Open your Bible and read John 8:1-11
“Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.”
John 8:7 · ESVBe honest about this one before you enjoy it. Your Bible probably has a note saying the earliest manuscripts do not include this passage. Scholars split on it. Many who doubt it belongs in John still think it preserves a real memory, because it sounds exactly like him and nobody would invent it.
Take the story on those terms. She is dragged in as bait. Nobody asks where the man is, which tells you what the trap was really about. They want him to either contradict the law or contradict himself.
He bends down and writes in the dirt. Then one sentence, and the crowd leaves oldest first.
He does not excuse what she did. He also does not hand her over. Both at once, and neither one cancels the other.
Do this today
Find the footnote in your Bible about this passage and read what it actually says.
An honest thing to say to God
“I would rather have hard honesty than a story that only flatters me.”