Parler was the most popularly downloaded app this weekend. With increased censorship on social media platforms, many Conservatives have flocked to Parler, a microblogging site, similar to Twitter. (By the way, you can find me on Parler @Joshbenner).
There’s nothing wrong with new social networking sites, but it’s interesting to consider the explosive growth of Parler in the fallout of the presidential election and in a time with increased censorship online.
I think about that and I think about other industries (especially in the world of information). Social media sites that used to be free avenues of communication are cracking down on people who don’t agree with their views or face checkers. Trust in mainstream media is at an all time low. We’re seeing other companies that are catering to a Conservative base. There’s Patriot Mobile, who advertises themselves as “America’s only Conservative cell phone company.”
All of these make me wonder if there could be increased political proliferation in the open market. Lots of companies support and pander to a progressive base. Just look at all of the rainbow logos during pride month. Look at the companies
With social media, big tech has all but pushed people to find alternatives in a way that other industries haven’t. If left unchecked, we could be at the beginning of that trend. But as people look to alternative media sources, to alternative social networks, will consumers seek this out in other industries as well?
I don’t have a crystal ball. But I see the incredible political division in our country right now, and think two things: it could. happen. And I sadly think it would only continue to further the political divide in our nation.
53 They went each to his own house, 1 but Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. 2 Early in the morning he came again to the temple. All the people came to him, and he sat down and taught them. 3 The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery, and placing her in the midst 4 they said to him, “Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery. 5 Now in the Law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say?” 6 This they said to test him, that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. 7 And as they continued to ask him, he stood up and said to them, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.” 8 And once more he bent down and wrote on the ground. 9 But when they heard it, they went away one by one, beginning with the older ones, and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him. 10 Jesus stood up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” 11 She said, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more.”
Prayer
Our heavenly Father,
We continue to pray for our nation in these tumultuous times.
Lord, may we look to you as our rock and salvation.
Lord, may we not be burdened by this election cycle, but may we be focused on you.
Lord, regardless of what happens, may we continue to pray for revival around the world, in our nation, and in our community.
May we reach people with the love of Christ and with your gospel.
May that be a burden on our hearts.
May we be dawn to you and greater holiness. May we be sanctified by you and have greater love for you and for your people.
Lord, I also pray for our community as we’ve seen increases in Covid cases recent weeks.
Lord, by your grace, we have never had significant issues with Covid in this church. We praise you for that. Lord, we continue to ask for your protection. Lord, may we exercise wisdom in our decisions.
For people who are infected with this virus, we pray for them and their recovery.
Lord, we also pray for our medical care providers who have spent months on the front lines battling Covid. We pray for them and for their safety.
Lord, we ask that you bless our time in your word this morning. May our hearts and minds be focused on you, your Word, and on worshipping you, our great God.
In Jesus’ name, amen.
Introduction
Your Bible probably has brackets around this section with a note that says something to the effect that this passage was not part of the earliest manuscripts.
There’s a lot that could be said about this subject but I wanted to begin this morning by giving a few notes on how we got our Bibles and why we can trust our Bibles.
The printing press was invented in the year 1440.
So you have a gap of more than 1,400 years between the time of Christ and the invention of the printing press where there is one – and only one – way to copy a text. You had to write it out by hand.
Now in the couple of generations after Jesus died, you had the books of the New Testament written.
And they were copied. And the copies were copied.
Thousands of fragments and copies of the New Testament from ancient times. The earliest pieces we have are verses from books, not entire books.
Now for the scribes who did the copying, we owe them a tremendous debt of gratitude. They had an incredibly tedious job.
But the scribes were just men and they were not perfect. And so sometimes mistakes were made.
The encouraging fact is that the vast majority of scribal variations – or variants – is that they’re over minor issues. Maybe there’s a switch where they say Jesus Christ when it should have been Christ Jesus. Greek uses the word “the” a lot, maybe they accidentally added or omitted a usage of that. Maybe they forgot a word. Maybe they spelled a word differently.
None of those changes make significant differences in the meaning of a text.
And the good news is that there are no major doctrines of the Christian faith which are seriously called into question due to manuscript variations.
That should be an encouragement to the trustworthiness of the Bibles that we read.
We have this long scribal tradition of people who took the work very seriously.
They put tremendous care into the copying of the texts.
In the 19th century, scholars began comparing all of the known Biblical manuscripts.
They considered the age of the manuscripts, and the weight of manuscript evidence in favor of any given verse, among other criteria.
And from that, they produced a New Testament that was a product of all of the existent sources.
The work has been updated over the last century plus, but it is that work and Greek New Testament which is the basis for all major modern translations of the New Testament, with the exception of the King James and New King James Versions.
With that, we come to our passage in John 8.
There are several reasons why most translations are so specific in blocking off this section and making a note about the text.
Let’s consider them briefly.
This passage is absent from all manuscripts of John prior to the fifth century.
When the early church theologians comment on this overarching section of John 7 and 8, this passage is never mentioned.
From the Eastern Orthodox Church Fathers, none of them ever mention this passage prior to the tenth century.
When the story does start to appear, it’s located in several different places in the gospels.
The story doesn’t fit into this section.
-By that I mean that John 7 is at the Feast of Booths. When we left off, Jesus is speaking and it’s the last day of the feast. This story totally interrupts that story and changes the day. But when we get back to verse 12, Jesus is again at the Feast of Booths.
Greek scholars point out that some of the language in this passage is not consistent with the rest of John.
And the conclusion of many of the finest Biblical scholars in the world is that there is overwhelming evidence that this story is not original to John.
All of that being said, many scholars do believe that it’s an event that really did happen during the ministry of Jesus.
But is it original? And if it’s not original, is it scripture?
(pause)
I think it should also be said that there are people on both sides of this issues: was it original, was it not, there are people on both sides who love God, who love the Bible, and who are sincerely trying to be accurate in their approach to God’s Word.
But it leaves us with a question. How do we approach a text like this?
Some pastors won’t even preach this passage.
I like the approach John Piper has taken. Let’s look at the passage and the points that it makes but then support those points from other places in the scripture. Because this passage is teaching truth.
So with that, we’ll jump into this well known event in the ministry of Jesus.
7:53 into chapter 8:
They went each to his own house, 1 but Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. 2 Early in the morning he came again to the temple. All the people came to him, and he sat down and taught them.
The beginning of the passage is setting this scene, but as Jesus is teaching, he’s interrupted.
3 The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery
And this is the first point we want to focus on this morning. The woman caught in adultery.
The first thing that’s noteworthy is that in the story, they bring a woman who was caught in adultery.
Something’s missing. They didn’t bring the woman whom they had heard committed adultery.
They brought the woman who was caught in adultery…
So she was in caught in the act, but there’s an issue…
Where’s the man?
In Jewish Law, capital adultery charges were not based on rumor or hearsay. You had to be caught in the act.
But the fact that the it’s just the woman and not the man leads to one of two possibilities.
To borrow from D.A. Carson, who I think was half-joking: either the man was a faster runner than the woman.
Or the more common view is that this woman was setup by some of the ruling authorities who had hatched a plot to catch her.
And they do this, not because of a desire for justice or because they’re primarily concerned with holiness, or because they’re really even concerned with this woman.
But it’s because they hate Jesus and want to try to use this situation to make a mockery of Christ.
What do I mean?
Let’s continue reading.
Verses 4-5: they said to him, “Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery. 5 Now in the Law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say?”
Adultery is certainly a very serious sin against God and against one’s spouse.
And it is serious in this passage.
It’s a sin which completely undermines the sacred bond of marriage. It’s destroyed marriages and families. It’s a sin of lust, of weakness, and of selfishness.
I said this a moment ago, but in the Old Testament, adultery was a capital offense.
Or again in Deuteronomy 22:22: “If a man is found lying with the wife of another man, both of them shall die, the man who lay with the woman, and the woman. So you shall purge the evil from Israel.
And so the people who had caught this woman point to the Law and that the appropriate punishment for this woman is death.
And they come to Jesus asking for his input in the situation.
It’s a trap.
They’re seeking here to undermine Jesus.
They’ve created a theological dilemma for Jesus.
He could pass the buck and have them take the woman before the Jewish court.
If he says he should be forgiven, they’ll accuse him of being soft on the Law. If he says she should be stoned, they’ll say he’s contradicted his own message of grace and forgiveness.
Our passage establishes that in verse 6: This they said to test him, that they might have some charge to bring against him.
Jesus responds first without words, but with an action.
Second part of verse 6: Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground.
What he was writing has been the subject of much speculation.
Some think he was writing the Ten Commandments, others think he was writing sins of the accusers, others think he was writing other Old Testament legal commands.
Ultimately, we don’t know.
I mentioned in the beginning that many scholars don’t believe the story is original to John. But I’ll say again, that many believe it happened. I believe it happened. And this writing in the dirt is part of why I believe it happened.
Tim Keller brings up this point.
But why is that included in the story?
Jesus is writing in the ground, we never find out what. It contributes nothing to the story.
If you were to make up a story, why would you have a detail of the story be absolutely meaningless to the story?
Instead, I believe that it really happened and the writing in the dirt is mentioned because the person who wrote this story saw it happen.
Verse 7: And as they continued to ask him, he stood up and said to them, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.” 8 And once more he bent down and wrote on the ground. 9 But when they heard it, they went away one by one, beginning with the older ones, and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him.
So it appears to be a combination of what Jesus was writing and his words that have totally flipped the script.
Couple of things to consider about this story.
When Jesus says “let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone” is he saying that to judge her sin, you have to be morally perfect?
Again, that’s often the way people interpret the story.
Everyone knows this verse.
Everyone knows the Bible says “let he who is without sin cast the first stone.”
And the verse everyone knows, almost everyone gets wrong.
And not just this verse. Our society knows lots of Bible verses that mention judgment.
Matthew 7:1: “Judge not, that you be not judged.
Same passage. Matthew 7:4: how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye?
We like verses that speak against judgment. Because our society has decided that the absence of judgment is love.
And to judge someone is seen as unloving.
Is it a sin to judge someone?
Consider those passages in Matthew:
how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye?
But then the following verse also says: You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.
What these verses are saying is that everyone of us is a work in progress and that we need to also work on ourselves and our own holiness as we help challenge and exhort others to holiness.
It is not saying that we can never make a moral judgment at any time.
In the previous chapter, Jesus had said:
24 Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment.”
The Bible clearly teaches, in multiple ways, that we are to have moral discernment and views on the world, influenced by the Word of God.
There are Bible verses that talk about avoiding sin which imply an awareness of what is and is not sinful so that we can avoid sin.
2 Thessalonians 3:6: Now we command you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you keep away from any brother who is walking in idleness and not in accord with the tradition that you received from us.
There are Bible passages that serve as warnings of false teachers in the church. To recognize a false teacher, you have to have opinions on the Biblical validity of someone’s message.
Matthew 7:15-17: Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. 16 You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? 17 So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit.
To be able to do that requires us to have a moral understanding which is grounded in the truth of God.
We have Bible verses about exhorting people to live up to Biblical standards.
Hebrews 10:24-25: And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works,
1 Thessalonians 5:11: Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing.
This requires us to have a sense of what is and is not sin.
Now, there are some guiding principles.
Because, we should never judge someone for its own sake. It should always be in the hope of seeing a person repent. Love should undergird everything we do.
And it can be done in a loving way.
The Biblical worldview is that sin is not arbitrary but sin is sin because it is an affront to God and it is an action against God’s righteousness, holiness, and truth. The best way to live life is in accordance with God’s truth.
When we sin, we are living against his truth and that is therefore not a path that leads us to flourishing.
But we should want that both for ourselves and for others.
Again, it’s a challenge. Grace and law.
Because I think most of us have a tendency to lean more on one side or the other with that.
Some of us are rule followers. Rule enforcers. More on the side of the law. And for that person, the temptation is to be puffed up and self-righteous. We can forget our own sinfulness and need for grace when we do that.
But if we go exclusively on the side of grace, we can forget about God’s call for holiness in our lives and have a worldview that is generally apathetic to sin.
Both extremes are problematic.
Back in our passage. Jesus has been writing. He says “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.
We always think that this is a story about grace.
But is that what’s really happening here?
John and Paul Feinberg have a fascinating analysis of this passage in their book “Ethics for a Brave New World” where they look at this passage in light of Old Testament laws.
This trial is illegal.
For starters, Old Testament standards for capital offenses were very stringent. It wasn’t a matter of guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. You had to have total certainty.
Capital punishment for adultery was probably actually very rare in Israel. Because clearly an accusation can be made. But you needed to have multiple witnesses.
Deuteronomy 17:6: On the evidence of two witnesses or of three witnesses the one who is to die shall be put to death; a person shall not be put to death on the evidence of one witness
And the witnesses would be cross-examined and their stories had to corroborate with each other.
Also it should be noted that in the Old Testament: perjury about a capital offense was itself a capital offense.
We see both of these ideas. Cross-examination and punishment for perjury in Deuteronomy 19:
16 If a malicious witness arises to accuse a person of wrongdoing, 17 then both parties to the dispute shall appear before the Lord, before the priests and the judges who are in office in those days. 18 The judges shall inquire diligently, and if the witness is a false witness and has accused his brother falsely, 19 then you shall do to him as he had meant to do to his brother. So you shall purge the evil from your midst
And as a reminder, the Law required that in cases of adultery, both of the guilty parties needed to be executed.
Leviticus 20:10: “If a man commits adultery with the wife of his neighbor, both the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death.
The law required a public trial, here it’s a mob bringing the woman to Jesus.
The law also required right motives in a trial. And this was a matter of the heart, but you weren’t supposed to accuse someone out of malice.
Exodus 23:1: You shall not spread a false report. You shall not join hands with a wicked man to be a malicious witness.
Also entrapment would have been sinful. The Israelites were supposed to help keep the people in their community from sin, not lie and wait so you can catch someone.
(pause)
So let’s summarize all of this. We like to look at this story as the supreme example of grace in the Bible.
It’s a story about court procedural violations!
The religious leaders want to come to Jesus with a legal case and we see that Jesus follows the law even more radically than the conspirators.
Jesus didn’t come to abolish the Law but to fulfill the Law. He says that himself in the Sermon on the Mount.
Jesus never says the woman doesn’t deserve death.
But when he says: “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her:
Jesus has exposed the sins or sinful motivations of these accusers and they leave.
Did she commit adultery?
Probably. There’s never an indication that that was untrue.
But Jesus has intervened in this mistrial.
He will later be a victim himself of an improper trial. We’ll talk about it more when we get there, but there was illegalities with the trial of Jesus.
But unlike this woman, Jesus would be illegally convicted and he would not have an advocate.
But it’s because Jesus died as an innocent man that the guilty could be forgiven.
That’s the gospel.
Back in our passage. Those who oppose Jesus have thought they had such a brilliant trap for him. And it fails. They leave. They don’t care about the woman.
So they leave and Jesus and the woman remain.
10 Jesus stood up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” 11 She said, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more.”
Now, we do see grace from Jesus.
Jesus’ purpose for coming into the world was salvation.
John 3:17 says:
For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.
Jesus doesn’t bring the hammer down.
Throughout the gospels, we see people coming to Jesus in their sins, or Jesus showing awareness of their sins.
The main point of the passage is the law and Jesus’ adherence to the Law and his honor for the law.
But that doesn’t mean that grace is absent from the story.
Because Jesus is gracious to sinners.
And we too should be.
It can be so easy to be cynical about the world, about sin, about people. It can be so easy to judge others, to judge their hearts and their motivations, when we don’t know people’s hearts and motivations, and experiences.
We need to ask ourselves when we’re tempted to feel judgmental about someone.
Is it out of pride? Is it to feel better about ourselves and our own sinfulness?
Or is it out a righteous desire to see God honored? Is it out of a righteous love for what is just and right? Is it out of a righteous love for sinful people and desire to see their salvation, repentance, and sanctification?
We should ask ourselves those questions.
Because it can be easy to just be snarky and critical.
Is judgment sinful?
It is when we feel like we’re better than someone or look down on them.
It is when it blinds us to our own sinfulness.
It’s not when we see a person’s life isn’t honoring Christ and bringing them to God.
At the end of the passage, Jesus says to the woman: “Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more.”
He doesn’t condemn her, but he calls her to holiness.
From now on, sin no more.
Jesus is gracious. But he never, ever affirms sin.
He never celebrates sin, he never says sin is good or doesn’t matter.
His death shows that it matters. He didn’t die for us because our sins weren’t that big a deal.
He is gracious when we sin, and we should rejoice in that. But Jesus also calls us to holiness, and for that, we should also rejoice. Because a righteous life, a life dedicated to God is the best way to live.
There is forgiveness when we sin because we have a savior.
Our world likes to think the absence of judgment is love.
Jesus shows love. He gives his life to redeem sinners.
Jesus shows us love, because he points us to real life, and in pointing to the life to which he has called us, Jesus desires our holiness.
So many Americans have put their hope in the results of this election, and amazingly, no one is happy. Yet another reason not to make everything in life about politics. It does appear that former Vice President Joe Biden has the inside track to victory. But there will be legal challenges and litigation.
For conservatives, obviously the frustration is that Trump looks like he’s on the verge of losing. For liberals, while they’re happy that Trump looks like he’s about to lose, there still doesn’t seem to be much satisfaction because this election was not the blue wave the pollsters projected and for which Democrats hoped.
The world is not going to end
People on both sides argued why this election was the end all, be all. For Democrats, a Trump victory would have basically been a second vote for Hitler and everyone would die from Covid. For Republicans, blue wave was to be the beginning of the Reign of Terror. Court packing, new blue states added, the abolition of the electoral college, of churches, of freedom of speech, and the second amendment.
Now it looks like Biden will be moving to the White House and it’s likely that the republicans will retain control of the Senate. Which means the next two years will be pretty quiet. Which means that contrary to what we’ve heard all year, this was not “the most important election in American history.”
Stolen election?
There have been lots of concerns of voter fraud. I’m not an expert on election laws. I do trust things will be done in accordance with state laws. But I don’t see any evidence for massive illegality and fraud. I’ve heardlots of suggestions.
Half the country won’t accept the results
We’ve gone the last four years of people saying that Trump stole the 2016 election. Unfounded. People said the same thing about George W. Bush in 2000. If Biden wins, people on the right will say this election was stolen with fraud. If Trump were to shock the world and somehow win Pennsylvania, Arizona, and Georgia, the Democrats would say the vote was suppressed and Biden was the rightful winner.
The political division is incredible. The name calling. The condescension. The assumptions we make about the people who support the other candidate. It’s unfortunate.
We have so many news sources, websites, social media platforms, and “fact” checking websites, all to backup one’s adopted views. For many, more and more time is invested, which raises the level of interest (because you have to psychologically justify the amount of time spent following politics). It becomes a vicious cycle and fosters an environment of perpetual debate. It’s the most popular reality show in the world.
Because we are more constantly needing to defend our views, in arguments, we dig our heels in and we make these things out to be much bigger issues than they oftentimes are. We tie our happiness and joy to whether or not our person wins. We tie our hope for the future prosperity and potential of our society into whether or not our person wins.
And because people get so invested, it means million are going to become obnoxious and have a false sense of hope in the Messianic figure they’ve made their candidate to be. And millions more will think we’re doomed as a society, that our last hope is gone, that we’ve elected a dictator-to-be.
I think far too many people, on both sides of the political aisle, look at our politicians as saviors. We place too much hope in imperfect people. If your life is going great, it’s not because of the president. And if your life is terrible, it’s not because of the president.
I also see this within Christianity. Too many people of faith fall into the same traps that many in our society do. Of putting too much stock into politics. Of focusing too much on things that are far away and distant than things that are right within our own communities and neighborhoods. Christians need to understand that, regardless of which candidate you support – and I know many who support both major candidates – that if your candidate loses, there’s no reason to lose hope, because there’s no reason to place hope in any person.
That’s not to say we should be apathetic or oblivious to what’s going on in our world. But to remember that God is God, he is good, he is sovereign. Regardless of what happens in Washington, that everyday is an opportunity to know God and serve him. That regardless of if a politician we don’t like is in power, that this doesn’t hinder our knowledge of God. I’m not saying we should lie down and give up our rights, but to keep perspective.
I see stories of the oppression of people throughout the history of the world, and the oppression that many still face. Even in those times, God’s Church has grown. We put our comfort on a pedestal. The Bible continually talks of tests and trials. They’re part of life. It’s not that these things are good in themselves but that they don’t hinder our opportunity to know God and have faith in him. Again, that’s not to say anyone should have the desire to be oppressed, but I also feel like the things that Christians face in America pale in comparison to the things that God’s people face in other places and at other times.
There are many things that influence our lives. And Christians have a daily opportunity to live lives of faith, to model the love of Christ, and to tell people a message that transforms a soul for eternity (rather than a country for 4 years). There might be issues where we think a president will have great influence (and sometimes they undoubtedly do), but even when our candidate isn’t in power, it’s not a reason to give up. It’s a reason to get involved.
An updated version of “the next president is not a savior” from November 7, 2016.
Vice presidential candidate (and possible president, if the ticket wins), Kamala Harris shared an ad on her social media sites this weekend talking about equality vs equity.
It’s a 50 second spot narrated by Harris which begins: “so there’s a big difference between equality and equity. Equality suggests how everyone should get the same amount. The problem with that, not everybody’s starting out from the same place. So if we’re all getting the same amount, but you started back there and I started out over here – we could get the same amount, but you’re still going to be that far back behind me. It’s about giving people the resources and the support they need, so that everyone can be on equal footing and then compete on equal footing. Equitable treatment means we all end up at the same place.”
It’s the last sentence of that ad that’s especially noteworthy. “Equitable treatment means we all end up at the same place?”
I realize it’s a campaign ad. It’s pandering.
But really consider the logic of what she’s saying. The government cannot guarantee we all get to the same place because of the uniqueness of people. And the only way to even attempt to make such a thing happen would be for the government to control every aspect of life: education, industries, wages.
But even if that happened, we can’t all get to the same place. Because we’re different. Some people have better parents than others. You can’t guarantee equity in upbringing. Some people are more attractive than others, which attracts other attractive people. So you can’t guarantee equity in relationships and marriage. We don’t have equal genetics. Some of us are more prone to diseases or obesity. People have different skills, different interests.
Someone might say, “but it’s a great vision!”
No it isn’t.
She’s selling people an idea that the government should take care of every aspect of their lives. That isn’t a great thing for people. It’s dehumanizing. Because the ability to succeed, to take risks, to fail, to learn from failure and overcome adversity is part of what makes us human. Not some utopian vision of everyone having the same results in life.
It’s also hypocritical. She’s saying we should all get to the same place. Well she’s a vote away from being the vice president. She has the best healthcare a person can have. She has a big staff that tends to her. She has secret service protection.
Reminds me of Orwell’s famous line from “Animal Farm” “all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”
