THOSE WOMEN! LESSON 4: FAITH, HOPE AND CHARITY

And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity. 1 Corinthians 13:13 (KJV)

In the last few chapters we have met three anonymous ladies who crossed paths with Jesus. None is given a name. We know them as the Samaritan Woman at the Well, the Canaanite or Syro-Phoenician Woman and the Adulterous Woman. We could just as easily call them Hope, Faith and Charity. Jesus went to the Samaritan Woman and gave her the hope of Salvation. The Canaanite Woman came to Jesus in Faith. The Adulterous Woman was brought to Jesus and received charity.

We want to spend some more time talking about Charity, the Adulterous Woman. There are some who claim she was Mary Magdalene, but I see no reason for this. 

Who was Mary of Magdala?

After this, Jesus traveled about from one town and village to another, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God. The Twelve were with him, and also some women who had been cured of evil spirits and diseases: Mary (called Magdalene) from whom seven demons had come out; Joanna the wife of Cuza, the manager of Herod's household; Susanna; and many others. These women were helping to support them out of their own means. Luke 8:1-3 (NIV)

Mary was a woman from a town on the Sea of Galilee called Magdala. We are told Jesus had driven seven demons from her and she became a follower and supporter of his ministry. This passage in Luke is her first mention and it is at the beginning of Jesus’ second tour of Galilee perhaps a year or more before the encounter with the Adulterous Woman. It is possible that Mary came to Judea with him for the Feast, but it seems highly unlikely she would be the woman caught in the act of adultery there. Certainly His reaction would have been different if it were Mary Magdalene thrust before him in that situation.

Let’s pick up where Jesus was writing in the dirt:

So when they continued asking Him, He raised Himself up and said to them, “He who is without sin among you, let him throw a stone at her first.” And again He stooped down and wrote on the ground.

Then those who heard it, being convicted by their conscience, went out one by one, beginning with the oldest even to the last. And Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst.

When Jesus had raised Himself up and saw no one but the woman, He said to her, “Woman, where are those accusers of yours? Has no one condemned you?”

She said, “No one, Lord.”

And Jesus said to her, “Neither do I condemn you; go and sin no more.”

Then Jesus spoke to them again, saying, “I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life.” John 8:7-12 (NIV)

It is very interesting how so many people want to put the emphasis of this encounter on the line, “He who is without sin among you, let him throw a stone at her first”. Isn’t that so convenient and self-serving. Boy, we can behave anyway we want and do whatever pleases us, and because we know you aren’t perfect you better not say anything about it. They misuse this one saying because they miss all the better ones.

At the end of the encounter Jesus asks the women a question, “Woman, where are those accusers of you? Has no one condemned you?”

She replies, “No one, Lord.“

Did Jesus say, “You are forgiven, go in peace”?

No, he said,  “Neither do I condemn you; go and sin no more.”

The Pharisees thought they could catch Jesus either sounding hypocritical by saying “stone her” or breaking the Law by saying, “don’t stone her”. Neither happened.

His saying, “him who is without sin cast the first stone” did not excuse the behavior of the woman because of these men’s sins. It simply showed the hearts of the men were not in the spirit of the Law. These men were using this woman’s sin to entrap someone they wished to shut up. There was no love, mercy or justice in the hearts of these men.

Jesus not condemning the woman wasn’t because “everybody does it”. Perhaps He did what he did as a demonstration of the love, mercy and grace of God, putting into practice what he preached without sinning against the Law. However, if this had been a proper accusation, with the needed witnesses the outcome might have been different. 

Take note, he admonished the woman, and in doing so confirmed she was indeed guilty of the charge. He said, “Go and sin no more.”  We can argue the semantics over whether not condemning her was equivalent to forgiving her. You can choose to not inflict a punishment upon someone and still not forgive the crime. She was not simply let off scot free. It came with the admonishment to sin no more. Can we add to that, "less something worse befall you".

Yes, there is mercy shown, but also an important component of salvation, repentance. 

In the Samaritan Woman we saw Jesus bring the hope of salvation through the recognition of our sins and that God offers a way to escape sin’s condemnation.

In the Canaanite Woman we saw we must come to Jesus with believing faith in his power.

In the Adulterous Woman we see we need to be open to repentance as a result of God’s charity.

We also see it doesn’t matter who we are or what we’ve done when we are at that moment before Jesus. We can stand there as we are and as long as we have faith in Him, we will be acceptable, and it is in that acceptance we will find the way to repentance.

Now, is it wrong to point out bad behavior in others when we ourselves sin? Was this simply an illustration of men pointing out the speck in the eye of the woman when they had a 2x4 in their own?

These men certainly had big pieces of lumber in their eyes, but that is not the reason they shouldn’t have pointed out the woman’s sin. Even if these men had been as pure as the wind-driven cliché they would have been wrong. They would have been wrong because they did not do it out of love for the woman or love for God.

It is wrong to point out another’s bad behavior for our own gain or to belittle that person’s standing before others or to puff up our own reputation or for the practice of gossip.

However, if it is done with love it is not only not wrong to point out bad behavior; it is obligatory. Why, if you love someone, would you allow him or her to harm themselves or others? Pointing out someone’s bad behavior is not condemning the person; it is saving them. If my child is playing in a busy street, ducking between moving vehicles, is it wrong for me to admonish him or her to stay on the sidewalk because at sometime in my life I jaywalked?

Is it wrong to tell someone they should not be getting drunk every Saturday night? It may not be wrong, but it probably won’t be accepted gracefully if I’m getting drunk every Friday night. It is certainly not wrong just because I got drunk in my past and repented. Then I probably know of what I speak and am doing it out of love and concern for that person.

In case you didn’t take notice, Jesus practiced love and mercy on those Pharisees, too.

They were His enemy and they were perverting God’s Law for the selfish purpose of harming Jesus. Yet, he didn’t condemn them either. His statement about who should throw the first stone actually made them realize their action was sin too. They were convicted. They repented of their action and went away. We don’t know if they went on to sin no more or not. We really don't know that about the woman either.

What patience, what love, what mercy God show to us all. 

We should do the same.

Illustration: “Faith, Hope and Charity”, an illustration for Dante’s The Divine Comedy by Gustave Dore

NEXT: BRIEF ENCOUNTERS WITH WOMEN WITH SERIOUS PROBLEMS

MY LITTLE WHITE LAMB: INTRODUCTION TO THIS STUDY

 INTRODUCTION

    

 When I was a kid, I wrote a song that was published by Crown Music, a New York Publisher. A couple years later it was  recorded by the one and only Ben Tate on Ronnie Records. Soon after that, Mr. Tate and my song disappeared into obscurity.

Since my father generally chose the music played about our house, when he was home, my song followed his preference so was in the Country genre. The opening lines were:

"You came into my life like a little white lamb;
But you went out like a big roarin' lion..."

There I was a Junior High Geek back in 1955 writing and singing about unrequainted love; yodling about some fickle truck stop waitress "leavin me alone and blue".

Good grief, I hadn't even been out on a actual date yet! (Yeah, that be me on the right back then.)

Nope, hadn't been on a date yet, but I had been threatened with reform school, but I didn't do any singing about that.

Thinking about the song I did write certainly reminds me how something can sneak into your life like "a little white lamb", but grow into a roarin' lion. I was 14 when I penned the song and I didn't become a Christian for another 30 years. Believe me, there were a number of sneaky white lambs becoming big roaring lions prowling about trying to devour me during those intervening years.

Say, Satan prowling around like a roaring lion, might make a bumber sticker...Oh wait, that's been done, somebody else said that about Satan first. Think I read it somewhere.

 I have never been big on Bumper Sticker evangelism.  One I did like was "Christians aren't perfect -- Just forgiven." Ain't that the truth! A lot of us forget that truism though.

There are a couple of problems with advertising what you are with signs and stickers.

For one, a bumper sticker is just a snippet that doesn't explain what it means. As a Christian I may know what it means, but I read an Atheist Blog where they interpreted this cute little aphorism as a declaration of our elitist, smug, superior attitude, restating it as "Christians aren't perfect - They just think they're better than you."

 What is one to do now, get a bumber sticker that says, "Am not!"

The second problem is you are advertising what you claim to be. Now don't misunderstand me. I'm not trying to hide what I am. I'll tell you or anyone I'm a Christian. I try to live my life so it reflects that fact in the most positive way so others will say, "he's different"; then ask the question, "Why?"

 In other words, it is important to show your Christianity by your behavior, not just by the signs you hang around your neck or paste on your car. It is wise you remember that you aren't perfect if you do go about with  a Glow-in-the-Dark Jesus Fish on your trunk or a twenty-pound cross dangling from your neck, not that there is anything wrong with any of that (although that twenty-pound cross may cause some neck pain). You aren't going to win friends and influence people to Christ if you have a bumper sticker saying, "Christians Aren't Perfect - Just Forgiven" then you tailgate some guy on I-95, zoom around, cut them up and give them the finger.

They're going to say, "Yeah, Christians think they can do whatever they want 'cause God's gotta forgive them."

I would hope we would not think that way!


Of course, I'm assuming what I am saying is to fellow Christians; an assumption I shouldn't make. What is going to follow is aimed at those Born-Again, washed in the blood, Christians struggling with guilt and having problems believing their sins have been forgiven; people who wring their hands and repeatily ask for what they have already asked for and gotten
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It is also meant for those non-Christians who reject the idea of salvation believing their deeds were so awful that even God would never forgive them. 

Now my own sins were not so hideous as some when measured by the world's yardstick. I recall a number of years back a survey given on the radio saying that men of my then-age had generally engaged in a dozen affairs. I though, "Man, I gotta lot of catching up to do."

God measures us a bit deeper than the world does. Just read Jesus's definitions duing the sermon on the mount. (Matthew 5)  I didn't do so well on His scale. Or on a more baser level, we can consider a quip attributed at various times to Winston Churchill, Groucho Marx, George Bernard Shaw, Mark Twain and our old friend Bertrand Russell, among others. Whomever told it claimed to have approached a haughty society woman and asked if she would sleep with him for a million dollars. The woman quickly accepted. He then asked if she would sleep with him for $20. The woman was incensed. Angerly she demanded, "What do you think I am."

The man replied, "We've already established that; now we're just haggling over price."

Once we have broken any of the Ten Commandments we are a sinner. Once we have stole a forbidden fruit off God's tree we are a thief; it doesn't matter how many we steal. The volume of our deed doesn't alter that fact. A sin is a sin, degree doesn't matter.

I can guarentee you I was a repeat sinner, who broke many of the Commandments. And like many people I dismissed what I did as minor in the scheme of things. I didn't see where I was hurting anyone. It was my private business, not anyone else's. Besides, everybody was doing it or worse. (Actually, I can't really say that everyone was shoplifting "Girlie" magazines from their local newsstand, but you know what I mean.)


I had a number of Christians approach me with the Gospel, and they would ask, "If you died tonight, where would you be tomorrow, Heaven or Hell?"

        I always answered, "Heaven."

"How do you know," they would ask? 

"Because I think I'm a pretty nice guy, why should I go to Hell."

Even by my mid-twenties I still thought I was a nice guy, although in truth I had become an Atheist telling Ministers how foolish they were to believe such myths as the Bible; I mean, I was militant enough to walk into their churches and argue to their faces.

A person can say, "That was then; this is now" 

True, but those saved and forgiven are not perfect, are we? We still get angry sometimes and say the wrong thing. We sometimes get tempted and give in. If we do and don't recognize we have failed once again in our flesh, and if we don't feel great remorse when we do, then we need to question if we are truly saved or just giving lip service to a religion.

And sometimes someone who loves God and has that strong vertical relationship to God fails big time. We have probably all read or heard about pastors and elders who have strayed into immorality, sexual sin or dishonesty. It is always difficult when such things happen because the world watches us and when we fail we let down those who may be on the edge hoping we have answers and it gives those who mock us even more mockery to throw our way.

Yet, if we should slip even in a big way, we should not lose hope. We need to repent, to come in our remorse to God and thank him for his forgiveness and beg for our restoration.

Do we have any examples to guide us?

Yes, we have the terrible story that begins with a little white lamb.

NEXT WILL BE PART 2, THE TERRIBLE TALE OF THE LITTLE WHITE LAMB