John 7-13: To Throw Rocks At Them

Jesus did not hide who he was. He was not cowardly and he was not embarrassed. This is a lesson to me. It must take lots of courage to learn how to be yourself without caring what the rest thinks. Just to get to the point when you only care what you think. This following quote from John states it very clearly, "For there is no man that doeth any thing in secret, and he himself seeketh to be known openly. If thou do these things, shew thyself to the world." (John 7.4) But Jesus wasn't talking about himself or what he was, He was talking in the name of God and God only. He didn't give himself credit for "deceiving" Israelites. He was the messenger, as I mentioned in my previous post. "My doctrine is not mine, but his that sent me."(John 7.16)

After reading the Old Testament and comparing it to the New Testament, I have found that I enjoy Jesus as a character a lot more than any other character in the Old Testament. He is just so impartial and fair. A person who sees all flaws and understands humanity so well. Someone who knows what he's doing and how he guides his followers. What he said in John 8 was what affected me the most. It was about a woman who had committed adultery and Jesus was asked to throw the first rock at her. Could he be any more noble and just? What he said was perfect, "Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her". It just makes so much more sense than anything else in the world. It makes more sense than killing a man to get his wife, than sibling rivalry, even more than guiding people across Egypt to their promised land. "Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her". How can you punish a sinner for being discovered once, when you have sinned your whole life without knowing it? Or how can you punish a sinner when you are a sinner and you know it? Does it matter that she was a woman? No. She was a sinner. But so were all the rest who were willing to punish her. They were all willing to torment her and humiliate her in order to hide their own sins and be able to blame her for them. Because if she was the one punished, they weren't to blame. Or that is the way I saw it when reading this.

While reading this I felt a rush of relief because it was as if the world had been an unfair place with unjust ways of thinking until Jesus came along. Jesus came along with his then "unorthodox" ways and changed everything. All that was bad had the chance to become good. All the sins were forgiven. If Jesus had not been right there, right then, and if he wouldn't have spoken, things would have never been the way they are now. I mean, who really knows? This has all just been an amazing example to the world about goodness and values. And to be fair knowing boundaries. The Bible is sometimes called a way of life, and I don't think I could understand that at all until I read these chapters. It really did change after Jesus, and to be like Jesus is not wrong.

But it's not like they listened to him. I'm just saying that I would've listened to him. I forgot to mention that Jesus almost had rocks thrown at him for what he had just said. The crowd listening to him protest is furious. They must have been thinking, Who does this man think he is to change our ways of thinking? It was Jesus, Son of God.