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?” (John 8:3-5) 

Did you know there are over 600 laws and commandments included in the Old Testament? What is interesting about this fact and how it relates to today’s key passage of Scripture is that out of these 600 laws and commandments, the Pharisees cherry picked one command they liked and ignored the other 599 when they were condemning the woman caught in adultery. 

Sadly, many Christians still do this, where they go through the Bible and pick out one verse they think applies to you, and ignore the ones that apply to them. This course of action is what causes so many people to walk away from the church, because we judge people and, in the process, expose our own hypocrisy.  

Do you see the hypocrisy and double standard in today’s key verses? If the Pharisees caught the woman in the act of adultery, that means they caught the man also. Here’s what the scripture from the law that they were standing on actually says: “If a man commits adultery with the wife of his neighbor, both the adulterer and the adulteress shall be put to death,” (Leviticus 20:10).

These supposed biblical fundamentalists ignored the portion of the text that applied to the man and only brought the woman out for judgment. That’s the kind of behavior that causes people to leave the church today, and therefore it’s the kind of behavior we must work hard to discontinue in our own churches. Let’s not get caught cherry-picking verses from Scripture so we can impart judgment on others, while simultaneously failing to see our own sin and shortcomings in the mirror.