Judging a Book By Its Cover

My oldest son, Tanner, has become an avid reader.  Just this past year he read about 40 or 50 books for his school's AR program and finished at the top of his class.  I'll be honest - that's more books than I read in my entire K-12 experience.  I've become a much better reader since then, but I definitely got off to a slow start.  Tanner really got interested in the Percy Jackson series of books this past school year.  He read all five in the series and just completed "The Lost Hero" a couple of months ago.  Some of those books were hundreds of pages long with small font and no pictures.  His mother and I thank God for his new-found love of reading.

And yet we had an experience at Wal-Mart a few months back.  While perusing the book section of Mr. Walton's Supercenter, their was a book that immediately caught Tanner's attention.  I'll have to admit I was impressed as well.  It had a metallic cover with a Punisher-type skull on the front of it.  It was just the kind of book that a young boy would be attracted to.  Tanner asked if he could have it so I picked it up and read the back cover of the book.

After reading the back cover I turned to Tanner and said, "Trust me, you won't like this."  I can't remember now exactly what the plot of the book was, but I knew it wouldn't interest my son.  And yet he was smitten with the cover - he had to have the book.  Realizing I wouldn't be able to talk him out of it, I decided to buy him the book.  He was pumped about getting this shiny new book, but as he began to read it his enthusiasm turned into boredom.  Needless to say, the book couldn't deliver what the chrome cover seemed to promise.

We've all been guilty of judging a book by its cover, but of course it's not just books that we judge.  We're often guilty of judging other people based on their appearance.  I was reminded of this while reading the words of Paul today.  He asked the Corinthians:  "Do you look at things according to the outward appearance?" (2 Cor. 10:7).  If so, then Paul knew he was in trouble.  Apparently the Corinthians had already started judging him.  Some of them were saying, "his bodily presence is weak, and his speech contemptible" (2 Cor. 10:10).

Paul was not the first person to suffer this kind of judgment.  Remember, if had been left to Samuel's discretion, Eliab (David's oldest brother) would've been anointed Israel's next king.  Samuel certainly wouldn't have anointed the ruddy young shepherd boy of Judah.  God had to teach Samuel an important lesson:  "Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart" (1 Sam. 16:7).

Were we alive when Jesus was still physically ministering on this earth, my guess is that none of us would've been drawn to His appearance either.  Concerning the coming Christ, the Bible said, "When we see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him" (Isa. 53:2).  The physical appearance of our Savior would've probably never drawn us to His saving power.  But of course, Jesus didn't draw men unto Himself through good looks.  Rather, we have all been drawn to our Lord through the power of the Holy Spirit.

So I would remind us all of that old adage:  Don't judge a book by its cover.  Satan has placed a lot of shiny books on the shelves of this life.  But just a few pages into his story will show us that he can never deliver on what he's promised.  The Bible says that he's the father of lies (John 8:44).  Rather than picking up any number of his shiny volumes, I hope we'll all be compelled to pick up our Heavenly Father's book.  The Bible may not be the most attractive book on the shelf, but it is the only one that can offer its readers a well-spring of life.  When we allow the truth of its pages to saturate our lives, we'll never go looking for a refund.