Equal Before God, Unequal in Gifts

By Dr. Eric M. Wallace

It occurred to me recently that socialism, in its attempt to make everyone feel equal, may in fact oppress the very talents and abilities that God distributed among humanity. We are created in His image and likeness, not only as individuals, but as a collective. And that collective is nothing like the one socialism imagines. It does not see us as blank canvases waiting for the state to write upon us whatever it wishes. It sees us as members of a body, each with a distinct part to play.

Scripture makes the point plainly. “For the body does not consist of one member but of many,” Paul writes. “If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing?” (1 Corinthians 12:14, 17 ESV). The hand is not the foot, and the body is whole precisely because its members differ. An orchestra becomes a symphony for the same reason; many instruments, many skills, one sound. Sameness would not perfect the music. It would end it.
Socialism looks upon the world and sees only unequal outcomes. It sees one man with five and another with two and calls the difference an injustice to be corrected. What it refuses to see is the unequal input behind the outcome: the labor, the risk, the discipline, the years spent honing a skill that others declined to hone. It counts the harvest and ignores the sowing.

Here too Scripture speaks directly. In the parable of the talents, the master entrusts his servants unequally: five talents to one, two to another, one to another, “to each according to his ability” (Matthew 25:15 ESV). The distribution is unequal from the start, and it is the master’s to make. Those who put their portion to work are commended. The one who is condemned is the servant who, governed by fear, buried what he was given and risked nothing (Matthew 25:25). The sin is not inequality. The sin is the refusal to steward what God entrusted.

This is why socialism, for all its language of compassion, rests on a broken commandment. “You shall not covet … anything that is your neighbor’s” (Exodus 20:17 ESV). Covetousness is not a policy; it is a sin of the heart. A system that takes one man’s resentment of another’s portion and enshrines it as public virtue has not cured envy; it has institutionalized it. It corrects what God has ordained and calls the correction justice.

Consider how God Himself is ordered. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are one in essence and equal in glory, yet distinct in function — the Father sends, the Son redeems, the Spirit sanctifies. Equal standing has never meant identical role. So it is with us. Every human being holds equal dignity before God, for every human being bears His image. But we are given different responsibilities, different capacities, and different gifts; the same Spirit “apportions to each one individually as he wills” (1 Corinthians 12:11 ESV), so that in exercising them freely we might bless one another. The teacher blesses through teaching, the builder through building, the merchant through trade. Remove the freedom to exercise the gift, and you remove the blessing along with it.

Socialism ignores the sovereignty of God. It presumes to redistribute what He has apportioned, to level what He has ordered, to play God in the lives of ordinary people whether they consent or not. It mistakes His design for a defect and sets out to repair it.
But the differences among us are not a wound to be healed. They are the very means by which He made us a blessing to one another, and economic freedom is simply the arrangement that lets that blessing move. It is not merely more productive than socialism, though it is. It is more faithful. It honors the God who gives the gifts by leaving men free to use them, trusting that a people at liberty to sow, to risk, and to serve will raise the whole harvest higher than any central plan could arrange. The free market did not invent this design. It consents to it.

Socialism’s error was never bad arithmetic. It was the presumption that the Maker miscalculated, and that the state must balance His books. But God did not distribute His gifts unevenly by mistake. He did it so that the strong would serve the weak, the gifted would enrich the many, and no one would imagine he could stand alone. To give men the freedom to exercise those gifts is not injustice to be corrected. It is obedience to the God who gave them.

Dr. Eric M. Wallace, author of the new book, The Heart of Apostasy: How The Black Church Abandoned Biblical Authority for Political Ideology--And How to Reclaim It, is a trailblazing scholar, dynamic speaker, and passionate advocate for faith-based conservatism. With a distinguished academic background and an unwavering commitment to biblical truth, Wallace has become a leading voice challenging cultural and political narratives that conflict with a biblical worldview.

Wallace holds postgraduate degrees in biblical studies (M.A., ThM, Ph.D.), Wallace is the first African American to earn a Ph.D. in biblical studies from Union-PSCE (now Union Presbyterian Seminary). His scholarship and ministry experience equip him to address today’s most pressing sociopolitical issues through the lens of faith, reason, and historical accuracy.