May 10, 2023

Not Falling for the Ploy

“But Jesus stooped down and with His finger wrote on the ground. But when they persisted in asking Him, He straightened up, and said to them, ‘He who is without sin among you, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.’ Again He stooped down and wrote on the ground. When they heard it, they began to go out one by one, beginning with the older ones, and He was left alone, and the woman, where she was, in the center of the court.” John 8:6b-9 (NASB)

            While testifying in court cases, many times under cross-examination, attorneys try to invoke responses so the testifier will say things which can be misconstrued. They rush the testifier to make sudden responses. This is so they can disqualify the person as a good witness. While preparing for a trial many years ago, the State Attorney helped prepare me for the cross-examination. He said when the defense attorney began to rush me, to take my time, and pause before speaking. I tried it in the court room that day. The defense attorney acted as he said, trying to invoke a rushed response. I paused for a few seconds before answering. This made the defense attorney angry. He couldn’t provoke the response. This also helped me in the future to avoid hasty responses in everyday life. Pause and think before you speak. But be sure of one thing, the enemy never likes it when we pause and ask God what He thinks. He is provoking a response.

            “But Jesus stooped down and with His finger wrote on the ground…” “Again He stooped down and wrote on the ground.” Note, Jesus only responded once to two inquiries. Calvin says, “For Christ rather intended, by doing nothing, to show how unworthy they were of being heard; just as if any person, while another was speaking to him, were to draw lines on the wall, or to turn his back, or to show, by any other sign, that he was not attending to what was said. Thus in the present day, when Satan attempts, by various methods, to draw us aside from the right way of teaching, we ought disdainfully to pass by many things which he holds out to us.”[1] The application? Ignore the enemy’s attempts to draw you into a foolish response. Jesus used the writing on the ground as time to prepare His statement. No one knows what Jesus was writing on the ground either time. Clearly Jesus would not consider what the enemy was tempting Him to do. Jesus already passed this test when He went into the wilderness where Satan tempted Him; and Jesus won that encounter.

            Jesus responded, “He who is without sin among you, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.” Jesus addressed the foolish lures. His words cut to the heart, “He who is without sin among you, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.” “According to the teaching of Deuteronomy 17:6–7, a person could not be given the death penalty apart from the testimony of two or three witnesses. The witnesses themselves were to throw the first stones at the condemned person.”[2] I doubt there were people that day who saw her in adultery. It was another ploy by the enemies of Jesus, and He didn’t fall for it. This is a lesson for each of us today. We should check our own closet, before we decide a person’s guilt, or we too might find ourselves at the bottom of a rock pile by someone else casting stones at us. Learn to extend grace to those who need it.

[1] John Calvin and William Pringle, Commentary on the Gospel according to John, vol. 1 (Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software, 2010), 319–320.

[2] Barclay Moon Newman and Eugene Albert Nida, A Handbook on the Gospel of John, UBS Handbook Series (New York: United Bible Societies, 1993), 261.