"So [the people] said, ‘This man is Jesus, son of Joseph, isn’t he? We know his father and mother. How, then, does he now say he came down from heaven?’ " (v. 42, TEV)

This little story calls to mind the age-old truth that you can’t always judge a book by its cover. Most of us do that more than we’d like to admit. We draw conclusions about others on the basis of outward appearance. We neglect to take into consideration important information about people before forming an opinion about them. We allow our stereotypes and prejudices to overrule an openminded view towards certain individuals and groups of people.

That’s what happened in the Bible story here today. These Jewish religious leaders had a hard time coping with less-than-formal expressions of their traditional faith. Jesus had been …