Jesus Speaks to Women: Chapter 4, The Woman Caught
Meditations for the weary, wounded, and wondering | John 8:1-11
Introduction to the Jesus Speaks to Women Series
The Gospel writer John records these words of Jesus to the religious people who opposed him: “You study the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life. These are the very Scriptures that testify about me” (John 5:39). The Scriptures are meant to introduce us to a person—Jesus. And our friendship with that person is meant to change everything. My goal with this studies is to help you see and hear the real Jesus more clearly by meditating on the words he spoke specifically to women. Do you know there are more than 20 accounts in the Gospels of Jesus’ words to women? Would you step into these stories with me and imagine how they experienced Jesus? Will you listen to what Jesus might have to say to you too? Thanks for joining me here!
Previous Chapters:
Chapter 1: Mary at the Temple
Chapter 2: Mary at the Wedding
Chapter 3: The Samaritan Woman at the Well, Part 1
Chapter 3: The Samaritan Woman at the Well, Part 2
The Scripture: John 8:1-11
The Poem:
Did he come to temple at dawn
knowing I’d be caught
in a top ten sin
dragged alone
defenseless, half-dressed
a pawn in the lawkeepers’ game to
catch the strange teacher?
their one solution
is stones
their goal–
their rightness, not mine
they demand He choose
the sinner
or the stone
as if stones could clean
my conscience crushed
by condemnation
they spread so thick
unwilling to lift
even a finger to relieve
sagging shoulders
stooping below their anger
He diffuses with a finger
tracing dirt
and doesn’t take a side
not theirs
not mine
not even neutral middle
He is a whole
unto himself
new wine, new wineskins
“He who is without sin among you,
let him throw the first stone at her.”
the oldest lawkeeper
releases first
thud of rock displacing dirt
still resounding in my chest
when the next drops,
each one releasing me to
Jesus
alone now, His eyes on me:
“Woman, where are your accusers? Did no one condemn you?”
“No one,” I reply
“Neither do I condemn you. Go your way.
From now on, sin no more.”
like it’s the simplest thing
to live unburdened
a law of love
seared from the inside
solving sin without stones
caught in
grace
Meditations on the Scripture
My parents met both Jesus and each other one summer in the early 70s through a ministry called The Circus Tent on the beach in the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Five nights a week each summer from 1968 to 1988, in a colorful 100-foot-long tent, the ministry, started by local Kitty Hawk pastor Reverend Howard Wilkinson, hosted 1,000 guests each night and took more than 200 summer volunteers to run! All kinds of people were drawn in by the free live music from the folk bands like The New Hermeneutics, the ice-cream shop, the feel of sand underfoot, and the fun family atmosphere. There was also a prayer garden on the grounds.
My parents married and joined a local Southern Baptist Church where a kind and wise pastor helped them grow in their faith. Later, my dad heard God’s call to become a pastor and went to Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas (where I was born). It was while there that my parents attended a seminar by Bill Gothard, a Christian teacher who would go on to found the Institute of Basic Life Principles (or IBLP, known in popular culture today for its connections to the Duggar family and the documentary, Shiny Happy People).
The early 70s was a time of tsunami-like social change and unrest amidst the sexual revolution and the terrible toll of the Vietnam War. But Bill Gothard had the answers! Gothard taught Christians how to insulate their families from corruption and evil by prescribing almost everything, including how to dress, what kind of music to listen to, how to date, and the roles men and women should play.
Mom and Dad brought home a set of basic life principles tapes and a board game called “Commands of Christ” from that conference. We never listened to the tapes or played the game as a family, and my parents never bought into the IBLP brand of culty fundamentalism. Instead, they taught and modeled for me the consistent and unlimited love and grace of Jesus.
But I was a curious kid, especially about spiritual things. I remember taking out the strange-looking game and studying it as a little girl.
In the center of the game (photo HERE) are three pits: the “Venemous Pit of BITTERNESS” (green and full of snakes), the “Torture Pit of TEMPORAL VALUES” (dark blue and littered with speed boats, cars, chains, and animal traps), and the “Mirey Pit of MORAL IMPURITY” (fiery red and dripping lava). As players move around the board, some spots prompt you to take a wisdom card and other spots are temptations—to steal or be immoral or prideful. When players fall on a temptation, they must quote a Victory card or be sent to one of the torture pits.
Even though this game seems ridiculous now, a lot of people grow up in Christian cultures that hold this view of the world. Rigid adherence to the rules and fear of condemnation are taught as the way to follow Jesus. Grace is underemphasized and life is seen as a dangerous game where at any moment, you could end up in a metaphorical pit.
Is this an accurate reflection of the Kingdom of God, or an effective way to follow Jesus? Let’s look at a story about Jesus from John 8:1-11.
A scandalous story
You may have noticed that your Bible includes a note that this story does not appear in the earliest manuscripts of John. In various ancient manuscripts, this story appears in different places within John and even in the Gospel of Luke! According to Joan Taylor and Helen Bond (Women Remembered), it is “one of the earliest stories about Jesus that we have” and was known outside of John’s gospel, so it is not the story’s authenticity that is in question. Rather, it’s likely missing from some manuscripts because early scribes found the story so scandalous that they omitted it. Church leaders in later centuries also worried that telling a story of Jesus letting an adulteress go free without consequences would give license to wives to stray (Women Remembered).
Side note: If every story of a person behaving badly, but still loved by God, was removed from the Bible, we wouldn’t have many stories left!
The context in John: conflict with Jewish leaders, the good judge, living water, and feasts
An overview of our story’s context within the Gospel of John gives us important information for understanding what happens and also proves that the story makes sense where it is in John.
So far in his gospel, John has developed some key themes related to this story:
The intensifying conflict between the religious leaders and Jesus. By Chapter 7, things have escalated to the point that the Jewish leaders are now looking for a way to kill Jesus. The people themselves are divided in their opinions, putting even more pressure on the leaders to deal decisively with Jesus.
The authority of Jesus to judge and Jesus as the just judge. Jesus says that “the Father judges no one, but has entrusted all judgment to the Son” (5:27). In 7:19 he confronts the religious leaders saying, “Has not Moses given you the law? Yet not one of you keeps the law. Why are you trying to kill me?” He also tells them, “Stop judging by mere appearances, but instead judge correctly” (7:24).
Jesus fulfilling Old Testament observances. In Chapter 6, around the time of the Spring Passover Festival (and the accompanying Feast of Unleavened Bread) that celebrates the rescue of the Jewish people from slavery in Egypt, Jesus feeds bread and fish to over 5,000 people who follow him out into the wilderness, and then calls himself the “bread of life” (6:35) and “the living bread” (6:51).
A feast week and living water
In Chapter 7, we arrive at the week before our story takes place. It is now the Fall Feast of Tabernacles, an eight-day feast that reminds the Jews of their wandering in the wilderness, celebrated by setting up booths or shelters (Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible). Because the Jewish leaders are looking for a way to kill Jesus, he does not immediately go into Jerusalem, but enters the city later in secret (7:10).
In 7:37, we come to the last day of the Feast, the 8th day and a day of rest. This is the day the priests would draw water from the Pool of Siloam and then proceed to the temple, where they would pour the water out on the altar symbolizing God’s promise that “rivers of living water would flow from the temple” (Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible). See these passages for the Old Testament references.
It is on this day of the festival that Jesus stands up and declares in a loud voice:
“Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them” (John 7:38, NIV)
Jesus has already revealed himself to the Samaritan woman as Messiah and “living water” (John 4). Here he is revealing to all of Jerusalem that he is the fulfillment of their feast!
The Jewish leaders send out temple guards to arrest Jesus, but the guards won’t do it because they are in awe of Jesus’ teaching.
The trap is laid
Now we arrive at our passage in chapter 8. The festival and the day of rest has passed. It’s dawn at the temple and the Pharisees take their first opportunity to deal with the Jesus situation.
They have devised a trap. Somehow, they know of a woman having sexual relations outside of her marriage and they’ve brought her to Jesus. The Old Testament law was much stricter in its punishments for adultery, understood to be a married woman engaging in sexual activity outside of her marriage, than for other forms of sexual immorality. You can read those laws HERE (Exodus 20:14; Leviticus 20:10; Deuteronomy 5:18; Deuteronomy 22:22). These laws called for the death of both the man and the woman in the case of adultery.
The catch was that the Jewish leaders couldn’t legally execute anyone without the Roman governor’s permission (Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible). Likely, they hoped to expose either Jesus’ lack of respect for their law or let him expose himself to the wrath of Rome by calling for her stoning.
Were they actually going to stone the woman or were they just threatening? I’m not sure, but we see later in 8:59 a mob picking up stones to kill Jesus, so it seems that this was both a dangerous and humiliating situation for the woman.
The Russian artist Vassily Polenov (you can read more about him and his painting at the end of this study) captures something in the story that I didn’t think about—grief on the face of Jesus when he sees what the Jewish leaders have done. Jesus knew that the woman was being used as bait to trap him.
I imagine Jesus is also grieved by the hypocrisy of it all. In the ancient Near East, adultery was considered the “great sin” (Cultural Background Bible, Deuteronomy 22:22), but it wasn’t dealt with equally among men and women. Married men could have sex with single women with either lesser or no consequences (Cultural Background Study Bible, Exodus 20:14). In the larger culture of the Roman world, sex outside of marriage for men was accepted, but not for women (Susan Hylen, Women in the New Testament World).
The just judge
Here Jesus further reveals himself as the true and just judge. He will not allow them to dictate his choices.
Sensing the volatility of the situation, he stoops down to write on the ground. As he shifts the focus away from the woman to his finger tracing in the dirt, he creates space for for calm.
When the leaders refuse to give up, he straightens up and finally says, “Let any of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” And then he stoops down to write again.
When Jesus straightens up, I wonder if he looks them in the eyes to let them know he knows their secrets? The oldest leaders walk away first, unwilling to out themselves as hypocrites in this moment. The youngest cling to their indignation until they are the last standing and the last to walk away. They’ve been beaten at their own game and must give up their scheme until they can plan another.
Like all who wield condemnation and judgment, they fall under its weight themselves. They cannot live up to their own standards.
Jesus again stands up and asks the woman, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?”
She replies “No one, sir.”
“Then neither do I condemn you. . . . Go now and leave your life of sin,” Jesus says to her.
I wonder what those words meant to her in that moment when Jesus refused to wield condemnation? Notice that he sets her free before she makes changes in her life. Jesus offers her the freedom to chose something different than what she has been choosing—from a place of grace.
“For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.” (John 3:17, NIV)
The way of the Kingdom
Similar to Bill Gothard and his prescriptive answers to the fears of Christians of the 70s, the Jewish leaders of Jesus’ day believed that the Kingdom of God and liberation from Rome would only come with a return to the strictest observance of the Torah, their Jewish law (N.T. Wright, Luke for Everyone). In pursuit of this kingdom, they were willing to dehumanize a woman.
But Jesus’ kingdom wouldn’t operate with inconsistencies like this. Jesus doesn’t throw away all of the law, but in fact “intensifies the moral vision of the Torah” (Wright and Bird, The New Testament in its World). Instead of just prohibiting adultery, for example, Jesus ramps up the standard specifically for men and teaches in Matthew 5:27-29:
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” (NIV)
In Jesus’ moral vision, neither a woman or a man are for our consumption—either visually or otherwise! Men and women are both persons, whole and holy unto God and worthy of honor and respect as such.
That was why the religions leaders’ humiliation and use of the women for their own means was so grievous.
Neither would Jesus’ kingdom come through fear, shame, or condemnation. Through the Holy Spirit, Jesus’ followers would be transformed from the inside out, fed with the bread of life and living water, free in the Son, and bound by a law of love.
When leaders shame, condemn, use, abuse, burden, humiliate, dehumanize, and act hypocritically, the results are devastating. Even when they have the courage to walk away from faith communities like this, people spend years unlearning and unleashing themselves from the weight of condemnation. Many have witnessed the hypocrisy of their leaders and walk away from the church, and sometimes the faith, altogether.
When I think about people like that, I see the deep grief and empathy that Vasily Polenov captured on the face of Jesus.
The IBLP, maker of the game of my childhood nightmares, still exists today, but without Gothard at the helm. In 2014 he resigned as president of his organization after it was revealed that he routinely sexually harassed the young women who worked for him, in addition to covering up child sex abuse within his organization.
That is the kind of sin—abuse of power and hypocrisy—that we see Jesus judge the most harshly in Scripture.
The scandalous good news
This was a story so scandalous and threatening that early Bible scribes removed it from their manuscripts. The teachings of Jesus recorded here in John so incensed and offended the Jewish religious leaders that they made plans to kill him. Even Vasily Polenov’s censors changed his original provocative title, “Who among you is without sin?” to the more benign and woman-focused title of “Christ and the sinner.”
But what if it is so scandalous because it’s so true and good, a balm for the wounded and refreshment for the weary?
What if, after all, the Kingdom of God is less like a perilous journey full of pits and perils, and more like The Circus Tent on the beach where everyone is welcome, prayer is accessible, the music is good, and the ice-cream abounds?
That would be scandalous indeed.
“So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” (John 8:36, NIV)
If you’ve been hurt by abusive leaders, please seek the help you need from a licensed therapist so you can experience the healing you deserve.
Your thoughts, corrections, and suggestions are valued and welcomed in the process of writing these studies. I consider you part of my writing team, and I appreciate you joining me. If you have time and would like to, let me know your thoughts in the comments or email me at mary@marydeandraws.com.
All writing and images copyright Marydean Draws 2025.
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