This or That?

One of the things that Jesus' critics did during the time that He walked the earth was to try to ask questions that had two possible answers, but both answers could be used as grounds for an accusation. One of their favorite scenarios stems from the fact that Israel was under Roman rule at the time. Roman law didn't necessarily match up with the Law of Moses, so by asking him about a situation where the two sets of laws contradicted each other, they hoped to draw Jesus into making a statement that would either qualify as heresy, because it went against the Law of Moses, or insurrection, because it went against the law of the Roman Empire.
For example, they brought to Him a woman taken "in the very act" of adultery. I have mentioned this before, but, I still don't understand how you catch one person committing adultery. The point was, though, that under Moses' Law, she should be taken outside the city and stoned to death. That must be a terrible way to die. Under Roman law, though, her punishment would be, well, nothing, (unless she were a married woman and then her husband had the right to exact vengeance, but I don't think that was the situation here). In any case, death by stoning was not an option under Roman law, and one would have to go through the Roman Courts in order to get her sentenced at all. If they just took her out and stoned her, the Romans would consider that murder. So they asked Jesus what they should do. Not that they cared what was actually the right thing to do, they just wanted to either hear Him tell them to obey the Law of Moses (which would be insurrection against the Romans), or to obey the Roman law (which would be heresy against Mosaic Law). Personally, I can't help but wonder how these righteous men, leaders of the temple, pillars of the community, once they got it into their heads that this was a good way to trap Jesus, how did they know where to find a woman sleeping with another woman's husband? In any case, what Jesus so famously said was, "Let the one among you who is without sin, cast the first stone." He wrote something on the ground; we are not told what it was, but it seems to me that He must have written something to indicate that He knew exactly what sins each of those men were guilty of. A little reminder, in case any of them wanted to try to pretend that they were sinless. Something to put them on notice that He knew (of course, that would indicate that these men were so callous that even when they found out that Jesus knew every thing they’d ever done, they still refused to accept the idea that He was God manifest in the flesh). I don't know that for sure, it's supposition, but I think it must have been something like that.
They tried to get Him with tribute money, too. Should we pay taxes to Caesar, or no? Well, aren’t you using Roman money? Aren’t you already legitimizing the Roman government in so doing? “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” Or, obey the laws of the government over you, but don’t forget to obey God’s law, too.
Sometimes we find ourselves facing a decision. Do I do this, or do I do that? Sometimes the right answer isn't either one of the two obvious choices; but it takes a lot of prayer to find God's will for our lives. Don't get trapped with the wrong choice because it seems like the lesser of two evils (well, except maybe in the voting booth, because God uses imperfect politicians, too).

Questions, questions

Some people are just argumentative; if you tell them that the sky is blue, they want to point out that when it’s stormy, then the sky is really more of a gray color. When you point out that it isn’t stormy, then they say, well, not right now, and not here; but later on it may be, or somewhere else it probably is. If you continue to talk to them, they will suck up your whole day arguing about things that don’t really matter.
Sometimes people want to argue the Gospel. You don’t want to just dismiss them, because it is important, but, a lot of times, it doesn’t really matter what you say to them, they just want to argue. It’s also sometimes hard to tell if someone has a legitimate concern, or if they are just being argumentative.
If someone asks, “Can God make a rock so big that even He can’t lift it?” then it’s a pretty safe bet that they just want to give you grief. I have heard some interesting answers to that question: One guy answered, “God made you, didn’t He?” but that answer requires a little inside information. In the education field (particularly military education) it is generally understood that there are two extreme types of learners (most people fall somewhere in between); there are those who absorb every piece of information you can give them, as fast as you can give it to them (these people are known as ‘sponges’), and then there are those who don’t seem capable of absorbing anything (‘rocks’). Another popular answer is, “Yes, God can make a rock so big that it’s impossible for Him to lift, it, but, then, lift it anyway, because with God, all things are possible.” My personal favorite is, “Yes, God could make a rock so big that even He can’t lift it, but He won’t, because then there would be something He couldn’t do.” That answer usually makes the questioner mad, because he/she didn’t want an intelligent answer, they wanted to be able to say, “See, there’s something God can’t do!” Granted, some people ask questions like that just because they are trying to be clever, but those people generally don’t get nearly as upset.
One good thought-provoking question is, “What do you think Jesus wrote on the ground?” I think that if it were important, then the Bible would tell us what Jesus wrote on the ground. My best guess would be that He wrote down the names of the men who were there holding stones, and He listed some of their more recent and more prominent sins. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if He did not write out dates and times that each of them had been with the adulteress that they were accusing (or, if not her, then someone like her). One suggestion is that He simply wrote, “Where is the man?” in big letters. After all, they said that they took her “in the very act,” I don’t think that she was committing that particular act alone. Did the man get away somehow, or was he right there with them, ready to stone this woman? To be honest, that’s something I’d like to know, but I realize that it must not be important.
In any case, we are instructed to avoid foolish and unlearned questions. It doesn’t really matter if they are argumentative or thought-provoking, what does matter is if answering that question actually helps somebody, even if only in a small way. We don’t have to let people just waste our time, but, we do have to be ready to give an answer of the hope that lies within us.

The Answer Is in Your Hands

There is an old legend about a wise old man who lived in a village, and a young man in the same village that decided to best the old man. "I'll show people that he's not so smart." So he took a bird, and he held the bird behind his back, with the bird's body in one hand, and it's head in the other. He then challenged the old man to tell him whether the bird was alive or dead; thinking that, if the old man answered that the bird was dead, he could produce the living bird, but if the old man answered 'alive,' then he could wring the bird's neck and produce the dead bird. The old man simply replied, "The answer is in your hands."

In John 8, the scribes and the pharisees brought a woman to Jesus who had been taken 'in the very act' of adultery, and asked him whether they should stone her. He stooped down and started writing on the ground, as if he didn't hear them. Eventually He made the now-famous statement, "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her."

There are all kinds of subtleties to this situation: First of all, if she was taken in the very act, shouldn't there have been another participant? It's doggone difficult to commit adultery alone. Secondly, what was it He was writing in the dirt? Third, if they really wanted to see justice done, why were they coming to Him, and not to the established legal system? (of course, the passage answers that question: they came to Him specifically so that they could make an accusation against Him) What accusation were they trying to concoct? Wouldn't they have expected Jesus to commend the law of Moses?

All right, let's take this one step at a time: First, where was the man? I can only speculate; the Bible doesn't say. Let me suggest that it isn't really important, the point of the story is to teach us forgiveness. As far as my personal opinion, I suspect that he was standing right there with a stone in his hand. Consider for a moment, that the whole idea here was to find some excuse to accuse Jesus of something. That means that these religious people went looking for an adulteress, and were fortunate enough to catch one red-handed. How did they know where to look for one? I suspect that they had a pretty good idea where to find one, because they had each sought out such a woman in the past. When they found her, she was with one of their own--but that didn't matter, because the object of the exercise was to get Jesus (it's been said that Jews do not recognize Jesus as the Messiah, Protestants don't recognize the Pope as the leader of the Christian church, and Southern Baptists don't recognize each other at Hooters; not to suggest that Southern Baptists are really any different than the rest of us--but I think that the Pharisees must have had that mindset as well--it's human nature to overlook the faults of one's friends).

Second, what did He write? Again, pure speculation, the Bible doesn't say. It was probably something very personal to the men standing in judgment. One thing that has been suggested: It was a list of the names of the woman's accusers, with recently committed sins (possibly even dates and times that they had been with her). After all, He was God manifest in the flesh, He would have known these things, but, it might have been a greater show of power than He was willing to give them. Someday, I'll get a chance to ask Him, in person (and He may just tell me that I don't need to know).

Third, the accusation. This is the part that most people don't get. Under the law of Moses, she should have been stoned. However, Israel was under Roman occupation. Adultery was not a capital crime under Roman law. As a matter of fact, stoning was not allowed under Roman rule (why do you think that the Pharisees didn't just take Jesus out and stone Him?); that would have been considered murder. If Jesus had said, "Stone her," then they could have accused Him to the Romans of not obeying Roman law. If He had simply said, "Let her go," then they could have accused Him to the people of Israel as not respecting the law of Moses. They figured that, either way He answered, they could get Him in trouble with somebody. They didn't really care who.

Again, this isn't really important. The important thing was that it was a lesson in forgiveness. None of us are perfect, each of us will need forgiveness at various times along our journey. We have to be willing to forgive others. That's not always easy, but if we understand that even those people that we have the hardest time getting along with are not that mush different from ourselves, and that, in some ways, forgiving others is forgiving one's self. Can you forgive others? The answer is in your hands.

Marital Relations

The Bible talks a good bit about marriage. Of course, a lot of things have changed since the Bible was written, but people remain very much the same. Some of what was written is not as clear as it was, because of changes in culture, but it still applies.

There is a passage in Matthew chapter 5 that I had to spend a lot of time and prayer before I felt like I understood it. Jesus talks about putting away one's wife for cause of fornication, but then says that if she marries someone else, she is committing adultery. Now, I wondered about this for a long time, because my understanding of the two words, 'fornication' and 'adultery' is that adultery is between two people, at least one of whom is married, but are not married to each other; fornication is between two people, neither of whom is married. So, the question in my mind was, how does a married woman (and this principle works the other way also--even though Jesus was talking about a man divorcing a woman, a woman can divorce a man, too. That probably didn't much happen in that culture, but, let's face it, what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander) commit fornication? Someone suggested that maybe it could be considered fornication if the other person isn't married. I struggled with that for awhile, until I realized that, right there in the same verse, Jesus says that if she that has been put away marries someone else, then she is committing adultery, and the man that she marries is committing adultery. Obviously, this judgment comes from an understanding that the divorce isn't valid, she is still married; so why would the same act be considered fornication before the meaningless divorce, and adultery afterwards?

The Bible also makes many comparisons between the relationship of a husband and wife and the relationship of Christ to the church. In John 3:29, John the Baptist refers to himself as the friend of the bridegroom; Matthew 25 refers to the coming of Christ as a wedding, with those that were ready at the time of His coming being the bride; Matthew 22 has a parable about a great king throwing a wedding feast for his son (who could that be?); and Revelations 19 talks about the marriage of the Lamb. This is an example of the Bible using a physical thing that people generally understand, to try to explain something spiritual. Jesus did that a lot in His teachings, because we are physical creatures, and we sometimes have a hard time understanding spiritual things. So, in the spiritual sense, we are betrothed to Christ, and, when He returns, then we will be His bride.

So, in the first paragraph, when the passage uses the term, 'fornication,' it is talking in the spiritual sense, not the physical, since a married person cannot commit fornication; but we are not yet married to Christ. And just in case it wasn't clear, Apostle Paul spells it out for us in 1st Corinthians 7. If a brother or sister is married to an unbeliever (by the way, I don't think Paul is advocating religious mixed marriages, but if a couple gets married, and then one of them accepts Christ, or if one of a Christian couple decides that they no longer believe, either way, a Christian man or woman is now married to an unbeliever, through no fault of their own) then the Christian has no right to end that marriage, but if the unbeliever chooses to go a different way, then that marriage is dissolved, the Christian is not bound to that individual any longer.

So, does that mean that adultery is not a good enough reason to get a divorce? Not in and of itself, no, really it isn't. On the other hand, it's unlikely that a Christian spouse would commit adultery. Don't misunderstand me, we are imperfect people, and sometimes we slip. If one of us were to stumble that badly, but to confess, and to show contrition, then the spouse is required to forgive, just as God forgives. Keep in mind also, though, that even though Jesus said that you must forgive until seventy times seven, I don't think that's talking about the same sin, over and over again. If I stole a car, and then confessed, and returned the car, and then went out and stole another car, would you believe that I had repented of stealing the first car? Maybe I repented that I didn't steal a nicer car... By the same token, if you catch your spouse cheating on you, and they confess, and make a show of repentance, but then later you catch them again, I think that you can assume that they are being unfaithful to both you and God: Toss that person out. Well, okay, I can't really tell you that you have to, you may be of a mind that once is a slip, twice is just the same slip again, and even three times is just evidence that your spouse has a weakness. Pray about that. Hard. An unfaithful spouse can bring home a whole world of trouble that you really don't need.