Easily Deceived by Outward Appearances

We’re a society obsessed by outward appearances. When planning to go to a special event, many people agonize over what to wear and how they’ll look. On home improvement shows, the first thing prospective buyers consider is “curb appeal.” And those ‘reality’ romance shows? Only for the beautiful or handsome. Our eyes are attracted to whatever shiny, glitzy thing comes along. 

But have you ever discovered how outward appearances can deceive? For instance, that person who catches everyone’s attention when he or she walks into a room, but if you get a chance to talk with them beyond a casual ‘hello,’ you discover they’re either filled with ego or have the IQ of a mushroom. Beware of flashy ‘diamonds’ that turn out to be synthetic.

 

Over the years I’ve had the opportunity to get acquainted with people who could command a speaking platform with their wit and eloquence. However, sometimes what you see isn’t what you get if you have a chance to talk with them one-to-one. Stage presence doesn’t always translate into personal substance.

 

Other times I’ve met people who at first didn’t seem outwardly impressive, but they possessed inner qualities that drew me to them like a magnet. They serve as reminders not to judge people solely upon externals. As God told the prophet Samuel, “The Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart” (1 Samuel 16:7).

 

Among the endearing realities of the Bible is its candor, revealing people as they truly were. Repeatedly we find examples of folks in the Bible whose outward appearance didn’t align with the kinds of people they were on the inside.

 

Recently, while using a one-year Bible that takes the reader through the Scriptures in a calendar year, with both Old and New Testament readings, I came across two examples of how we can be deceived by outward appearances. The first was King Saul.

 

Reading in 1 Samuel, we find the people of Israel had tired of being led by prophetic judges. "Give us a king to lead us…. We want a king over us,” they declared to the prophet Samuel (1 Samuel 8:6,19). After all, the Israelites reasoned, other nations all had kings. Why shouldn’t they? So, God told Samuel to anoint a fellow named Saul, “an impressive young man without equal among the Israelites – a head taller than any of the others” (1 Samuel 9:2). He seemed outstanding – in the most literal sense.

 

Saul had passed the ‘look test,’ and initially seemed to be a humble individual. When the time came to announce the first king of Israel, we’re told he had “hidden himself among the baggage” (1 Samuel 10:22). But soon the Israelites would learn the truth of the adage, “Be careful what you ask for.”

 

His reign was all downhill from there. He repeatedly ignored God’s commands given through Samuel, and when caught in his sinful disobedience, Saul was quick to cast aside fault, blaming instead the soldiers and people he was chosen to lead. He served as king of Israel for 42 years, but it was a tenure fraught with conflict, jealousy, terrible decision-making, and murder.

 

We find a very striking contrast to Saul in the gospel of John. It’s an unlikely woman Jesus Christ encountered at a well outside the Samaritan city of Sychar. Having been married five times and living with a man who was not her husband, this woman was the face of scandal. To avoid accusatory looks, she would go to the well in the midday heat, knowing no other women would be there.

 

Topping it off, Samaritans were universally despised by Jews. And yet, Jesus – a Jew – chose to honor this disreputable woman with a compassionate conversation that had a surprising outcome, recorded in John 4:4-42. 

 

As she approached the well, bearing the weight not only of her water jars but also her forlorn history, Jesus asked, “Will you give Me a drink?” Looking up at the person speaking to her, she probably thought the Samaritan equivalent of ‘Say what?!’ “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” she responded, perhaps thinking this individual had forgotten the day’s cultural norms.

 

Jesus countered with a statement that caught her attention: “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked Him and He would have given you living water.” I suspect hearing about “living water” would have gotten our attention as well.

 

As their interaction unfolded, Jesus revealed He was not only a prophet but in fact the promised Messiah – to her utter amazement. Excitedly, she forgot all about getting water from the well and turned into an unwitting evangelist, rushing to tell the townspeople about the person she had just met: “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ?”

 

The upshot of this story is that many people in Sychar became believers in Christ, some through the woman’s testimony and others after talking with Him directly, curious because of what she had said. 

 

Isn’t it interesting how an outwardly impressive man who became king could turn out to be such an adject failure, while a woman who’d lived such a sorrowful life could be used by God for such a life-changing impact on many people in her community?

 

What a powerful reminder not to limit ourselves to the first impressions people make on us. It’s also encouraging to know that even if we’ve never been the center of attention or voted most likely to succeed, the Lord can still accomplish great things through us.

The ‘Biblical’ Art of Buck Passing

Have you ever noticed the ways people respond when accused – with ample evidence – of wrongdoing? Actually, there are a variety of options, but here I’ll focus on just two:

Some deny it outright, as we so often see in the political realm, as well as the business world, and other influential segments of our society. “I (we) did nothing wrong. Wrongfully accused! No way, Jose!” Of course, you don’t have to be a high-ranking politicians or corporate executive. Even toddlers, as soon as they can distinguish wrong from right, discover the art of denying wrong, even with crumb-covered hands caught in the proverbial cookie jar.

"Who, me?!" Why did God give us 
fingers, if not to be able 
to point them and blame others?

Another approach is the ever-popular “passing of the buck.” Again, we see elected government officials employing this strategy with great skill, casting blame on someone down the line of authority, insisting they had no personal knowledge of wrongs committed. Business leaders can be equally adept, assigning fault to lower-level execs and managers, all the while pleading, “I had no idea!”

If you think this is a relatively new development, however, think again. It first appeared in the pristine Garden of Eden, where Eve and then Adam defied God – heeding the strong suggestion of Satan instead – and sampled fruit from the one tree in the entire garden the Lord had said was off limits.

When God asked what they had done, first Adam and then Eve deftly passed the buck long before currency had been invented. When asked, “Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?” (Genesis 3:11), Adam boldly answered, “The woman You put here with me – she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it” (verse 12).

Isn’t it amazing? Never in the short history of mankind had such a bald-faced lie been uttered, and yet Adam succeeded in such a doozey that no one has topped it in the thousands of years since. First, by implication, he blamed God for his wrongdoing. “You know that woman You put here with me? She told me to do it.” He might just as well have said, “God, it’s Your fault. If you hadn’t given Eve to me, I never would have thought of doing such a thing!”

Eve was hardly innocent in this first deception. When God asked what she had done, the first woman replied, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate” (Genesis 3:13). She didn’t redirect blame toward God, but did the next worst thing: She blamed Satan. Long before comedian Flip Wilson’s “Geraldine” character uttered the words, Eve was telling her Creator, “The devil made me do it!”

The Bible offers many other examples; Moses’ brother Aaron and Israel’s King Saul were world-class perpetrators.

When Moses was long overdue in descending from Mount Sinai where he was meeting with God, Aaron yielded to the demands of the Israelites and fashioned an idol, a golden calf, for them to worship. After Moses had come down from the mountain and confronted his brother, Aaron replied, “You know how prone these people are to evil…they gave me the gold, and I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf” (Exodus 32:19-24). In other words, Aaron said, “Hey, don’t blame it. It’s all their fault!” (Note: He also lied about how the calf came to be. Why stop with one untruth when you can commit two, right?)

Saul did much the same when the prophet Samuel’s arrival was later than expected and the fierce Philistines were approaching. The Scriptures say, “all the troops with him were quaking with fear.” Bowing to the grumbling of the Israelites, Saul performed sacrifices to God, a responsibility reserved exclusively for the Levitical priests.

When Samuel finally showed up, he asked a simple question, “What have you done?” Saul exhibited his buck-passing skills when he replied, “When I saw that the men were scattering, and that you did not come at the set time…I felt compelled to offer the burnt offering” (1 Samuel 12:7-14). With one ill-considered decision, one he would sadly replicate not long after, the king whose reign had started so well wrote his own a termination notice.

There are more examples, but it’s clear the Bible doesn’t sugarcoat the characters it presents, flawed, sinful individuals that for whatever reason decided denial was a better option than admission of guilt.

As I suggested early on, there are other ways we respond when our own wrongdoing is uncovered. But those will have to wait until next time, along with some thoughts about the pros and cons of “fessin’ up.”