or the awkward, we are committing this very sin. We are recognizing faces. We are judging by outward appearance, which is precisely what God forbids.
And we do it in our own hearts. We show partiality to ourselves, judging our own sins with a gentle, therapeutic curve while judging the sins of others with a harsh, unyielding standard. We excuse in ourselves what we would thunderously condemn in a rival. This is a form of partiality, and it is "not good." It is the crooked logic of the Pharisee who thanked God he was not like other men.
The Gospel of Impartiality
If this is the standard, who then can be saved? We are all guilty. We have all shown partiality. We have all, in our hearts, sold our integrity for far less than a piece of bread. We have transgressed for a fleeting moment of approval, for the avoidance of an awkward conversation, for a sliver of personal advantage. Our righteousness is a filthy rag precisely because it is a partial righteousness, a selective righteousness.
The only hope for partial sinners is a perfectly impartial Savior. And this is what we have in the Lord Jesus Christ. The cross is the ultimate display of God's impartiality. At the cross, God's perfect justice and His covenant love met, and neither was compromised. God did not "recognize the face" of His own Son. He did not show partiality to Him. Rather, "for our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God" (2 Corinthians 5:21). He poured out the full cup of His wrath against sin upon His beloved Son. He did not grade on a curve. He did not waive the penalty. The price was paid in full.
Because God was impartial in judging His Son, He can be both just and the justifier of those who have faith in Jesus (Romans 3:26). The gospel is the good news that God shows no partiality in salvation. The invitation goes out to all: Jew and Gentile, rich and poor, slave and free, male and female. There is no favoritism at the foot of the cross. The ground is level there. The only thing that matters is not your face, but whether you are clothed in the perfect, impartial righteousness of Jesus Christ.
Therefore, the call to us is to repent of our crooked, partial judgments and to flee to the one who judges righteously. We must stop selling our souls for scraps and find our true treasure in Him. When we understand the impartiality of God's judgment and the glorious impartiality of His grace, we are set free to live as He commands: to do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with our God, showing no partiality, for His name's sake.