I like buying old books. There’s a mystique that old books have that’s hard to replicate in any other type of media. I often don’t even read them… I just thumb through them, smell the old musty pages, then put them on the shelf where I can admire their bindings.

I own books from which I’ve never gleaned a single word. I don’t know their contents and I don’t even care.

I find pleasure in judging a book by its cover.

I think this is acceptable when it’s a book, but people are different. People are much more complex and complicated than books. There’s much more to people than their exterior bindings; where they live, what they do, and with whom they associate. At times it’s hard to look past a person’s cover and reconsider what you think you know.

In John 3:1 we are introduced to a man named Nicodemus. At first it might seem like a simple introduction…

“Now there was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews.”

But it’s not quite that simple. John actually begins the introduction three verses earlier, at the end of chapter two.

In John 2:25-27, John describes how it was the Passover season, and Jesus had been in Jerusalem performing miracles. Jesus had caused quite a stir, and when people saw the signs He was performing… the text says many “believed in His name.” It says they were “believing” in Jesus… but that Jesus wasn’t “believing” (the same Greek word) in them. Here’s how it reads,

“Now when He was in Jerusalem at the Passover, during the feast, many believed in His name, observing His signs which He was doing. But Jesus, on His part, was not entrusting Himself to them, for He knew all men, and because He did not need anyone to testify concerning man, for He Himself knew what was in man.”

All that to say, things were complicated in Jerusalem. Many were seeing Jesus for who He was, and believing in Him, but those same people were entrenched within a powerful religious system that didn’t recognize the same truth. This complication caused even believing men… to be unbelievable.