Episode 3: Playing Favorites

Katie Laitkep: We know that every life is precious, but why? Erin Davis says the worth of every person comes from their Creator.

Erin Davis: All people matter to God because all people bear the image of God.

Katie: Welcome to The Deep Well with Erin Davis. I’m Katie Laitkep.

In Erin’s series called “Dysfunction,” we’re going to study the question: What do you do when a parent seems to play favorites with their kids? Here’s Erin.

Erin: I have spoken at all four of my grandparents’ funerals. It’s just the teacher in me that desires to honor my grandparents one last time with my words. At my pop’s funeral, who I don’t mind telling you was my favorite, because he is a man who has had, continues to have, a very profound impact on my life.

So I stood in front of a crowd of mourners that was flanked by my mom and my brothers and sisters and my cousins, my aunts and uncles, and I announced, “I am Pop’s favorite.”

Well, nobody got mad at me, I don’t think, because we have an understanding in that side of the family—we all feel like we were Pop’s favorite. All three of his daughters, my mom Jenny included, all six of his grandchildren, me included, we all experienced this man’s adoration . . . and we all bloomed under it.

He’s one of the rare people in my life from whom I never—and I mean never—experienced his disappointment, his frustration, or his anger. I just experienced love from my pop all my life. It has been a profound gift, because it poured a foundation in my life that I am accepted.

Several years ago, our littlest one, Ezra, was just a baby, and some new friends watched him for a few hours. When Jason and I came to pick him up, I said, “How did it go?”

The wife said, “This child is obviously accustomed to being adored.” And I loved that!

I’ve thought of it many times since. I do adore that child. I hope to some degree or another, probably not as good as Pop, I have passed on unwavering adoration and acceptance to my family.

Even though that’s what I want, I know that’s not always what I communicate. I also know it’s not always what you’ve received from the members of your family.

A friend just texted me last week, and she said this: “Ideally, what I would like from those in my life is for them to have unconditional, positive regard for me.”

I could tell she was choosing her words carefully. She was trying to say, “I wish my family would just love me no matter what. I wish my family just accepted me no matter what.”

I could read behind those carefully chosen words, and I think she was saying, “I don’t feel like anybody’s favorite.”

And in this way, and in so many ways, Joseph’s experience with his family is so much like our own. Let’s pick up his story in Genesis, chapter 37. Verse1 tells us:

Jacob lived in the land of his father's sojournings, in the land of Canaan.

As you move through the Old Testament, you’re going to see Canaan and Canaanites pop up often. What I want you to remember for our purposes is that this is the land that God promised Abraham. He said, “Go there. Resettle.” And that promised land is a really important theme in your Bible.

So here we have Jacob, also known as Israel, raising his family in this ancestral homeland where his father Isaac had lived, where his grandfather Abraham had pitched his tent. And verse 2 says:

These are the generations of Jacob.

Here’s one outcome I hope happens from this series: I hope you stop glossing over family language in your Bible. It’s all over your Bible, and I want you to learn to pay attention to themes. Verse 2 says: 

Joseph, being seventeen years old, was pasturing the flock with his brothers. He was a boy with the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah, his father's wives. And Joseph brought a bad report of them to their father.

Now Israel loved Joseph more than any other of his sons, because he was the son of his old age. And he made him a robe of many colors. But when his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, they hated him and could not speak peacefully to him. (vv. 2–3)

Let’s make some observations. That’s always the first step in good Bible application. We take the time to make good observations.

First: Joseph was a teenager. The verse tells us he was seventeen. So think of a seventeen-year-old boy you know and try to picture Joseph at that stage of life.

This passage also tells us he was working with his brothers. The verse does call him a boy. And sometimes I think we read cultural context into Scripture, and we don’t always get it right. Maybe we assumed that seventeen was a man. He certainly was old enough to be on the job without his dad’s supervision.

But he was born a lot later in life than his brothers. That’s part of the Rachel/Leah part of his story. Specifically, he was tending the flocks with the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah. If you don’t know who they are, it calls them wives here. But these were the women that Rachel and Leah forced upon their husband, or invited their husband to sleep with, so that he could have children with them. We find that in Genesis chapter 30.

Through a series of family decisions, most of them rooted in individual members of this family taking matters into their own hands versus trusting the plan of the Lord and trying to earn favoritism and status, we have this very complicated list of sons.

This was a powder keg ready to explode. Let me strike the match. Verse 3:

Now Israel loved Joseph more than any other of his sons, because he was the son of his old age. And he made him a robe of many colors.

I’m sure you’ve heard of Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat. It’s going to take on significance as we continue to study Joseph’s story. Scholars disagree about what the coat was really like. Some say that calling it a coat of many colors was a bad translation. They traced that idea back to Martin Luther, if you’re interested.

Some scholars say that it was a coat with sleeves, which denoted that Joseph wasn’t expected to work quite as hard as his brothers. I’m not sure I buy it since he was out pasturing the flock with the rest of his brothers. What matters is that Joseph was walking around, all day, every day, with an outer sign of his status within the family. And that outer sign was a fancy coat. Jacob, also known as Israel, did not try to hide his favoritism toward his son.

So often we read our modern or western context into Bible stories, and these stories are neither modern nor western. We feel really strongly that parents shouldn’t play favorites. And yet, all throughout the Bible we see that some children were entitled to rights that not all children were. And when we miss that, we miss an overarching redemptive story that God reveals through His Word.

So attempt to set your modern and western context aside as you read the rest of this story and face the fact that’s really clear in the text: Joseph was his father’s favorite son. And he was overtly favored over many other sons. And what was the impact of this favoritism on this famous family? Verse 4: 

But when his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, they hated him and could not speak peacefully to him.

So, studying this, it struck me that Joseph did not choose to be his father’s favorite. He probably had been since birth. Remember the first time Jacob saw Rachel, he wept, and he kissed her. He had deep love for this woman. He worked for fourteen years for the right to marry Rachel.

He prayed that his wife would be able to conceive children. Joseph is that baby that Jacob prayed for. This was the child that he and the wife he most loved—favoritism again—had longed for.

I also want you to remember that Rachel, Jacob’s favored wife, was dead. They’d already had the funeral. So this woman, who was the love of Jacob’s life, was gone, and all he had of her was the memories. And all he had of her was those two sons: Joseph and Benjamin.

I have to wonder: Did Joseph look like his mama? When Jacob looked at this boy, did he remind him of the woman he missed every day?

None of these circumstances were chosen by Joseph. He didn’t choose to be the son of the chosen wife. He didn’t choose for his mom to be gone. He didn’t choose to be born in Jacob’s later years. It didn’t seem to matter. His brothers hated him. They could not even stand to speak to him. That’s what the Bible says.

Have you ever had a family member like that? Somebody you couldn’t stand to hear them breathe? Somebody who angered you by the way they crunched their cereal? Well, why does it matter? It matters because it’s part of Joseph’s story. And it’s been preserved for us by the power of the Holy Spirit that we might understand the character of God. So it all matters.

But I can think of two other ways that this text applies to us.

First: Even though I already said there’s favoritism in Scripture, and that we ought not apply our own context to it, I think as we think of our own families, we would have to acknowledge the fact that favoritism or even perceived favoritism. It doesn’t even have to be true. It causes division in our homes, just like it did in Joseph’s.

Let’s flip from Genesis to our New Testament, to the book of James. I want to read us James chapter 2. I often say that James is the most practical book in all of Scripture. So if you’re looking for practical applications, get yourself to James. 

James 2—I want you to listen to verse 1 through 9: “My brothers . . .” Your footnote probably says that you can insert brother or sister there. Which family are we talking about here in James? We’re talking about God’s family. 

My brothers show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory. For if a man wearing a gold ring and fine clothing comes into your assembly, and a poor man in shabby clothing also comes in, and if you pay attention to the one who wears the fine clothing and say, “You sit here in a good place,” while you say to the poor man, “You stand over there,” or, “Sit down at my feet,” have you not then made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?” (vv. 1–4)

Isn’t it interesting that, just like in Joseph’s story, clothes here are the outward expression of favor? Let’s pick it up at verse 5:

Listen, my beloved brothers, has not God chosen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom, which he has promised to those who love him?

But you have dishonored the poor man. Are not the rich the ones who oppress you, and the ones who drag you into court? Are they not the ones who blaspheme the honorable name by which you were called? . . . 

If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” [he’s quoting there] you are doing well. But if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. (vv. 5–6, 8–9)

“We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal. That they are endowed with their Creator with certain unalienable rights that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” 

Just last week we took our four boys to Washington, D.C. We stood in the Rotunda of the National Archives, and we read those words on the original Declaration of Independence. It was amazing. This actually was a historically radical idea.

But it’s also a holy Christian idea. Remember session 1 in Genesis 1:27? It tells us that mankind has been made in the image of God. Scholars call this the imago Dei, and it means this: That all people, regardless of status, of nationality, of gender have tremendous value to the Creator because we are stamped with His image.

We live in interesting days, days in which the culture is championing equality as a leveling of rights. We worship a Creator who has always celebrated equality as a leveling of value. All people matter to God because all people bear the image of God.

And because of the imago Dei, James here is saying, “Turn away from partiality.” That’s a distinctly Christian ethos because it’s rooted in the fact that we are creatures who have a Creator, and that He’s the one that assigns our value.

So because of that, James was saying here, in this practical book in the New Testament, “Hey, don’t favor the wealthy in your church family because in church families, neighbors become brothers and sisters. We leave all of that at the door. We’re family here.”

Such strong language. He said, “If you show partiality, you are committing a sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors” (v. 9).

What law? Well, in verse 8 he called it “the royal law.” Why is it the royal law? Because it comes from our King. And what is the royal law? It’s the law of love.

People have always asked, “Who is my neighbor?” And the answer is: anyone made in the image of God—so, anyone.

The rubber meets the road of this doctrine in our families. Do you play favorites? Do you show partiality? People don’t have to have a fancy coat to pick up on that in our homes, in our churches.

What we see in Joseph’s story, and we know from our own, is that favoritism is so destructive. In the nuclear family that we think of when we think about who sits at the dinner table with us, is supposed to be a glimpse of God’s family.

So let’s think about the church family. Do we play favoritism there? Is everybody welcome? They should be.

But one thing I hope you learn from The Deep Well is that the whole Bible is telling one big story: The story of God’s redemption. Let me show you.

I’m going to take us to Exodus chapter 19. There we find the Israelites in the wilderness. They had just escaped the tyranny of the Pharaoh in Egypt. Listen to Exodus chapter 19, verses 4 through 6:

You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles' wings and brought you to myself. Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, [underline this] you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine; and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words that you shall speak to the people of Israel.

Though God created all mankind, He has a favorite. These are the words spoken to Abraham’s ancestors, to Joseph’s ancestors. The nation of Israel, remember, that’s Jacob’s new name. His twelve sons would become the twelve tribes of Israel. God was announcing His favoritism towards them.

Now, if you know your Bible, you know that that’s not something they earned. They were whiny and rebellious and forgetful before God said this to them. And yet, He gave them unmerited favor.

That just sounds like the story of Joseph. Well, didn’t we just read that showing partiality is a sin? Well, not for God. His favoritism toward Israel, and in the story of Joseph, was God telling His story. Is God telling us our story?

So, if we brush over it because it doesn’t make sense in our context, or it makes us uncomfortable, we miss this arc that God was giving all of us, this arc of redemption.

Listen to Galatians 3:13–14:

Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree. So that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith. 

Because of Jesus, God’s favor extends beyond His favorite child, Israel, to us. We’re the other brothers, so to speak. And there is a robe that unites us. We find it in Revelation 19. It describes Jesus wearing a robe dipped in blood. And that robe signifies that Jesus died for all of us, not just the Jews, and certainly not just those who deserve it. That’s the story.

“I had this people group, and they earned my favor. And then I extended it to everyone. I had these people that tried to obey the law, and then I extended it to everyone.”

None of us deserve God’s grace, including Israel and his sons. The big idea showcased in Scripture is that all people have value because all people are made in the image of God. And because Christ made a way for all to be reconciled to Him, that’s one of the reasons we open our Bibles again and again and again and again.

There was value in my sons understanding the history of the nation that they’re growing up in. Their daddy and I got a little choked up. They thought we were weird, but we were standing in front of the actual Constitution and in front of the actual Bill of Rights. We got to have conversations with them that wouldn’t have made sense if they hadn’t seen those documents.

And there’s value in us understanding God’s loooong history of dealing with broken people from broken families in ways that show off His favor toward us. This is the foundation upon which we build our views of each other. If we try to build our families on anything else—how much we like our don’t like each other on a given day, how much we understand or don’t understand each other on a given day, how much everybody gets along or doesn’t get along on a given day—things are going to be off the rails all the time.

But if we build them on this foundation, that all people have value because all people are made in the image of God, the people you live with, they bear the imago Dei. The people that you gather with at extended family gatherings—weird as some of them might be—they bear the image of God. They represent the imago Dei.

When we know this, when we really know it, it oozes out in our relationships in the form of humility. Humility is the great destroyer of favoritism. It’s not a pecking order anymore. It’s not a hierarchy anymore. It’s a leveling of value because we all bear God’s image and Christ died for each of us.

Now, what about you? When you’re thinking about your family, you’ve never felt like the favorite. Or maybe you look around at family gatherings or at church on Sunday morning, and all you see is coats of many colors, and you don’t have one.

I heard a story once of a woman who received a letter from her dad. He had written it from his death bed and sealed it in an envelope and had it dropped in the mail for her to receive after his death. And in this letter he expressed deep love for his daughter, and he told her something that he asked her never to share with her brothers and sisters.

The letter ended this way: “You’re my favorite. You’ve always been my favorite.”

The woman carried that sentiment in her heart for many years. Such assurance from knowing someone picked her as the focus of their adoration. Until one day in family conversation another sibling let it slip, they’d gotten a letter, too. Their dad had written it from his deathbed, and he wasn’t supposed to tell them about it, but the point of the letter was that he was their dad’s favorite. He’d always been their dad’s favorite.

Well, the jig was up. He’d written a similar letter to each of his children. Part of his legacy was leaving them with hope that they were definitively and uniquely loved.

As you’re listening to this, and this conversation about favoritism makes your heart hurt, I just leave you with this thought: our Father sent a letter. It’s His Word. As we face this life, we are separated from Him for now, like that daughter separated from her father who died.

And here’s what He wants you to know: He loves you with an everlasting kind of love. Don’t take my word from it. That’s from Jeremiah 31:1.

You’re the very apple of His eye. He tells us that in Psalm 17:8. And right now, He’s building you a house because He wants you to spend forever with Him. We find that in John 14:2.

So, apply the favoritism however the Holy Spirit leads you to in your own family, mostly realize how destructive it is. But regardless of how your family members see you, whether or not you feel adored by the branches on your family tree, I want you to know you have a Father who loves you. In fact, you’re His favorite. You’ve always been His favorite.

Katie: That’s Erin Davis. She’s been teaching in a series called, “Dysfunction.”

Now, we’re going to get to Erin unscripted in just a minute, but before we do, I first want to talk about Erin’s newest book, Fasting and Feasting. And when it comes to division in our families, sometimes the Lord calls us to fast, to spend dedicated time in prayer for members of our family. That’s something you’ve done in your own family, right, Erin?

Erin: It is, Katie.

One year I decided I was going to fast every Friday for my sons. And at that point, my boys were little. None of them had made a personal decision to follow Jesus, and that weighs hard on a mama’s heart.

I’d been doing the things I knew how to do, of course—taking them to church, reading to them from their children's Bibles. But I knew at some point they had to make their faith their own, so I dedicated that year to praying for their salvation every Friday.

And it ended up being such a sweet experience because I really did see God move in their hearts.

Katie: I love that.

You know, I think people can listen to these podcast episodes and wonder, Is Erin Davis really who she seems to be when I’m listening?

And I can say, as your employee, I work for you, and I get to spend time with you during the week. I can say that you are the real deal. When you are teaching on these things and when you're writing about them in your books, you’re actually living them out. I just want to say thank you for giving us an example of that.

Erin: Oh, that means the world to me.

Can I tell you a little secret about The Deep Well, Katie?

Katie: Of course.

Erin: It actually makes me very, very nervous. Every time there is a new season, I’m not sure that I am handling the right subject in the right way. I want to be careful that when I say things that I do back it up with my life.

So, I invite a friend to join me each time just to kind of hold my hand and make me feel at ease. You're that friend for this episode. You do work for me, but we’re friends, co-laborers for the gospel, and you’re such a joy to me every day. I’m really glad you’re there in the cohost seat for this season.

Katie: I am so grateful to be here. I love working with you. And I love getting to ask you questions both during this podcast and off line.

But for this episode, we asked members of the audience to join us to ask Erin questions. Erin, are you ready for that part of the podcast?

Erin: I’m so ready.

Katie: All right. Let’s do it.

Erin Unscripted

Beth: Hi, Erin. I’m Beth. So my question is: How does one reconcile with family members who think thou art the favorite?

Erin: Well, I have family members who think I’m the favorite, and it’s been that humility piece that I mentioned. That’s not a title I assigned to myself. And whether or not it’s true, it’s not for me to defend. But I can recognize how painful that must be to look at your family and say, “She’s the favorite, I’m not.”

And so, I’ve tried not to repeat it in my own family and just really be very humble with that family member, and overtly love them. I mean, that’s what they’re saying. They’re saying, “I want to be adored. I want to be loved.”

So much of it boils down to personality. I have a big personality. I have an extroverted personality. And those who are not wired that way can often feel like they’re constantly in the background by nature of their personality. So I try to draw that out. But I think humility is always the right response, not defensiveness. Defensiveness is so ugly. So just humility.

Katie: Erin, what’s coming up on the next episode of The Deep Well?

Erin: Well, we’re going to get to the part in Joseph’s story where he starts having those dreams that made his brothers so mad at him.

But the connection I’m going to make is to those things we don’t understand in our own family. If we just take snapshots of our family at any given moment, we can’t always see what God’s doing.

So my encouragement will be for us to trust that God has the big picture in mind.

Katie: That sounds great. And, you know, people don’t have to wait to go to that next episode. They can listen to it right now.

Erin: Isn’t that the beauty of The Deep Well? The whole thing drops at once. So if you’re a binge podcast listener, and I am, the whole thing is ready and waiting for you. If you like to listen to them an episode at a time, you can do that. But you don’t have to wait on us. They’re all right there.

The Deep Well with Erin Davis is part of the Revive Our Hearts podcast family, calling women to freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ.

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