Supply Preaching

Over the next few weeks, starting today, I will be supply preaching for a rural congregation that is between ministers. Today I am preaching on the scripture in John 8:1-11 about the woman caught in the very act of adultery.

The self-righteous religious men of the community dragged a woman before Jesus and said, We caught this woman in the very act of adultery. The Law of Moses says that such women should be stoned to death. What do you say?

Jesus bent down and wrote in the sand and said, "The one among you who is without sin cast the first stone." Then he wrote in the sand again and they all went away.

What did Jesus write in the sand that sent them all away? John does NOT tell us. Many think that Jesus wrote their sins in the sand but John does not tell us. I think he may have written the actual quote from the Law of Moses that them men alluded to. It was Deuteronomy 22:22 "If a man is caught lying with the wife of another man, both of them shall die. The  man who lay with the woman as well as the woman. So you shall purge the evil from Israel."

The second time Jesus wrote in the sand may have been "Where is the man?"