Conviction of Perfection or Conviction of Adultery?

To take a break from the discussion of church theology:

John 8:3-9 3 "The experts in the law and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught committing adultery. They made her stand in front of them 4 and said to Jesus, "Teacher, this woman was caught in the very act of adultery. 5 In the law Moses commanded us to stone to death such women. What then do you say?" 6 (Now they were asking this in an attempt to trap him, so that they could bring charges against him.) Jesus bent down and wrote on the ground with his finger. 7 When they persisted in asking him, he stood up straight and replied, "Whoever among you is guiltless may be the first to throw a stone at her." 8 Then he bent over again and wrote on the ground. 9 Now when they heard this, they began to drift away one at a time, starting with the older ones, until Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him."

This conversation with the teachers of the law and the Pharisees is remarkably interesting. How is it that Jesus says this one little phrase about if you're without sin you can cast the first stone that causes all of them to leave? What were they thinking that made them follow Jesus' bidding? After all, they didn't even think he was who he said he was. Some thought maybe he was a prophet, but even that was questionable in their minds. I don't think they listened and obeyed merely Jesus' words because Jesus said it, there must be something even in the Old Testament that in their minds brought conviction.

I've read some who say that they didn't bring the man and both of them must be brought forth according to the law...that is true (Deut. 22:22), but I don't think that was entirely it. It has to do something with them being convicted about sinning, not missing an aspect of the law. Didn't the religious leaders always bring people up for punishment with the notion that they themselves were not perfect and they were just fulfilling the law of Moses that commanded them to take care of evil within Israel? Maybe I'm just giving them the benefit of the doubt. I understand that Jesus constantly talked about their appearing to be clean, but on the inside they are not. Was it just Jesus' saying "well, you're not perfect," that brought them down?

I think Jesus' words of "who is without sin" in this circumstance is not merely some general conviction about perfection (although the greek word is this: one without error) that brought conviction, but the circumstance that brought conviction. They were convicted of their own adulterous acts (not physically -though it certainly could include, but more spiritually). This type of spiritual adultery was restated over and over through the prophets (and used by James 4:4-5 in the New Testament). They had become so much lovers of the law and not God, that when confronted with their spiritual adultery there was such conviction. Conviction enough to leave the law at this point altogether. They didn't say..."wait, we'll go get the man to and the witnesses"...that wasn't what convicted them, that they missed some part of the law.

They were convicted of their adultery and the notion of stoning this woman only concluded that God would respond to them as they respond to her (Ezek. 16:38-40). Jesus tells her to leave her life of "sin" as alluding to adultery, so the saying of "without sin" is alluding to adultery as well. What is our spiritual adultery?

Who's At Fault?

In the previous post, I concluded that the local church is:

"the collection of individual people coming together to help one another fulfill their individual Christian responsibility to be the body of Jesus and point people to Jesus as their hope for life and godliness, to do the work of the ministry"

There's a lot of concluding that I made in that statement that really wasn't expounded in that post. How did I conclude what the purpose of the gathering was for? Why did I say the church was to help individual Christians fulfill their responsibility? Why did I say that they were to point people to Jesus as their hope for life and godliness and not as their healer and provider?

There could be a lot of things that could be listed as what the purpose of the church is. There is simply to bring God glory (but that's so general, is anything done in God's name glorifying to him?). There is to worship Him (but again that's so general, does worship simply signify singing songs? Isn't the whole thing a worship/praise to Him? the message included?) Is it to feed the poor and heal the sick? (certainly Jesus did a lot of that during his ministry and James says that part of true religion is caring for those who can't care for themselves). Is it simply to preach the gospel and call sinners to repentance/redeeming the lost? (Jesus continually said this was the reason he came and the disciples constantly proclaimed that this was the main thing). So what is it? Why didn't I include many of those in my conclusion about the church?

What other things can you think of?

I would say yes to all of those as the purpose of the church. But the real question is whether those things are the responsibility of the ekklesia when they're together or are they individual Christian responsibilities? The tendency as I see it is for believers to put such responsibilities on the leadership of the ekklesia to make sure these purposes are being fulfilled collectively. The tendency is for individual Christ followers to do less and less of those things on their own and more and more waiting for the church to "feed" them or provide the avenue and prompting to do so.

Certainly the leadership/pastors/elders/bishops are to teach all believers the things that Christ has taught and said in His word and they are to equip and train believers in doing the work of the ministry. Yet isn't there a point in time of taking the food that's placed in front of you and eating yourself? Isn't there a point in time of cooking your own food? Isn't there a point in time of cooking and feeding others? Isn't there a point in time of teaching others how to cook without having to go to cooking school?

I'm certainly not diminishing the importance of the local church to fulfill any of those purposes, and the responsibility of the leadership to fulfill these is huge as Jesus told Peter to feed His sheep and to teach them everything that He had taught them, but I feel that in order to see the importance of the local ekklesia, then everyone must see the importance of their individual responsibility of fulfilling Jesus' calling to follow him in these ways. This perhaps is one teaching that leaders have missed to convey not only from the stage but in how we provide programs and projects.

Last time I posed some questions that seem dry and theology and "who cares" kinds of questions. There are a couple underlying issues on my mind and I'm trying to come at them from a understanding of how people think kind of way. I believe that how we (and especially me) view these questions dramatically impacts what we do or what we spur other people to do. So I'm going to attempt to answer from my thinking these questions one by one.

What makes a church a church?

Obviously there is much that can be expounded here and most likely I'm going to miss something that you might think is important, so feel free to comment or pose a question.

The word church in the bible is the word ekklesia, meaning a gathering of people, specifically who have been called out from their homes to meet publically together. Some have over abused the simple root verb meaning "to call out" as a soapbox to preach against everything they think people should not be like the world such as in music, dress, hair style, career, going to movies, etc. The point they are making is that we must be separate from the world. I would agree that there should be a difference in our life than non-believers, but Jesus didn't call us away from society and the meaning of ekklesia actually suggest a call for us to be more in the world while being surrounded by "sinners and tax collectors." So the church is people who don't stay comfortable in their home, but venture out in the public, not alone, but together as a community of believers. Forsake not the gathering of yourselves together is key.

So the church is a gathering of believers in a community. But is this it? There must be a purpose for the gathering together. What is the church's purpose? I think the church is the collection of individual people coming together to help one another fulfill their individual Christian responsibility to be the body of Jesus and point people to Jesus as their hope for life and godliness, to do the work of the ministry. (Let's be careful here and not confuse the purpose of a pastor or elder for the purpose of the church, that we might get to later.)

For the sake of not overloading my own brain and perhaps yours, what are your thoughts so far? What scriptures come to mind? Am I way off base?