I
- 2 Corinthians 5:16
was reading an article written by
David McCasland in which he wrote about four
black college students in Greensboro North Carolina. On February 1, 1960 these young students
sat down at a “whites only” lunch counter, one
of them Franklin McCain noticed an older white
woman seated nearby looking at them. He was
sure that her thoughts were unkind towards
them and their protest against segregation. A
few minutes later she walked over to them, put
her hands on their shoulders, and said, “Boys, I
am so proud of you.”
McCain recalled the events years later on National Public Radio, he said the events taught him
never to stereotype anyone, instead take time to
consider others and seek an opportunity to talk
with them. My grandmother would always tell
me “never judge a book by its cover” and that is
what happened in 1960 at the lunch counter in
Greensboro North Carolina, those four students
saw the color of her skin and thought she could
only see the same.
God informed Samuel that a young sheep herder
named David would be the one anointed King,
Samuel’s reply was that David was just a boy, but
God said to Samuel “Do not look at his appearance or at his physical stature” 1 Samuel 16:7. In a
way you might say that Samuel stereotyped David before he knew anything about him. Samuel
could only see a young boy watching over a few
sheep of his father’s, and not the warrior that
fought off bears and lions to protect his flock.
He could not see the warrior on the inside that
would later slay thousands to save his people
and how God would call him a man after His own
heart and he most definitely did not see him being King David in the blood-line of Jesus.
Stereotyping others before we know them is
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something that is common among so many people including Christians, it seems it has become
part of our culture. We look at how a person is
dressed, how they speak and the color of their
skin before we even know the person on the
inside, we judge the book by the cover and never
take time to know the story.
When Jesus went into His home town of Nazareth He was rejected and stereotyped as just the
carpenter. People were astonished by His teaching, His wisdom, and the mighty works He had
performed. Jesus went into different towns and
healed the sick, made the blind to see and the
lame to walk, He had cast out demons, but yet
He was rejected by those who knew Him. “Is this
not the carpenter?” they asked, “is He not the
son of Mary, and brother of James, Joses, Judas,
and Simon? And are not His sisters here with us?”
Though Jesus performed many
miracles, and amazed them with
His teaching, they still could not see
who He was, they could only see the
person they thought they knew, the
carpenter.
I sat down and spoke with two young men
concerning the reason they no longer attended
church. The two said they did not like being
judged by those in their church and made to feel
out of place. The young men’s style of dressing
is what brought on the attention to them, they
went to say that the preacher turned his attention onto them and the way they were dressed,
this of course upset the young men and they left
the church vowing that they would never return.
Paul wrote to the Corinthians church saying
“Therefore, from now on, we regard no-one according to the flesh,” the appearance of a person
is the way we typically evaluate each other. If
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