The Outward Appearance

The adage is, “Don’t judge a book by its cover.” There are a lot of really good books that don’t have fancy covers, and there are other books that have really nice covers but don’t have much of anything worth reading inside. 2 Corinthians 10:7 tells us not to judge by the outward appearance. Paul was upset at the church at Corinth because they were showing favoritism based on how people looked. Some people still do that, today, even in church. Let’s be honest about it, the economy is tough. If somebody comes to church, and their Sunday best happens to be jeans and a T-shirt, what is that to you? Granted, if you have nice clothes that you could wear to church, and you choose to wear something grubby, that’s disrespectful. The question is, if someone else comes to church wearing casual attire, you should consider that those clothes might be the very best they have.

This applies to other things, as well. Some people are just big-boned, or have a really slow metabolism. If someone appears to be large enough to be unhealthy, that may be an indication that they suffer from gluttony, but that would be between them and God. For all you know, they have been dieting and/or exercising for some time now, and they just haven’t been able to lose the weight. A person’s size doesn’t have anything to do with where they stand with God, and it shouldn’t make any difference to how you treat that individual.

Now, we, as Christians, know that the outward appearance is not, and never has been, what mattered, but we also know that many other people don’t understand that. We must be ready to do good to all people, even the ones that want to nitpick how we look. Don’t misunderstand me, we as Christians should try to look our best, as ambassadors for Christ. Understand that when people don’t want what you’re trying to give them, one of the easiest ways to push back is to criticize. It’s kind of funny, isn’t it? If Ed McMahon showed up on their doorstep with a great big check, they wouldn’t tell him that he was fat, or that they didn’t like what he was wearing, they would be too excited about all that money. Here we are trying to give people something so much more valuable than simple cash, and they want to give us a hard time for not meeting their expectations as far as how we look.

The bottom line is that, even though we know better than to pass judgment, sometimes we do it anyway, so we certainly shouldn’t expect others to show us that courtesy. We just have to remember that our purpose is greater than we are, and none of us is perfect, so someone who wants to nitpick will always be able to find fault. Jesus said that if He would be lifted up, that He would draw all men unto Him. He didn’t say that if we dressed nicely, or if we had perfect figures, of if we were as handsome or as beautiful as movie stars, that we would draw people to Christ… Sharing the Gospel isn’t about us, but we should be about spreading the Gospel. If anyone wants to blame us for not sharing the Gospel effectively, based on how we look, then they should be talking to God about that, and I really don’t think that excuse is going to fly very far (if at all).