How difficult it must be to cast that first stone. It should be difficult shouldn’t it? The taking of a human life. I believe that we tend to read over many things in scripture, and I wonder if this event that was covered in John chapter eight might just be an example of that. The scribes and the Pharisees were the corrupted leaders of the Jews, and were looking for a way to eliminate Jesus, who they considered a serious threat to their hold over their people. In this instance they brought a woman to Jesus who had been caught in the act of adultery.

The law commands that she be stoned, but what do you think we should do?

You couldn’t tell that bunch of dishonest leaders anything. They weren’t there for advice, they wanted to force Jesus to either side with them under the law, or oppose the law, but rather than choose, he stooped down and started writing on the ground. I have no proof of what was written, but whatever it was, must have been very damning because apparently while the tempting continued, Jesus looked up and said He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.

He wasn’t even asking them all to be without sin, just one to get the stoning started. Their conscience would not let any of them be the one to fall under scrutiny, so one by one they walked away, from the oldest to the youngest. Then Jesus turns to the woman and asks her where her accusers are and when she tells him that those who condemned her are gone, he tells her to Go and sin no more.

Here’s where Bible fact ends and my curiosity keeps sifting through the information provided. With all the supernatural things that Jesus was able to do, is it really that much of a stretch to believe that just maybe whatever Jesus was writing was as much a miracle of what they were reading as what Jesus was writing? What I mean is that maybe each individual scribe and Pharisee was seeing his very own personal list of sins, and that is where their personal conviction came from.

This is a beautiful story of grace and mercy, and I hope that this will uplift you in some way, God willing, amen.