The Adulterous Woman From Coffee Hour @ Chicklit Power

Thanks for joining me at Coffee Hour for a little break and the continuation of The Adulterous Woman, which we still haven’t met, but we are getting close! Grab your coffee and come on in.

We left off with the answer to why everyone was whispering in their little groups at this party: Because if these so-called leaders heard them, their worst nightmare would begin: excommunication from the synagogue.

So this explains why no one would speak up for Jesus -- STOP! We have to take this detour; it’s too relevant in our lives today not to. So let’s look up the definition of excommunicate in the Merriam Webster’s Dictionary: excommunication – 1: an ecclesiastical censure depriving a person of the rights of church membership. 2: exclusion from fellowship in a group or community.

Oh, I just saw something else, another interesting fact from the World Encyclopedia: Excommunication – Formal expulsion from the communion of the faithful from sacraments and from rites of a religious body. Largely abandoned by Protestants, excommunication has been retained by Jewish congregations and by the Roman Catholic Church.

Remember, we’re in the New Testament with two major bodies of religion, if you will, Jew and Gentile, sort of like our two governmental bodies, Republican and Democrat, and just as we see the unnecessary fighting between those bodies, imagine that kind of constant rift all because of Jesus and His Father who desired then, and desires still, fellowship and relationship with His chosen people, the Israelites/Jews, and the Gentiles, you and me! I’m trying to paint a verbal picture of constant tension, a major power struggle, if you will, that caused these Jews to whisper their true desire to know more about The Christ that they’d been hearing about for as long as they had been walking.

Religious Leader

Imagine the fascination they must have experienced. Who was this Guy who was said to be abolishing The Law that they had been spoon fed from the time they could eat of spiritual food? Was there really a possibility that they didn’t have to obey the Law down to the letter? If He wasn’t The Christ, how could He know that they didn’t keep the Law Moses had given down to all of them? And what about that guy He healed on the Sabbath?

Oh, yes, there was much conversation going on about Jesus, and I can only imagine the confusion that overwhelmed the hope of those who were searching for The Christ. This type of conversion that believing He to be Who He said He was would be like you and me converting from Christianity (New Testament) to Judaism (Old Testament) theology. Do you feel the jump? It’s almost insurmountable, too much to wrap up on one blog….

Join me for more on this detour Wednesday.

Thoughtfully,

Evinda
P.S. Join me today at 1:00 Pacific time for our Blog Talk Radio show, Breaking Free from Co-Dependency at www.blogtalkradio.com/Chicklit-Power