A ruinous attitude that we shall consider today is prejudice. A dictionary defines prejudice as “an unfavourable opinion or feeling formed beforehand or without knowledge, thought, or reason”. It also defines it as “unreasonable feelings, opinions, or attitudes, especially of a hostile nature, regarding an ethnic, racial, social, or religious group”. There are instances in the Bible where prejudice proved to be ruinous. Both Aaron and Miriam demonstrated prejudice against Moses’ wife. The consequence of that was God slamming Miriam with leprosy that kept her outside the camp for seven days thereby delaying the whole nation.
“We have no business writing off a life or a group that God is still working on.”
Some Israelites were prejudicial towards Saul when he was anointed as king. They derided him and said, “How shall this man save us?” Apparently, they could not see anything in his pedigree to make him the best candidate for the job. Crossing over to the New Testament, we notice how Nathaniel exhibited prejudice. When he was told that they have met Jesus of Nazareth, he derided the city, wondering if anything good could come out of Nazareth. It turned out that Nazareth played host to the most important figure in history – Jesus was raised there. Apostle Paul warned Timothy, his spiritual son to observe all instructions “without prejudice”. This admonition is good for us too. We have no business writing off a life or a group that God is still working on.
