Casting Stones

As I was studying “Come Follow Me", I came upon the story in the New Testament of the Woman taken in adultery. It is as follows:

John 8

2 And early in the morning he came again into the temple, and all the people came unto him; and he sat down, and taught them.

3 And the scribes and Pharisees brought unto him a woman taken in adultery; and when they had set her in the midst,

4 They say unto him, Master, this woman was taken in adultery, in the very act.

5 Now Moses in the law commanded us, that such should be stoned: but what sayest thou?

6 This they said, tempting him, that they might have to accuse him. But Jesus stooped down, and with his finger wrote on the ground, as though he heard them not.

As I was trying to understand the context of the story, the thought of stoning caught my attention and so I searched for information, and I quickly found this definition:

Stoning is a form of a rapid capital punishment in which the convicted criminal is put to death by having stones thrown at them, generally by a crowd. In some cultures, this was seen as allowing the larger community to participate in the administration of justice.

I decided that the definition fits the story well. There was a crowd of scribes and Pharisees who had taken the woman in the very act of adultery, so her guilt was without doubt, and therefore a convenient time to administer justice rapidly as recommended by the law of Moses.  It was also a perfect opportunity for the scribes and Pharisees to force the Savior into a debate in order to discredit Him and his teachings in front of those He taught.

However, Jesus responded in an unexpected way. He stooped down, and with his finger wrote on the ground, as though he did not hear them.  

His silence must have felt awkward to all who had gathered, but carefully consider how he was able to brilliantly teach both the woman and her accusers without condemning either with only a simple phrase and then silence.

The passage of scripture is below with the rest of the story from the Bible:

7 ….He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a cstone at her.

8 And again he stooped down, and wrote on the ground.

Notice once again that Jesus used again the uncomfortable silence in order to teach them.

9 And they which heard it, being convicted by their own conscience, went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, even unto the last: and Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst.

10 When Jesus had lifted up himself, and saw none but the woman, he said unto her, Woman, where are those thine accusers? hath no man condemned thee?

11 She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more, (JST) And the woman glorified God from that hour and believed on his name.

The Joseph Smith translation reveals that the woman was changed, and she became a converted follower of Jesus Christ because of the kind way He taught her.  Hopefully, her accusers were changed in a similar manner!

This is a beautiful story of the Lord’s mercy to all and reminds us that we are never in a position to judge one another because we all make mistakes. 

You can find another interesting layer in this story when you look at the footnote for the word “stone” found in verse 7 of the English version of the Bible.(The Spanish version does not have the footnote)  The footnote compares the word “stone” to gossip. Just like stoning, gossip is a rapid punishment used by a crowd regardless of whether the statements are true or not true. It is defined in the guide to the scriptures as anything that a person would NOT want you to share about them.  

We have all been victims of gossip so we know that it hurts, yet maybe we should also take an uncomfortable moment of silence to think about how we have hurt others with our gossip. I hate to say this, but without realizing it, we act like a big ugly crowd whenever we communicate information about another person that is not appreciated by them.   We may not think of ourselves as barbaric enough to throw stones at a person in a public square, but we don’t think twice about inflicting the same damage when we talk about others in small groups. The Jews & Pharisees were so focused on throwing stones and discrediting Jesus that they did not recognize their Savior, so instead, they crucified Him.  Satan uses the same powerful tool today in our “shame culture” and because of its pervasiveness, we often don’t see the danger in it.

I invite you in the coming days to take many uncomfortable moments of silence to evaluate your conversations to see if you can improve.  It takes a personal commitment of a collection of individuals to make the needed changes in our culture to make a difference, but if we do, we can align our culture with the beautiful message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ which is one of belonging, one of love and one of acceptance.

Here is a video of the story: