Wednesday 20 February 2008
- Bible Book:
- John
"The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery; and making her stand before all of them, they said to him, 'Teacher, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery. Now in the law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?' They said this to test him, so that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, 'Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her'". (v.3-7)
Background
These particular scribes and Pharisees (most were fine people)are inhumanly keen to prove that Jesus was a bad religious teacher.If that end involved the stoning of a human being to death, it wasworth it. They were using a gift of God, the Law, which was meantto lead people to life, to a devious and destructive end.
Jesus didn't approve of divorce. Mark's Gospel makes this veryplain (Mark10:2-9). So we can be sure that he strongly condemned adultery.But he seems to have loathed hypocrisy, manipulation and inhumanityeven more. His response to his 'testers' forced theseself-righteous prigs to acknowledge their own sin, howeverreluctantly.
Was the woman stupid to have been caught? Or was she caught in aloveless and abusive marriage, and willing to take risks for alittle love or something that passed for it? We don't know. Ancienttexts, even religious texts, are far more silent about women'sneeds, hopes and dreams than about men's.
At the story's end, her accusers and everyone else have meltedaway, and she stands alone before Jesus. He doesn't condemn her.But he does help her to walk away with the hope that even great sincan be forgiven by a gracious God.
To Ponder
Many early manuscripts of John's Gospel don'tinclude this story. It doesn't matter a bit, for it's still awonderful and compelling story. What do you think Jesus was writingin the dust while the scribes and Pharisees accused the woman? Ifit was a quote from the Hebrew Scriptures (the Old Testament), whatmight it have been?
When have we used good things to bad ends? Howcan we tell that we're doing so?