Let him who is without sin among you, be the first to throw a stone at her (John 8:3-7).

When you throw a stone at someone, you don’t feel the pain, the one hit by the stone does. Be careful, that you  are not guilty of sin, before you decide to pass judgement on someone else. Jesus warned us many times about this; He is still speaking to us today, and the instruction is the same. He commanded us to love one another. Stoning, judging, controlling, or beheading, has nothing to do with love! It is hate! If you love someone, you do not go out of your way to hurt them. Repaying evil with evil achieves nothing but death. Repaying evil with good, is the godly option for God’s people. When someone else sin, you think it is a bad thing, and you feel you need to punish them, but when you sin, you think it’s OK?  NO! All sin is evil, no matter who commits it! Repaying evil with good teaches the guilty person that doing good is the better option. Otherwise, the guilty one will think it is normal to sin, and get away with it, if everyone around him is doing the same thing.

As children of God, we need to live by His instructions, and not ours; so that everyone can see that what we have is the best. This is why Jesus taught the stone throwers that His way was the better option. I am not saying it is alright to do evil, or continue sinning, no! I am saying it is a sin for us to pass judgement on each other, because there is one law-giver, and it is not you (James 4:12, Luke 6:37-38)! The woman was caught in a sin, but the stone throwers had just realised that they were caught in the act as well and was just as guilty as the woman waiting to be stoned. The woman caught in the sin was no different to the ones throwing the stones at her, because both parties did the same thing (their sin was exposed and witnessed by another). Just because your sin is different from another member, does not make you right and the other wrong. When you disobey God’s law, it is sin, and you will not be permitted to enter into His kingdom with that attitude (Matthew 13:41-42).

They rushed to punish the woman for her sin, but they did not focus on what they were doing. Had they look at themselves, they would have known that Jesus was a witness to the sin they committed, just as they were to the woman they were about to stone to death. The law they were breaking was this: “we are not to judge one another” (Matthew 7:1-5), and they did so when they passed judgement on the woman. So by disobeying this law, they were all sinning, and qualified to be stoned according to the law in those days (Numbers 15:36). They had no choice but to leave, because the same judgement would be given to them, in the same measure. Revenge is not ours, but God’s; be careful how you treat the members of God’s family. When you plan to throw the first stone, remember what Jesus said to the stone throwers. May God empower us with restraint, when we are powerless to control our anger. God bless you.