The passage about the adulterous woman had me thinking a lot about justice and mercy, and the huge responsibility it is to exercise either of these in our own dealings with people. The question I keep coming back to is, what is justice? The Pharisees believed justice was to stone the adulterous woman because of God's law. You can imagine their confusion and anger when Jesus turned that upside down. He told them that they were "judging by human standards", but aren't we all? How much can we understand what God's justice is in this world as we are trying to determine it by human standards? Obviously we have to exercise justice at times, so have to be always praying for wisdom and guidance by the Spirit, and use God's word for guidance to the best of our ability. I think our safest bet is to show mercy and grace to those around us at every opportunity. It doesn't mean sin is being condoned. (Jesus told the woman to sin no more.) But we are called not to judge.

The real purpose of the law is to reveal our sins and show us our inability to keep the law. It shows us our need for a savior. Some biblical scholars speculate that as Jesus was writing in the sand, he was actually listing specific sins of the men standing around him. As the people started seeing their sins exposed, they began to leave in shame, the older ones leaving first. The thought is that older people generally recognize their sin more readily. Who knows, but I thought that was kind of interesting to think about.