Lesson 8a

Jesus vs The Condemnation of Men

"Then neither do I condemn you." John 8:11

Read John Chapter 8

There is a lot in John Chapter 8 which will take more than one lesson.

Jesus is in the temple courts teaching and a bunch of the religious leaders drag in a woman "caught in adultery." So how do you catch a woman in adultery? Well, I think the guys had done their homework and knew of this woman who was having sex with a married man or vice versa. The leaders must have watched them carefully and pounced at a time when they knew the two of them would be together. So now put yourself in the woman's shoes. Here she is one moment in the throws of sexual intimacy, the next she is being grabbed and dragged away by a mob of religious leaders, maybe naked or half-clothed and feeling terrified because she knows the penalty for adultery in the Jewish law was being stoned to death. They drag her to the temple courts and dump her down in front of Jesus. If you are the Pharisees you are thinking, "we've got an iron-clad case here, a slam dunk against Jesus," and they are feeling pretty full of themselves to confront Jesus.

Jesus on the other hand is not rattled by such things. He calmly writes something on the ground and then declares "Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her." The pharisees hear the record scratch sound "SCHREEEECH" that's used in movies and cartoons today, jaws drop, eyes widen, hearts begin to thump and minds begin to reel. Slowly but surely Jesus' words begin to sink in, each Pharisee begins to ponder his own sins and realizes he has a bunch....that he doesn't want others to know about! So one by one they begin to depart, very sheepishly and deflated I imagine and the older ones are first to go interestingly enough, until there is no one left...no one, except Jesus!

Jesus turns to the woman and asks "Woman, where are they? Has no-one condemned you?" "No-one, sir," she said. "Then neither do I condemn you," Jesus declared. " Go now and leave your life of sin."

We don't know what happens to the woman after this, but in this moment she receives compassion and mercy from Jesus. Instead of being stoned to death...she's set free. Instead of being pulverized by rocks she is shown gentleness. Instead of a man showing anger & abuse of power, she is shown kindness. Isn't that what we all want? Compassion & Mercy! We mess up, we blow it, we've made a mistake and if we don't have someone pointing it out and condemning us for it...we do it to ourselves. We can have those voices in our heads beating ourselves up. But that's not the voice of Jesus, it's not the voice of God!

1: Have you ever been caught doing something wrong? What happened?

2: What was the motivation of the Pharisees (Religious Leaders)?

3: What does Jesus' response tell you about Jesus?

4. Whose voice do you listen to when you mess up?

5: Would this motivate you to follow Jesus, to be with him?