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     Mankind has a difficult time being objective – humanity is biased, prejudiced and rarely impartial.  It is the tendency of authors and journalists to write with bias, which often means covering up or ignoring what is damaging to their partiality.  Thus historians write projecting a certain perspective.  Thomas DiLorenza reveals in “The Real Lincoln,” that Abraham Lincoln used dictatorial military powers to suppress all Northern opposition to his illegal and unconstitutional acts.  He violated every constitutional civil right.  Significantly he ignored rulings hand-delivered to him by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Roger Taney ordering him to respect and faithfully execute the laws of the USA and to protect civil rights.  Lincoln replied by suspending habeas corpus, instituting a secret police and arbitrarily arresting (without warrants or due process) thousands of leading citizens of Northern cities — literally everyone who expressed the slightest reservation about Lincoln’s aims and means (state legislators, U.S. congressmen, newspaper owners and editors, ministers, bankers, policemen, etc).  What?  Not in the history book that I read in school!  Wasn’t Honest Abe the deliverer of blacks from slavery and the savior of the republic?  So whose telling the truth?  Are both, the Real Lincoln and the standard fare we’ve been fed, true or are neither true?  Where is the impartiality?
     In sharp contrast, one of the radiant and refreshing characteristics of the Bible is its impartiality.  In the book of Hebrews, the eleventh chapter, commonly called the “faith” chapter of the Bible, presents a catalog of men of faith.  Abraham is presented as a man who faithfully obeyed God.  Even upon God’s command, he was willing to sacrifice his son Isaac (Hebrews 11:8-9,17-18, Genesis 22:1-19).  There is no greater faith of mere men recorded in the Bible.  If we read only this passage, we might conclude that Abraham was flawless.  However reading about his life (Genesis 12:1- 21), we note that Abraham lied to the president of Egypt, risking the rape of or fornication with his wife, Sarah, to save his own skin (Genesis 12:10-20).  When Abraham went to Gerar, he attempted the same ploy with that city’s king (Genesis 20:1-12).  On another occasion, God promised Abraham that his descendants would be a great nation even though they had no children and Sarah was beyond child bearing years (Genesis 12:1-2;18:10-11).  Abraham and Sarah became impatient and decided to help God by Abraham committing fornication with Sarah’s servant, Hagar (Genesis 16:1-4).  Yet Abraham is called a man of faith because he obeyed God.
     A similar picture is given of Israel’s King David.  He committed adultery with Bathsheba and then sent her husband into a battle where he was sure to be killed (2 Samuel 11:2-5, 14-15).  Yet Paul preached that David was a man after God’s own heart (Acts 13:22).  We might be perplexed and aghast that these sinful men were God’s chosen to be the ancestors of Jesus.  The difference between our feeble human prejudice and bias versus the Bible is that God tells it just like it is – no coverup, no ignoring or denying the sinfulness of men. Indeed the passages we have considered, highlight “...I perceive that God is no respecter of persons...” (Acts 10:34).  This impartiality points to the divine inspiration of the Bible.

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