Casting Stones

This blog is designed to give people an inner look at a devotional life. Taking time each day to spend time with the Lord. The hope is if you travel on this journey with Rev. Jacob Shaw, you may be more inclined to spend time with the Lord as well. I encourage the use of a devotional, a scripture reading and prayer, then finally some form of artistic mark to tie it all together. 

Today's devotional is taken from: Zacharias, Ravi. The Logic of God: 52 Christian Essentials for the Heart and Mind. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2019. [E-Book] Chapter 42: Casting Stones

Opening Thought: I will begin by sharing with you the second last line from Zacharias’ reading for today, “The Judge of all the earth cannot be fooled by shades of meaning, nor was Christ obliterated by the shadows of death." The one thing I have always found puzzling his how many people seem to think they can pull a fast-one on God. This usually happens when people lie to themselves to justify a behaviour that they know God would frown upon. I do believe that God’s character has an immense amount of mercy so if we sin, it is not the end of us. Divine Mercy can bring us back from the edge of obliteration, but we cannot welcome mercy into our lives if we insist we have done nothing wrong. Also, it would seem odd to think that one could fool an omniscient being.

If you are finding it hard to think of a reference of what fooling God could look like, let me give you an example. When I was in University, I was trying to find a copy of a movie, I wanted to do a report about this particular film for a class. Many of the movie rental stores were going under at this point, due to the increase popularity of live streaming, so I was having trouble securing a copy of the film. One of the students I lived with in the dormitories suggested I obtain the film via peer-to-peer file sharing software. In my youth I had used these programs before, before I realized what they were, fancy ways of pirating film, music, and television. I had stopped using them because I did not like the idea of doing something immoral. I said to the young lady I was talking to, “you’re Jewish correct, don’t you have a moral problem with steeling.” Her response was a response that I heard many times before, “it’s not really steeling, it’s file sharing, and besides it’s not like Hollywood is starving for money. No one is getting hurt here.”

It can be very tempting to pull a fast-one on God, but we are not fooling God, only ourselves.

The devotional begins with: John 8:7-11

When they kept on questioning him, he … said to them, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” Again, he stooped down and wrote on the ground. At this, those who heard began to go away one as a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left … “Woman where are they? Had no one condemned you?” “No one, sir,” she said. “Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared, “Go now and leave your life of sin.”

Second Thought: I remember people often would quote this passage as a way of saying we cannot judge, at all. This is just not the case. In fact, Luke 17:3 said, “If your brother or sister sins against you, rebuke them; and if they repent, forgive them.” You cannot rebuke your brother or sister if you do not make first a judgement to say, yes, they did something that needs to be addressed. So, if this passage is not about stopping judgement, what is it about? Well, the context is that the Pharisees at the time were trying to trap Jesus, they wanted him to say something they could find legal fault with. They were so desperate to do so they were going to stone this woman to death to make their point. Jesus in his wisdom, throws their argument around on them, revealing to them their own sins. If they were going to use the law to kill this woman because of her sins, they would have to do it to themselves as well. The part in the scripture where Jesus “stooped down and wrote on the ground”, some scholars think Jesus wrote out each of the accuser sins for all too see, hence why they left so quickly. But the story doesn’t end there, Jesus never says, “everyone sins so don’t judge.” Jesus says “I don’t condemn you … Go now and leave your life of sin.” Christ last words to the woman were for her to give up sinning, this is also a judgement, why would she have to give it up if it were okay to sin?

Jesus shows us that the law is there to point us away from sin, not to destroy us when we sin. Sin is the destructive force upon us, not the law.           

Continual Work: Think through your life and ask yourself when have you ever tried to justify you sin? Be honest with yourself, because God will be honest with you!

What Rev. Jacob is Working On: I have certainly justified sin before, we all have. I would not trust a person who said they had not. What help though, is when you come to honestly believe in God and trust Jesus, the less you want sin to be a fact in your life. That is part of the Good News itself.

Prayer for your day: Father in Heaven, help us to live a life where we sin no more. There are so many ways in which we can fall short of the glory of You, but we know Your mercy raises us up when we fall. Amen.

Artistic Close: Nothing like a stony beach, not the nicest for your feet to walk on, but it is always nice to look at the variety of stones in the world, each like little planetoids. One of my favorite things to do in summer, is to go to the beach and cast stones over the water, see if you can make it skip. If you need time to reflect about God, yourself, and sin. This is a good pastime to do so. Just be careful not to hit anyone.