John 8:1-6

00:00:00:34 – 00:00:30:18
Clint Loveall
Hey, everybody. Thanks for being with us. Welcome back. Happy Thanksgiving week. We’re grateful to have you as we continue through the gospel of John. And as we move into the eighth chapter and the eighth chapter brings us a very interesting passage, both in content and in background. A word before we jump into this story. Just a word about one of the things that makes it interesting.

00:00:30:22 – 00:01:05:01
Clint Loveall
It this story, appears to have been added to the Gospel of John early, but not originally. In other words, as as Bible scholars look back and they look at manuscripts and try to date them, the earliest manuscripts that we think we’ve found of the Gospel of John don’t have this story in it. And if if you look at your Bible, there may be brackets around it, or there should be a footnote that says something like that.

00:01:05:02 – 00:01:34:26
Clint Loveall
The earliest manuscripts don’t have this. There are a couple of early versions of John that even have it in a different place, and in one place it was suggested that it could even be found in some copies of the Gospel of Luke. So it appears to have been a known story. It appears to have been accepted into the gospel without a lot of fuss, but it doesn’t appear that it was part of the earliest copies we have.

00:01:34:26 – 00:02:03:13
Clint Loveall
And so therefore you might say it wasn’t in the original Gospel of John, at least as it was written. So, that’s really I don’t, I don’t maybe you have more information than that, Michael. I don’t think we know where it comes from or how it it happened to get in later. It’s a beloved story. It’s, a story that works really well in the Gospel of John.

00:02:03:18 – 00:02:13:39
Clint Loveall
We’re just not sure of its actual, origin. And what went into the decision at some point that it belonged here?

00:02:13:44 – 00:02:33:00
Michael Gewecke
Yeah, I think I would only add, Clint, that if you have not had much experience learning about how the Bible is looked at by scholars and some of that dating stuff, you know, that initial comment from Clint may sound to you to be discouraging or disturbing, and I just advise you don’t. I wouldn’t get hung up on that.

00:02:33:12 – 00:02:54:19
Michael Gewecke
Like you said, there is a sense in which that there’s good, chorus of witnesses of this being included once it is in the Gospel of John. But the people who look at Scripture, Clint, I mean, they look very, very closely at the earliest sources, and they pore over just the, the simplest dots on the piece of paper so that that itself.

00:02:54:19 – 00:03:14:56
Michael Gewecke
I do think it’s an interesting fact that the Bible you have in front of you is not just translated from other languages, it’s also very carefully scrutinized in terms of the sources of how it gets there. And, that all that said is really interesting. And if that fires your imagination, get some scholarly commentaries and do a little research on this.

00:03:14:56 – 00:03:26:36
Michael Gewecke
It will certainly be interesting. But don’t let that steal from the meaning of this story and how it’s rooted in the gospel. Because, Clint, this is, I’ll be honest with you, this one of my favorite stories in in all of the gospels, actually.

00:03:26:36 – 00:03:48:18
Clint Loveall
So yeah, one has to wonder if it wasn’t such a powerful story, would it have been accepted and cemented its place as well? I don’t know, but the reality is that this is a story that people know and they love, and it’s a powerful story. So, we’ll jump in a little ways here. I don’t know if we’ll get through all of it today.

00:03:48:18 – 00:04:07:54
Clint Loveall
We may try to break it into two days, but let me read down through part of it and we will, we’ll see where we where we go. So, each went to their own home and then verse one, chapter eight, while Jesus went to the Mount of Olives early in the morning, he came again to the temple.

00:04:07:58 – 00:04:32:04
Clint Loveall
All the people came to him. And he sat down and began to teach them. The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in the act of adultery, and making her stand before all of them, they said to him, teacher, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery. Now in the law of Moses it is commanded to us to stone such a woman.

00:04:32:09 – 00:05:01:09
Clint Loveall
What do you say? They said this to test him, so that they might have some charge to bring against him. Let’s stop there, Michael. So here’s here’s the setting. Jesus is at the temple, and this group of religious leaders bring this woman. And it’s always fascinated readers that she’s caught in the act of adultery, but they don’t catch the man.

00:05:01:13 – 00:05:24:30
Clint Loveall
It doesn’t say whether she’s married, whether he’s married, maybe they’re both married. Whatever it is, she is guilty. And I think that’s presumed by the text. She is guilty of breaking the commandment. Thou shall not commit adultery. And so she is guilty. And I think that’s an important part of the text. She was caught in the act.

00:05:24:30 – 00:05:45:49
Clint Loveall
Why they don’t bring a man there. There have been some scholars that have paid particular attention to that, or there have been some people who are particularly troubled by that. That’s just not the nature of this story. Adultery is wrong. There’s no idea here that it’s more wrong because she’s a woman, though. Women lack power in Jesus day, of course.

00:05:45:54 – 00:06:09:00
Clint Loveall
But anyway, she now stands in front of them and they have this accusation. They have witnesses. They’ve said they’ve seen it. And she is guilty. And the question before Jesus, Michael, is, what do you do with this guilty person? And the law is clear that she should be stoned. But there’s more to it than that.

00:06:09:05 – 00:06:35:40
Michael Gewecke
And the context of this story, we really, really need to make sure that we understand what’s happening here, because part of the powerful hook of this story is the plight of this very vulnerable woman. There’s there’s no escaping that. There’s a part of us that could resonate even with just the part we’ve read thus far, the the sheer embarrassment, the the kind of almost life stopping moment that’s occurring for this woman.

00:06:35:40 – 00:07:00:54
Michael Gewecke
And so because we can resonate it with it so powerfully, Clint, I think that this story can easily get hooked into our imaginations. That’s one of the powerful parts of John’s storytelling. But if that’s where you hang out, you might miss the fact that, as John introduces this story, it’s not primarily about the woman, but rather it’s about the ploy.

00:07:01:04 – 00:07:20:29
Michael Gewecke
Right? And so the characters here are introduced in verse three. The scribes and the Pharisees bring the woman and Clint to your point about, you know, the fact that this woman lacks power. I think in this story that’s only emphasized because of the fact that here she’s really just a pawn in the game of the scribes and the Pharisee.

00:07:20:29 – 00:07:49:10
Michael Gewecke
She’s being brought to Jesus because they believe, and we have it explicit at play here so that they might. This is verse six, be able to charge, him as violating the law of Moses. Right. So the scheme here really has nothing to do with the woman. She is a tool that they’re using to try to catch Jesus in a trap between grace and the law of Moses.

00:07:49:24 – 00:08:12:49
Michael Gewecke
What what should we do with these two things? And ultimately, I think that’s part of what makes this story so vilifying of those figures is because there’s a way in which, at this point, they have no cares at all about the humanity of anyone. You remember how they were more upset about the man who walked on the Sabbath than the fact that he was healed?

00:08:12:54 – 00:08:37:58
Michael Gewecke
Here’s a woman who they are prepared to take her life so that they could make a point and be able to bring charges against Jesus. So even the Gospel of John, I do think this story has a kind of flow to it within the rising tension. It rose very quickly in this book, but it’s still rising. And ultimately, I think what we see is this woman caught in there scheming and wiles.

00:08:38:09 – 00:09:01:51
Clint Loveall
Yeah. And they they believe that they have Jesus between a rock and a hard place. And so let’s just talk that through because it’s not necessarily obvious outside of their time and their culture. What the trap here is. They have the law. We we see that Jesus, we caught her. She’s guilty. Here’s what the law says. Stone her.

00:09:01:51 – 00:09:34:08
Clint Loveall
However, they live under Roman authority, and Roman authority means that they cannot enact the death penalty without themselves then being punished. So here’s the trap. If Jesus says, stone her, they run to the Romans and say, hey, there’s this man, Jesus, and he’s putting people to death or calling for execution without permission from the government. If he says, well, no, you can’t do that because of the Romans, they get to go out and say, well, Jesus is soft on law.

00:09:34:08 – 00:09:52:43
Clint Loveall
He doesn’t care what Moses says. So they believe they have Jesus in the spot where he cannot give a good answer. They are prepared to make an accusation based on either answer that he gives. And so the idea is here, Michael, that they’ve really they’ve pinned him in.

00:09:52:48 – 00:10:18:39
Michael Gewecke
The well and ultimately the the idea that they could bring this to Jesus, that they could win in the public view, I do think has some connection to we’ve already seen in the study that we’ve had thus far, Clint, that there’s been murmurings in the crowd right, about Jesus. And so you remember that debate between the Pharisees and the scribes and the temple police, right?

00:10:18:39 – 00:10:35:42
Michael Gewecke
Why didn’t you arrest him? Everyone who knows anything knows that this guy should be arrested. And this is a very public act. Make no mistake about the setting here is happening in front of the people because the Pharisees are trying to make a public point.

00:10:35:42 – 00:10:38:34
Clint Loveall
Yeah. Verse two. There all the people came to him. I mean.

00:10:38:34 – 00:11:13:07
Michael Gewecke
Yeah, yeah. And what’s at stake in that, I think, is the fact that Jesus is gaining notoriety, which John wants to be made abundantly clear, is scaring the religious powers that be that that’s rattling their grasp on power. And so therefore, when they turn to those with the least amount of power, this woman caught in the act of adultery, this woman we I just think your imagination alone is all that you need to imagine what is now going to transpire for this woman, how her life is going to be different after this moment.

00:11:13:12 – 00:11:35:37
Michael Gewecke
And yet they stand at the brink of being able to checkmate the man who’s been eluding them, the guy who’s made it past the temple guards, and the guy who’s slept through the crowds. Right in the Gospel of John. Jesus. He doesn’t need a bodyguard. Jesus doesn’t need accident or happenstance. Jesus is in control and Jesus is continuing on because it’s not his time yet.

00:11:35:42 – 00:12:03:01
Michael Gewecke
But that said, we see the Pharisees. We see these religious leaders with unbelievably specific calculus seeking to bring Jesus down. And I just think the way in which John has this story included in our gospel, as we have it now, I think there’s a kind of synchronous ness with that devising and evil intent, which John has been showing us all along thus far.

00:12:03:09 – 00:12:28:35
Clint Loveall
Yeah, the scribes and Pharisees have to feel pretty confident here. They have a guilty woman, and they have what they see as a trap that Jesus can’t get out of. And so that’s where they stand. And what we read next, this, this next part of a sentence or short sentence has probably gotten as much speculation. Yeah, as nearly anything in the gospel of John.

00:12:28:38 – 00:13:02:51
Clint Loveall
I’ll just read it for you and then we’ll come back to it. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. It is somewhat rare that the Bible would give us such an intriguing detail without helping us fill in the gaps, right? But if there’s an obvious meaning to this, we’ve lost it. If the early readers read this and said, oh yeah, we know exactly what that’s about, that has been lost to us.

00:13:02:56 – 00:13:28:55
Clint Loveall
Bible scholars love things that aren’t clear, and this is one of the favorites. So there have been all these suggestions, on the simplest level, the idea that Jesus is just saying, look, I’m not I’m not playing this game. Yeah. I’m not planning to answer you. There’s one tradition that said Jesus wrote down the names and the secret sins of each of the men.

00:13:29:00 – 00:13:50:51
Clint Loveall
That’s, you know, that’s sort of an old legend. I don’t know that that has much bearing. There’s an interesting verse in Deuteronomy that says the law was written with the finger of God and sort of from the meta perspective that Jesus as God is writing in the dirt, sort of to say, hey, look, don’t tell me about the law.

00:13:50:56 – 00:14:14:42
Clint Loveall
I wrote the law. I’m very familiar with what the law says. Or it could be that Jesus is just doodling, saying, look, this is all silly children’s games and I’m not interested in what you’re doing. But, it’s a fascinating detail, Michael, because I think we don’t understand it. It does seem to be Jesus way of disconnecting.

00:14:14:42 – 00:14:27:18
Clint Loveall
You know, these these guys think we’ve got him. We nailed him. And he writes, he gets down, he kneels down and starts doodling. It’s an interesting it’s an interesting moment.

00:14:27:23 – 00:15:07:37
Michael Gewecke
I it’s visual because you can imagine it. But what’s fascinating as we’ll continue the study, you’re going to see it doesn’t end the conversation in its tracks. They’re still questioning him. There’s it’s almost as if this as while this is happening, there’s still conversation going on. I think one of the reasons this is so captivating for scholars is because it seems like in a story in which Jesus is going to subvert this rock and a hard place, that we’ve been working so hard to set up that while Jesus is going to, with unbelievable wisdom, disentangle this entire knot that has been expertly put together.

00:15:07:42 – 00:15:33:32
Michael Gewecke
This detail is left unclear and left unexplained. And, you know, so that sort of leads to the mystery of, well, could it have some part of it? And I think instead of this is always good advice when studying the Bible. Yes, things like this are interesting. But Clint, this story doesn’t need a mysterious line in the sand to be one of the most powerful gospel stories.

00:15:33:32 – 00:15:58:40
Michael Gewecke
I think when you spend entire, you know, dissertations trying to figure out what did he write? You might miss the thing that he actually said or or the truth that he actually reveals. And so is this interesting? No doubt. But don’t get distracted, because what Jesus is setting up this in the text almost occupies a kind of transitional moment.

00:15:58:40 – 00:16:19:31
Michael Gewecke
It slows it down for a second. We have the accusation made. We have this moment where he’s writing something that we don’t know what it is or what that meant, and then in just a moment, he’s going to on rewind everything that’s come before it and then make it into something new. And so don’t miss that. This is all hinging on something, but the story is not the hinge.

00:16:19:31 – 00:16:22:12
Michael Gewecke
The story is what is on both sides.

00:16:22:12 – 00:16:49:41
Clint Loveall
I think that’s a wise insight, Michael. Don’t let the unanswered questions take you away from what might be the more obvious intentions. And so maybe more important than what Jesus actually did in the dirt is just the fact that he bent down and spent his time there, that he detached from their question. And tomorrow we’ll see. They push him and he gives an answer.

00:16:49:46 – 00:17:20:10
Clint Loveall
But but it’s it’s a very interesting moment that these these men come and and you know, certainly they care about the law at some level. Certainly they care about the faith at some level. But they’re using a woman. They’re using the law, they’re using Rome all to try and spring this trap on Jesus. And and Jesus is so unconcerned.

00:17:20:15 – 00:17:40:19
Clint Loveall
Jesus, you know, the a beautiful picture of Jesus in the Gospel of John. I’m just going to be here writing in the dirt. I’m. I don’t have much time for this. I don’t have much interest in this. And it it is, you can see why this has become a beloved story. And we’re only halfway through.

00:17:40:22 – 00:18:07:13
Michael Gewecke
It’s so physical and in the gospel that has so much spiritual background, I think that there’s something deeply running about the fact that these men are proposing taking stones from the earth to kill this woman, and here Jesus is simply getting down. He is is lowering himself, who we know. John’s made abundantly clear this is the creator of all the earth and everything in it.

00:18:07:13 – 00:18:33:52
Michael Gewecke
And yet Jesus lowers himself down and is ostensibly on this woman’s level with her in this moment. And I think that that alone is a beautiful in the gospel, so full of symbolism. That’s a beautiful meaning of what Jesus Christ is willing to do for the sake of this person. What he wrote I have no clue. But the gesture to your point that he’s offering in this is itself deep spiritual truth.

00:18:33:57 – 00:18:56:45
Clint Loveall
Yeah, yeah, I think, I think that’s another you know, that’s a good point. You’ve got them kind of dragging a woman. You’ve got the idea of throwing stones, you’ve got Jesus kneeling and writing. There’s a there’s a lot of physicality to this story in a way that not all Bible stories have. And so, I hope you can join us tomorrow.

00:18:56:45 – 00:19:02:39
Clint Loveall
As we look at the conclusion,

00:19:02:43 – 00:19:18:58
Clint Loveall
One of the fun ways in which the gospel handles these moments is that Jesus comes up with an answer that nobody expect, and springs a trap of his own until we would get to see maybe the best example of that in the Gospel of John tomorrow.

00:19:19:03 – 00:19:33:31
Michael Gewecke
We get it. This is a nasty place to stop, but here we are. So if you like this so far, give it a like helps others find it and definitely subscribe. Planned to join this either tomorrow or click the next video. I’ll so you can finish this out. This an amazing story. Glad that you’re with us for part one.

00:19:33:36 – 00:19:35:22
Michael Gewecke
We’ll see you tomorrow for part two. Thanks.