"At dawn he appeared again in the temple courts where all the people gathered round him, and he sat down to teach them. The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group and said to Jesus, 'Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?' …  But Jesus [not wishing to take any part in her humiliation] bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, 'Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.' Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground. At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. Jesus straightened up and [now in private] asked her, 'Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?' 'No one, sir,' she said. 'Then neither do I condemn you,' Jesus declared. 'Go now and leave your life of sin [stop your sinful habit]'" (John 8:1-12). Jesus says nothing about forgiveness. The guilty woman has given no sign of repentance or faith.

As I was getting out of my car, having travelled back home to Tuckton from Bournemouth along the coast road, a car pulled up swiftly behind mine and a guy jumped out and started giving me a serious ticking off. "Your driving was terrible! And you kept breaking the speed limit! You can't drive like that with a 'Thank God for Jesus' sticker in your back window! What a terrible witness you are." I didn't engage with him; I was too surprised! I just continued walking towards our front door and he got back in his car and left.

He had spoken in a harsh and condemning tone and my first thought was: "I feel really sorry for his wife and children. If he felt duty bound to speak to a total stranger like that, whatever would he say behind closed doors? He must be part of a very legalistic church. And how did he know I was speeding unless he was speeding as well?" Now, I realize I was judging him and that was wrong, but it might be helpful to look at this in the light of what Jesus taught: "Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her." Only Jesus is without sin, and if he didn't condemn her, who am I to speak out words of criticism, judgement and condemnation over others?

Paul wrote: "What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? God will judge those outside" (1 Cor. 5:12-13). Jesus said that if we want to remove a speck from our brother's eye we are to make sure we take out the plank from our own eye first. If we are to help one another to become mature there will be times when a word of admonition will be appropriate, but it needs to be delivered with love. By "speaking the truth in love" to one another, we will "grow in every way more like Christ" (Eph. 4:15). Actually the word "speaking" does not appear in the Greek. It is literally "truthing in love", that is, maintaining, living and doing the truth in a kind and grace-filled way, not necessarily verbalizing it.

(To my shame it took a police speed-awareness course to (hopefully) cure me of my rather elastic approach to keeping to the statutory restrictions. Sue says I have much improved. Any comments?)