Prejudice

It is ironic that today we look around and wonder how people have become so prejudiced against other people. This may encompass many reasons: race, religion, financial status, even sex, of which there are only two, by the way. Can I tell you that prejudice is not anything new? It has been going on pretty much since man was created. 

Even in the time of the Bible, people groups had great prejudice. The Gentiles hated the Jews, the Jews hated the Gentiles, the Samaritans hated the Jews, basically because the Jews hated them first. Even after the resurrection of Christ, the Jewish Christians still had deep-rooted prejudice against the Gentiles. This wasn’t hatred or meanness; they just had this thought that salvation was still only for the Jews. This continued until a wonderful occurrence happened with Peter and a Roman named Cornelius. Cornelius was, in man’s eyes, a good person. He was devout in prayer and giving to the poor and did so in the name of the same God of the Jews.

We know that Cornelius had a vision of an angel who told Cornelius to send for Peter. Now, while this was going on, Peter too had a vision. It was of a tablecloth coming down with different animals. A voice told Peter to kill and eat; the problem was that according to Jewish law these animals were considered unclean and forbidden to eat. After Peter had his vision, the men Cornelius sent arrived, and Peter agreed to go with them. The short story of it is that when Peter began to preach about salvation through Christ, the Holy Spirit fell upon the whole household because they believed.

Here is the lesson Peter learned that day; we see it in Acts 10:34-35: “Opening his mouth, Peter said: 'I most certainly understand now that God is not one to show partiality, 35 but in every nation the man who fears Him and does what is right is welcome to Him.” This was a hard lesson for Peter because he was a devout Jew and the idea of Gentiles being saved wasn’t on his radar. But he came to understand that anyone can come to Christ for salvation no matter who they are.

Now, here comes the challenge. Who is it that we are prejudiced toward? Who is it that we really don’t care if they come to Jesus or not? We all probably have a people group in mind, or at the very least an individual that witnessing to them or seeing them come to Jesus is the last thing on your mind. For Peter to go and preach to this Roman had to be extremely hard for him, but he listened to the Lord. Who is it that Jesus is telling you to witness to, even though you don’t want to? This is where the mature Christian digs deep and becomes obedient to the King. Are you ready?