People like John 8--the story of the woman caught in adultery. They like it because Jesus doesn't judge the woman. And neither should we. We should, in the words of the most popular Bible verse of the day, "Judge not."
As it turns out, this isn't quite accurate.
The word, judge, means "to form an opinion or conclusion about." It doesn't necessarily include a sentence phase. It means at its core to discriminate in the sense of telling the difference. The word used in Matt 7:1 is κρίνω--krinō. It means to distinguish. "Condemn", on the other hand, isn't quite the same. It means "to express complete disaproval; to sentence someone to punishment." In John 8:11 the word is κατακρίνω--katakrinō. You can see that it is connected to the Matthew 7 word, but not the same. It means to judge against.
So, which did Jesus do in the John 8 story? They tell me He did neither. I disagree. In John 8:11 He says, "Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more." The question was "Should we stone her?" (John 8:4-6). Stoning would be condemning. Jesus didn't condemn her, didn't sentence her to punishment, didn't judge against her. But He did judge her. He told her, "From now on sin no more." That is, "You have sinned; don't do it anymore."
The world wants us to shut up about sin. They try to point to Jesus for that. It just doesn't work.
1 comment:
And, pointing out that something is a sin, and picking up stones to throw at people and kill them, are two totally different things. If someone says that my porn habit is a sin, that doesn't mean that they are ready to kill me by stoning. So, in turn, I can't say, "Hey!!!, you hypocrites!!! let the one of you who has never ever sinned throw the first stone!!!" either. But whether do want to stone me, or they simply love me enough to advise me that it is not a good thing to get involved in, either way, the sin of someone else does not give me a pass on my own porn habit... as some would have us believe.
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