Stone Throwing

^{John 8:2-11}

² At dawn he appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered around him, and he sat down to teach them. ³ The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group ⁴ and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. ⁵ In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” ⁶ They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him.

But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. ⁷ When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” ⁸ Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground.

⁹ At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. ¹⁰ Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?”

¹¹ “No one, sir,” she said.

“Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.”

I recently was challenged to evaluate my approach in speaking to a world that does not except the Bible as an authority.  One of the things that challenged me was what Paul said in 1 Corinthians 5, "What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? God will judge those outside."

We have become quite proficient stone throwers in the church.  Instead of helping our own to grow and avoid the snares of sin we throw stones at a world that we expect to accept the Word of God before they accept the God of the Word.  Isn't true that we really cannot accept the Word of God till we have began a relationship with Jesus where the Holy Spirit comes to reside in our lives.  The world does not have the Holy Spirit, they have Satan pulling the blinders over their eyes.  What do we do, we throw stones and give them a black eye.  We say things like, "the Bible says that marriage is one man and one woman"  which I believe with all my heart.  We say the Bible says "life is precious"  which I believe with all my heart.  But the world says back to us, yes but your Bible also says that Solomon had 700 wives and 300 concubines, your Bible says that many of your founding fathers had multiple wives.  This is true and to a world devoid of the Holy Spirit this is all they see.  Because we have the Holy Spirit we understand that the Bible is clear that this was never the will of God for them and that it caused many problems.  

Is it possible that a better approach would be to love them, to let them see our lives that are different because of the Holy Spirit living in us and to introduce them to the God of the Bible.  Then what happens is that when they find Jesus they realize the lifestyle they are living is wrong, they realize the beliefs they once held to just do not add up anymore.

I don't claim to have arrived at this but one thing I do want to do is be obedient to Christ and Jesus said, "you who are without sin cast the first stone".  May I be like those who held the stones realized they were wrong and walked away.  May I walk away from throwing stones.