Text:
John 8:2-11
Memory Verse:
“So when they continued asking Him, He raised Himself up and said to them, ‘He who is without sin among you, let him throw a stone at her first'” (John 8:7).
Double standard is the situation where two groups or individuals do the same thing, but one is condemned for it while the other is praised.. Hypocrisy is the claim or pretence of having beliefs,
standards, qualities, behaviours, virtues etc. which one does not really have. It
is the practice of engaging in the same behaviour or activity for which one criticises another. The scribes and Pharisees demonstrated both vices.
When they brought the woman caught in adultery to Jesus, they told Him that the law commanded that such a person should be stoned. They asked Jesus His own opinion about it, but Jesus stooped down and wrote on the ground with His finger, as though He did not hear them. So when they
continued asking Him, He raised Himself up and said that any of them that was without sin should throw the first stone at her. That day Jesus demonstrated to them the hypocrisy of their double standard. Since this woman had been “caught in the very act,” surely they knew who the man was, too, but left him out. The fact that none of them remained after Jesus told them to throw the first stone at the woman indicated that they all were equally guilty of sin. The Pharisees used stones, today we use words and other forms of victimisation. The victim ends up wounded, regardless.
Who alone is qualified to judge? Who was the only sinless one among them that day? Jesus! So He alone is qualified to judge.
Prayer Points:
1. Father, deliver me from hypocrisy and double standards.
2. Father, please heal everyone hurting as a result of the wound from the hypocrisy of using double standards today.
