The Adulterous Woman-Conclusion! From Coffee Hour @ Chicklit Power

Thank you for joining me for your coffee break today at Chicklit Power. Grab your coffee and let’s get back to you, me and The Adulterous Woman.
Jesus has just spoken fifteen words that create one of the most important lessons we as Christians desperately need to learn. Basically, He’s beat the prideful Pharisees and religious leaders at their attempt to have Him arrested, but no trickery was involved on His part.

Now, at this point, the adulterous woman is sitting on the ground, “in the midst” the scriptures say and I found this painting of her online that I must share with you that captures her so beautifully.



Though there is nothing in the book of John suggesting that her hand was outstretched, all I have to do is close my eyes and put myself in The Adulterous Woman’s place, and this is exactly what I would do, especially after hearing such words of conviction! I would reach my hand out just like this and I probably wouldn’t be able to keep my conviction quiet, either as I begged for mercy and tears stream down my face!

After Jesus spoke, He stooped back down and the Scriptures go on to confirm that those who heard Him, indeed their conscience convicted them and they left the Temple one by one. No one remained except Jesus and The Adulterous Woman. But wait! How interesting is this? Now she’s standing. Can you imagine the disbelief she stood in, mixed with relief? Something tells me her recognition has fully dawned and she realizes she’s looking at her Savior.

Then Jesus raises Himself back up and said to her: “Woman, where are those accusers of yours? Has no one condemned you?” And she replies, “No one, Lord.” Jesus thereafter voices His forgiveness of her sins and encourages her to go and sin no more.

Wow! All I can say is HE is the only one with that power and authority to forgive the adulterous woman, aka, you and me. Only He has the videotape of my heart and yours, or any other adulterous woman’s for that matter, and He is who we all will answer to. May we learn to be less and less like the Pharisees and more and more like the forgiven adulterous woman clothed now in humility!

Thanks so much for sticking with me in this series. I hope you can join me tomorrow for a new mini-series called Dancing with a Butterfly.

Humbly,

Evinda

Happy Thanksgiving From the Adulterous Woman @ Chicklit Power

Oh, what a beautiful day to say thank you for stopping by! Happy Thanksgiving! I truly am thankful there is you to share coffee hour with! Let’s get back to this discussion of adultery and idolatry, which we are about to wrap up so we can finally meet this adulterous woman!

So that last definition we talked about, immorality, aka, sins of the flesh, are associated and are traced to lack of the acknowledgment of God” is a real eye opener, and something that begs the benefit of the doubt before we meet this adulterous woman. Could it be she had never come face to face with her need for a savior? Until this meeting.

Let’s look at the last definition for idolatry. Oh, my, this one will tickle your skin all over for sure: An idolater is a slave to the depraved (morally corrupt) ideas his/her idol or idols represent!”

So metaphorically speaking, then, any form of addiction is adultery because that something which one is addicted to has become an idol and therefore has led the adulterer away to idolatry. Wow, you can put anything in that underlined space to make the connection between you and the adulterous woman! I don’t know about you, but suddenly as I get ready to meet her, I am off of my pedestal and standing eye level, waiting to greet her as Jesus did!

Humbly,

Evinda

The Adulterous Woman-From Coffee Hour @ Chicklit Power

Thanks so much for joining me today for Coffee Hour and more of The Adulterous Woman! Grab your coffee and let’s get back to the conversation about idolatry and adultery!

Before we meet her, we need to do a bit more ground work. It is so very important that we understand the definitions for “adultery” so when we do meet her, we may be able to respond to her just as Jesus did, with a grace that surpasses all understanding and brings home to the heart the reality of the necessity of our need of a Savior.

Because of its depth, I am going to the Strong’s Expanded Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible. OMG, I’m so very glad I did. Wait until you hear this. The Greek definition says adultery is: Metaphorically used of those who are, by a Jezebel’s solicitations, drawn away to idolatry.”
There it is; adultery is idolatry, so it’s not just the literal definition of unlawful intercourse with the spouse of another! Oh, can’t you just see yourself in this meeting that’s about to take place? Can you honestly say that you have never felt the pull of something or from another pulling on your conscious thoughts to a place you shouldn’t have gone, to do something you know you shouldn’t do? I know I have! Maybe I’m not so above this adulterous woman.

But let me dig a little deeper for clarity and let’s look at the definitions for idolatry: In addition to being things offered to idols, idolatry is “The sin of the mind against God, and immorality, sins of the flesh, are associated and are traced to lack of the acknowledgment of God and of gratitude to Him.”


Now I feel like I know this woman we’re about to meet, as if we share so many things in common. The only difference between her adultery and mine is hers was committed against and with the physical while my adulterous actions have been dangerously more subtle, acts that have silently and spiritually pulled me further and further from the safety and sanctity of the love of Christ and His position of “first” in my heart and life.

Pondering true adultery,

Evinda

The Adulterous Woman-From Coffee Hour @ Chicklit Power

Thanks for stopping by for a little break today at Coffee Hour with Chicklit Power. Grab your coffee and come on in. We’re in the crowd of people surrounding Jesus in the Temple and He was teaching and then the Pharisees and scribes entered with someone. Grab your coffee and let’s go get comfy.

Who is it that they are practically dragging in with them? Could this be her, the adulterous woman we’ve been waiting to see? As she gets closer and closer, it is hard to see her, what she looks like because her head is looking down. They are heading straight for Jesus, looking straight at him, only daring to look out into the crowd once before they stop right in front of Him.

Wow, these men that brought her in are pretty arrogant, treating her as though she’s an extremely dangerous and sought-after criminal and they should get the reward. If I didn’t know better, I’d say they are wearing an innate mask of smugness.

Let’s get closer so we can hear what they are saying.
Oh, would you just look at them all look around before they begin to address Jesus! Talk about prideful! Ugh. You can just see it oozing out of their pores as they speak. “Teacher, this woman was caught in adultery, in the very act.”

Let’s stop there for a second. Now, this is just an Evinda-ism, but I can’t help but wonder if they really caught her or just saw her and knew of her reputation and used her to advance their scheme of tricking and thereafter arresting Jesus. That’s just a thought! Let’s get back to what they are saying.
“Now Moses in the law commanded us that such should be stoned. But what do You say?”
Scripture says thereafter that they said this to test Jesus that they might have something of which to accuse Him, which is why I wondered what I did.

Before we get to one of the most acclaimed responses of Jesus, let’s talk about this woman for a bit. Though she remains nameless in the Word of God, she is such a pivotal example of the reality of The Gospel, the necessity of the reality of the need for a Savior. And though she remains anonymous in Scripture, she is someone we can all relate to, someone we must relate with if we dare to let go of shame, one of Satan’s most powerful ropes that hold us in bondage, an unseen bondage that pulls us away from abundant life.

Now you may be saying to yourself, I can’t relate to this woman; I’ve never committed adultery. Well, I’m so glad you brought that up, and we will definitely dig a bit deeper into this tomorrow, but for now let me leave you with this truth: Idolatry is a form of adultery!

Being freed from adultery,

Evinda

The Adulterous Woman From Coffee Hour @ Chicklit Power

Welcome to Coffee Hour @ Chicklit Power! Thanks for joining me today for a little break. Grab your coffee and come on in. We are about to find out the common denominator of deception.

As we wrap up this detour, we can see through the eyes of our hearts that there are many examples, too many examples of deception, a sort of unawareness where truth leaks out of the soul and something else replaces it without even a conscious awareness and when that happens, it affects our attitudes, our actions and our abilities, rendering us utterly and hopelessly deceived.

So what is the common denominator? Well if we go back to this meeting that the Pharisees were having with the chief priests and the officers who confessed that they had never heard anyone talk like “this Man,” all I have to do is take a look around the room with the eyes of my heart wide open and my ears ready to listen and the common denominator swirls around me like a frenzied ghost. I can see it in their demeanor; I can hear it in their comments. In fact, it’s as though each one of the Pharisees is bound up in this common denominator like a mummy. And if I look at them as I rewind the tape on other scenarios of deception that have literally wrenched at my heart during our lifetime, those people are no different than these Pharisees for they wear the same garments of deception.

Plain and simple, the common denominator is pride and what’s in the middle of “pride”? I, I, I! I could never, ever claim to have the full view of the heart of the deceived; only God has that, but the one glaring thing that brings clarity to any and all kinds of deception is this thing called pride. The Webster’s Dictionary defines pride as inordinate self-esteem; proud or disdainful behavior or treatment. How ironic that I would return to this subject just after returning from a writers’ conference that has definitely taught me that I was there to continue the process of being emptied of me that He may write completely through me without any clogs of prideful or un-inspired text. Oh, that I would remember that deception sneaks in through the window of pride!

“Pride” is in the Bible 49 times and was used in the beginning by poets to refer to glory, but thereafter the majority of the uses of pride are negative in that they denote human pride as an antonym for humility and as in Proverbs, pride is put together with arrogance, evil behavior and perverse speech. The New Testament (Greek) translation says: pride is a swollen estimate of his/her own power and merits and looks down on others and even treats them with insolence and contempt. One who compares himself secretly or openly with others and lifts himself above.

These definitions bring clarity into this meeting with the Pharisees, Chief Priests and these officers, practically shining a light into their hearts revealing the source of their deception. And as the light moves into my world and the experiences I’ve had with deception, clarity comes, and I am at peace to pray for the veil of deception to be lifted and that truth would prevail sooner than later.

Keep these definitions in mind as we get closer to actually meeting The Adulterous Woman!

Anticipating the introduction,

Evinda

The Adulterous Woman From Coffee Hour @ Chicklit Power

Thanks so much for joining me today for a little break at Coffee Hour with Chicklit Power. I know it’s not always easy turning distractions off, but let’s do just that for a few. Grab your coffee and come on in so we can try and put the pieces of “deceived” together in the context of the Pharisees. Something tells me we may wind up recognizing a little bit of ourselves in these accusers.

So the Pharisees accused the officers of being deceived and backed their accusation up by saying no Pharisee has ever believed in Him, and also accusing the crowd – who was full of people beginning to change their hearts and minds about The Christ – saying they were accursed for they did not know the law. Now, these definitions all talk about a straying from something, such as the law, the religious beliefs, et cetera.

So what if we give these knuckleheads the benefit of the doubt by asking ourselves, “Were they just holding to what they believed?” And let’s not get into semantics about how much they lived by the law, or didn’t, themselves. By asking that question, would that give us a different and deeper understanding into the depths of their deception? It stands to reason that because they believed certain things about whom The Christ should/would be and would not be, they expected their peers to believe the same way, and when these officers made the statement, “No man ever spoke like this Man,” that released the accusations.

I can’t help but think about all the clues they had received, and the ones they missed completely. For example, when they jumped to conclusions and insisted He couldn’t be The Christ because He was from Nazareth without doing the research to find out He was born in Bethlehem. Or questioning His birth line and not doing the geneology study to trace His birth line all the way back to David. Why weren’t they able to see that they, not the officers, were the ones that were deceived?

What about in our lives, friends who get enticed away from the church? I see it happen all the time with women who are looking for love and become deceived by love. And what about within the church, those who claim to be in Him, all about Him, and do things that are contrary to Him and/or what He would do? Some even justify with out-of-context scripture bashing. What about the atheist who declares there is no god, let alone God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit? Or the New-Agers who claim there are hundreds of ways to heaven and that the god is mother earth and angels are the primary savior and answer to their problems? Or the homosexual who believes homosexuality was something God detested only in the Old Testament? I can go on and on and on with examples of people who we deem to be deceived but are they deceived just because I say so? Don’t these people in these examples believe that we, the Christian, are also deceived?

What is the common denominator here, Father? Why, oh why, are so many deceived, determined to be fixed on their false foundations, pointing the finger at others, either literally or figuratively? Does deception happen simply by and through standing for what you truly believe or does it involve something else?

I can hear something echoing ever so faintly in my heart . . .

Join me tomorrow for the answer.

Evinda

The Adulterous Woman-From Coffee Hour @ Chicklit Power

Thanks for joining me today and hanging in there even though we still haven’t met The Adulterous Woman. I promise; we are getting close. It’s just so important that we have as many of the puzzle pieces that will illuminate understanding on her entrance and upon herself as well! Grab your coffee and come on in.

So we are still in this detour about being “deceived” something that the Pharisees accused the officers of being, all because they dared to voice the questions overflowing from their pierced hearts after hearing Jesus cry out in the crowd. And the reason we are doing so much digging on this is because haven’t we come across so many in our lives who we deem to be deceived, even those who claim to believe in Him? Haven’t we ourselves been deceived one time or another? In addition to needing answers about this, I believe that this detour will help us when we finally meet The Adulterous Woman.

Let’s go right to the definition which pertains to the text we are reading from, which will be from the Greek concordance since it is in the New Testament and then if He leads us to do so, we’ll return for a few Hebrew translations.

Oh my, so the Greek word is “planao” and its root word is plane. Hmm, we fly away in a plane… Interesting. Let’s see what this translates to: “to roam (from safety, truth, or virtue)” – 24 times this word with “er” ending refers to Satan, the deceiver! – “to go astray, seduce, wander.”
In the passive form: “to deceive by leading into error, to seduce.” Hmm, “seduce” casts a bit of light on this subject.

Oh, this is interesting: “often it has the sense of deceiving oneself.” Now that’s about as clear as mud. Let me read a bit further to see if I can get any clarity for us.

“A straying from orthodoxy or piety, literally, ‘plane’ means a wandering whereby those who are led astray roam hither and thither and is always used of mental straying; wrong opinion, an error in morals or religion. It is akin to a forsaking of the right path.”

Oh, here’s another interesting fact: “In Scripture, doctrine and morals are never divided by any sharp line.” So I’m thinking that that means one finds morals or is moral when abiding in doctrine? Or to search the doctrine is a search of morality?Are they interchangeable?

Oh here’s a powerful statement: Errors in doctrine are usually the effect of relaxed morality.
Wow, what a lot to think about. It’s going to be interesting to put all of these pieces together that will give us a better understanding of how and why the Pharisees were deceived which will also open the door to finally meeting The Adulterous Woman.

Not deceived,

Evinda

The Adulterous Woman From Coffee Hour with Chicklit Power

Welcome to Coffee Hour @ Chicklit Power and thanks so much for taking time to take a little break with me. Grab your coffee and let’s get back into this series and see if we get a little closer to The Adulterous Woman.

Religious Leader

So we are at this party, if you will, and we’ve been onlookers in the crowd, the ones murmuring exclamations, questions about Jesus. Now we are going to check out these Pharisees, these religious leaders who are all over the place, clothed in self-righteousness as well as fancy garb. So far we don’t think they’ve really heard everyone’s whispers of questions and opinions, but at this point in scripture, we learn that they did!

I have to interject a little something here — Isn’t that the worst feeling, to be talking about something or someone in secret because you know you shouldn’t be talking about it to anyone, and then that certain someone who you don’t want to hear busts you? Ugh, that has got to be one of the worst feelings, especially if we stay in it and don’t learn from it. Yes, there’s even a great whisper of a lesson in this type of a moment: If it ain’t edifying, it ain’t flying out of my mouth! I fall short in this area every day, but I’m not giving up trying! Okay, back to the crowd and the ticked-off Pharisees!
So the Pharisees all gather together and talk about what they are hearing all the people say in secret. Imagine all this testosterone coming to the surface with each comment repeated that they overheard. Whew, I’ve been in a roomful of male attorneys in the midst of a heated deposition, so I can say I can only imagine! It isn’t pretty; that’s for sure! Anyway, they want to deal with the immediate problem, which in their view is Jesus so they decide to send the officers to take Him.

At this point, I’m not sure where Jesus actually is, inside or outside the Temple, but there is obviously a crowd still gathered because when the officers approach Jesus to arrest Him, He simply says: “I shall be with you a little while longer, and then I go to Him who sent Me. You will seek Me and not find Me, and where I am you cannot come.”

Wow, what a mouthful. I think we’ll leave that for the next blog. Please join me Monday for more of this series, The Adulterous Woman, whom I know we haven’t even met yet, but I promise, we are getting closer! We just need to set the stage, if you will, for her entrance.

Pursuing truth,

Evinda