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We humans are, in so many ways, just like electrons — we look for the path of least resistance.

Driving shortcuts. Diet shortcuts. Courtship shortcuts. Career-training shortcuts. Even church growth shortcuts.

And sometimes, our hunger for shortcuts leads us to make presumptions about people rather than taking the time to actually get to know them and understand what motivates them.

It’s called “stereotyping.”

We see someone who closely resembles somebody else and we believe they’re going to act the same way and have the same values.

If we treat one person less favorably because of how another person has acted unfavorably, we’re dabbling in social laziness and in a measure of disrespect. But you know this already.

So why this topic today?

In today’s reading from the One-Year Bible, there is a brief passage that describes how worshippers at the restored Jerusalem Temple took a spiritual shortcut that I believe was not ordained by God.

The shortcut is found in Nehemiah 13:1-3 and, in effect, negated the command of God that the Temple should be a house of prayer for all nations.

Centuries earlier, God had commanded that the Ammonites and Moabites not be allowed into Hebrew worship because of the pagan nations’ malicious treatment toward the Hebrews during their 40 years in the wilderness.

Yet, Nehemiah 13 reports that the later Hebrews gathered at the restored Temple prohibited ALL foreigners from joining in worship at the Temple.

This was not what God commanded.

And some good-hearted, Jehovah-seeking Gentiles were likely kept from worshipping God at the Temple as a result.

Rather than take the time to assess if a foreigner was from Ammon or Moab, the Jerusalem Jews painted all Gentiles with the broad brush stroke of “Rejected by God.”

So how does this apply to us?

Christians are vulnerable to stereotyping others, particularly when it comes to church attendance.

Somebody walks in the door who looks like a thug or a streetwalker and we immediately presume that he is a thug or that she is a streetwalker. We don’t treat them as guests but instead as pests.

If we’re “lucky,” they won’t come back and disrupt our service. At least that’s how the thinking goes on too many occasions.

Such an attitude is offensive to God, of course.

Listen, everybody coming to worship should be welcomed and evaluated on who they are and on whom they are seeking to worship. To scorn everybody from a certain ethnic group or a certain aesthetic look or because they remind you of troublemakers from the past, that’s just wrong.

God is quite capable of deciding for Himself if their worship is genuine and acceptable to Him. That’s not for us to decide.

Jesus let a repentant prostitute wash His feet with her tears during a home-based time of worship.

The LAST thing we should ever do is to block somebody from worshipping God just because we think they’re like “those other people.”

As always, I love you
Martin

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