Hello my friends,

One of the passages I get the most questions about is in John 8:11, where Jesus is shown saying to a woman accused of adultery, "go and sin no more." This phrase also appears often in negative comments on my online writings about the need for compassion in our world. It is so often used as a way of justifying the calling out and condemnation of sinners by Christians, because that is what Jesus did. So today, I want to explore this passage, its context, and how using Jesus' words in this way misunderstands the heart of John 8.

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New devotional: I just released a new 30-day devotional, written to help us reconnect with the love of Jesus in a world that often feels uncertain, overwhelmed, and filled with the worship of power. Each day includes a short scripture reading, a reflection to help center your heart, a journal prompt, and a small, practical step you can take. This devotional is meant to be both personal and communal — something you can walk through on your own or with a group of friends, your small group, or your church. My prayer is that it will not just encourage you, but also activate something in you — a deeper hope, a renewed vision, and a desire to live out the love of Jesus in tangible ways. You can read more through the link below.

$20.00 Following Jesus In A World Obsessed With Empires: 30 Days of reclaiming the hope, compassion, and justice of Jesus. Today, our world can often feel overwhelmed by darkness, division, and despair. I created this 30-day devotional to... Read more Get it now!

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The Stones in Our Hands: Misreading John 8 and the Sin of Condemnation.

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The story of the woman caught in adultery in John 8:1–11 is one of the most well-known in the Gospels—and yet one of the most misinterpreted. For many Christians, the defining moment of this encounter is Jesus’ final words to the woman: “Go and sin no more.” This phrase is often invoked as a justification for confronting, condemning, or rebuking sinners, with the rationale that Jesus did the same. But this interpretation betrays the heart of the story, the intent of Jesus, and even the original language of the text. Both the woman's life and Jesus' life are at risk in this sham trial. Neither their lives nor the actual law matters to the leaders present. Only their own pursuit of power and eliminating potential threats to it matters to them. As we will see, it is this same pursuit of power that causes this passage to be misread today.

The Context of The Text

The religious leaders bring a woman caught in adultery before Jesus, claiming that the Law of Moses commands such a person be stoned. They ask Jesus what He says should be done—hoping to catch Him in a dilemma. If He says, “Don’t stone her,” they can accuse Him of defying Moses’ Law. If He says, “Stone her,” He could be accused of defying Roman law, which reserved capital punishment by the Roman authorities. The stakes were very high for both the woman and for Jesus. It was a life or death situation for them.

What isn't as well known about what is happening here, but should be, is how these religious leaders are actually violating the very law they claim to support and uphold. Three specific violations are important to mention here:

1. They did not bring the man involved.​
   The Law of Moses (Leviticus 20:10; Deuteronomy 22:22) required both the man and woman involved in adultery to be judged and punished. Bringing only the woman was a clear violation and shows selective, unjust application of the law or a false accusation altogether, which is the violation of another law, the ninth commandment: "thou shalt not bear false witness against your neighbor."
2. They did not follow due legal process.​
   Jewish legal procedure required a fair trial with proper witnesses. For adultery charges, this was especially strict—witnesses had to see the act itself under very specific conditions. There is no evidence this happened here, and their actions resemble a mob justice setup more than a legal hearing. (Exodus 23:1-2).
3. They used the woman as a prop to trap Jesus.​
   This violates the ethical and moral spirit of the Law, which emphasizes justice, compassion, and the protection of the vulnerable. By turning her into a pawn in their political-religious game, they betrayed the very heart of God’s law.

These religious leaders, who prided themselves on upholding the law, were exploiting and degrading another human being while attempting to trap Jesus. So, before Jesus even responded to this sham trial, anyone remotely familiar with the law would see the hypocrisy of the religious leaders on full display.

The very first thing Jesus does in response to this charade is something that has intrigued theologians for centuries: Jesus bends down and writes on the ground. While the Gospel of John does not explicitly tell us why or what Jesus wrote, one particularly powerful interpretation of this act connects this moment with Jeremiah 17:13, which says:

“O Lord, the hope of Israel, all who forsake you will be put to shame. Those who turn away from you will be written in the dust, because they have forsaken the Lord, the fountain of living water.” (NIV)

Jeremiah 17:13 declares that those who abandon God's commands will be “written in the dust”—a poetic image of impermanence, disgrace, and judgment. Their names will not be etched in stone or remembered in honor, but scribbled in dry earth, to be blown away and forgotten. The implication is that to forsake God’s mercy and justice is to choose condemnation for oneself.

Here in John 8, Jesus is clearly confronting a group of religious leaders who know God's instructions yet are clearly forsaking God’s heart for justice and mercy. They are using the woman as bait in a political and religious trap. While posturing as defenders of the law, they are in truth revealing their own hypocrisy and hardness of heart. In this light, when Jesus writes on the ground, it may be a prophetic and symbolic act—a fulfillment of Jeremiah’s warning. These men, who are eager to condemn another, are themselves at risk of being written in the dust because they have forsaken the God who is “the fountain of living water,” which is imagery Jesus identifies himself with in John 4.

If we are to interpret this act of Jesus through Jeremiah 17:13, then we can imagine Jesus writing the names of all the religious leaders present on the ground, pausing to say that now famous line in response to their continued questioning, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her” only to bend back down and continue writing their names. What a powerful and profound moment to imagine.

Jesus doesn’t shout, accuse, or confront with spectacle. Instead, his single sentence reveals the inner lives of the accusers. The fact that the older ones leave first (John 8:9) suggests a profound internal conviction. It implies that Jesus’ words were not merely heard but felt—a heart-piercing moment of recognition. Their retreat is a silent admission that they, too, are not qualified to throw stones.

In an honor-shame culture, older men—likely the elders or scribes—would have been the most respected and authoritative figures in the group. Their departure first would have set the tone, signaling to the others that the case was over. But it also reflects a quiet humiliation: the would-be enforcers of the law are the first to walk away, unable to stand before the moral clarity of Jesus.

The departure of the accusers—beginning with those most associated with authority—shows a reversal of power that is at the heart of Jesus’ ministry. The powerful are humbled, and the vulnerable woman is left standing, not condemned but seen. What began as a spectacle to shame her ends with her standing and the religious leaders silenced and gone.

At this moment, Jesus then says to the woman standing there, "where are they? Has no one condemned you?" “No one, sir,” she said. “Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared.

Then we hear that quote that brings us here today: “Go now and sin no more.”

In the Greek of this passage, Jesus does not actually say, “Go and sin no more,” especially not in a harsh or final sense, as though perfection were now the requirement for mercy. Instead, he says, “πορεύου καὶ ἀπὸ τοῦ νῦν μηκέτι ἁμάρτανε”—which is literally, “Go, and from now on, no more sin.” This can be interpreted as a total public release from the sin she was accused of or a gentle call to a changed life. Either way, it is not a condemnation or threat of rejection. It is spoken not as a precondition of forgiveness, but as a loving invitation after mercy has already been extended.

The Sin We Do Not Want To See

Yet when we read this passage, we often center the woman’s sin. We act as though this group of corrupt religious leaders were credible in their accusations against her and we even frame Jesus' own words as siding with them in condemning her for her sin at the end. We turn her into the moral warning of this event. We quote Jesus’ words to her not as a grace-filled invitation, but as a cold mandate: “Go and sin no more,” as if failure to do so would cancel out the mercy she had just received. In doing so, we not only miss the point—we participate in the same moral failure as the crowd who held the stones.

Ironically, the moral outrage we so often direct toward this nameless woman is an indictment of our own hearts. We do not even know her name. Her humanity was ignored. She was dragged before Jesus like an object, a pawn in a scheme. The scribes and Pharisees cared nothing about her, her story, her dignity, or even true justice—they only cared about trapping Jesus. The law they invoked wasn’t upheld fairly and her pain was weaponized for political theater.

This story is not about the woman’s sin. It is about religious and political hypocrisy. It is about a culture of condemnation. It is about the way legalism can masquerade as righteousness and "law and order." It is about a God who refuses to join in our violence and misuse of power. Jesus does not challenge the woman—he challenges the crowd. He turns the spotlight on them: “Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone.” And one by one, they leave. Jesus exposes the sin of the powerful, not the accused. And yet, we keep turning our gaze back to her, as if the sin worth remembering in this story is hers. Repeating the injustice against her all over again.

This interpretive pattern reflects a deep problem in much of our theology today, especially as shaped by the lens of Christian nationalism. In that worldview, sin is often understood primarily as a tool of control, a way to mark who is in and who is out, who deserves compassion and who deserves condemnation. It defines sin as something “those people” do, not something we are complicit in. It defines "law and order" as only applying to those it has already decided are "criminals," like many in the immigrant community, but not to those who are in positions of power who have already been convicted by a jury of their peers in a court of law. It gives the illusion that righteousness belongs to those with power and sin belongs to the vulnerable and the marginalized.

One of the most blatant forms of Christian hypocrisy in our time is Christians holding ordinary people we share this country with accountable to the most rigid moral standards while simultaneously holding themselves and their preferred politicians accountable to no standard at all.

This story from John 8 exposes the rot of that thinking. It reminds us that Jesus did not wield power like the religious leaders did. He did not use the woman as a symbol in pursuit of his own power. He restored her dignity, refused to condemn her, and ushered her into a new life of freedom.

As followers of Jesus, we are called to a different way—not the way of stones, but the way of the cross. Not the way of shame, but the way of mercy. Not the way of moral posturing, but of sacrificial love.

If we read John 8 and walk away with only a warning about personal purity, we have misunderstood Jesus. The warning is not to the woman—it is to us. It is to the ones holding stones. It is to the ones who would use the sins of others to justify their own hardness of heart towards others.

The Gospel is not good news because it crushes the guilty. It is good news because it restores the crushed. The true test of whether we understand Jesus is not whether we quote his words, but whether we embody his mercy.

A Lament for the Weight of Reckless Power

I thought it would be fitting to close today with a prayer of lament I recently wrote for our world today.

When bombs drop, it is not the powerful who run. It is not their children we see dust-covered, wandering streets with no names, searching for a home that no longer stands.

When sanctions strike, it is not the wealthy who grow thin. They do not stand in bread lines.They do not ration medicine or watch loved ones die from treatable wounds and curable diseases.

When budgets are slashed, the powerful do not feel the cold seep in through crumbling walls. They do not sit in darkened rooms when the heat is shut off, or fear the silence of an ambulance that never comes.

No.

It is the poor who pay.

The orphaned.

The elderly.

The chronically ill.

The undocumented.

The marginalized.

They pay with their bodies, their futures, their lives.

And still, the powerful sleep well—writing policy by day, ignoring consequence by night, protected by their privilege, praising themselves for what they call “courage,” while others carry the cost.

O God, how can You bear the weight of this world?

How can You endure the sight of such violence dressed as virtue, of such cruelty disguised as order?

You said, “Blessed are the peacemakers,” but we see the warmongers praised.

You said, “The last shall be first,” but we see the last trampled, silenced, forgotten.

Break the arm of injustice, O Lord.

Disarm the proud.

Rise as the defender of the lowly.

Do not let the innocent be crushed without answer.

We believe You are near to the brokenhearted.

We believe You see the tears we no longer have words to cry.

But we are tired.

We are overwhelmed.

We are afraid.

Speak again, God of the oppressed.

Shake the thrones of the arrogant.

Restore dignity to the crushed.

Bring justice—not in theory, but in reality.

Until mercy rises like morning light

and the powerful learn to love,

we will keep lamenting,

keep watching,

keep hoping,

and keep crying out to You.

Amen.

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