The Fruit of the Spirit: Gentleness - Audio
This episode appears to contain dynamically inserted ads. Transcript timestamps may be approximate.
As Doug said, we're getting close to the end of the fruit of the Spirit series, we got two more. Today, we're going to be talking about gentleness. And we'll have something to say about it, but just as a reminder, here's our basic text for the series as Galatians 5. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Have you guys been practicing the song? Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith. Clay has got it. Clay has it. The rest of you are behind. That's okay. It's helpful because then if you're ever wondering what the fruit of the Spirit are, you have it right there. Today, we're talking about gentleness. And I think there may be -- there's a few places where we just really see God's incredible gentleness. But one of the most powerful comes from John 8. And so, let's look at our text for today. Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. At dawn, he appeared again in the temple court. So, remember, he's in the temple. It's a crowded place. All the people are gathered around him. He sat down to teach them, as rabbis did. They would sit to teach. The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. She was cheating on her husband. They made her stand before the group and said to Jesus, "Teacher, Rabbi, this woman was caught in the act of adultery." We actually caught her cheating. They made her stand before the group and said to Jesus, "Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of -- in the law, Moses commanded us to stone such women." Now, what do you say? Stoning is -- it's a pretty barbaric, it's a rough practice. But it's the act of, like, using big rocks to crush someone. So, usually they'd put a person in a pit and then begin pelting them with rocks. The mercy was to use a really large rock to knock them out. But a lot of times, if people were being particularly barbaric, they would use smaller rocks to prolong suffering. What do you say, Jesus? Moses says that we're supposed to stone such women. That's -- there are places where the death penalty is authorized. But we know from history that that almost never happened. It was very, very -- it was very, very rare for the death penalty to be used in a case like this. But nevertheless, they're trying to trap Jesus. They're like, "Well, what do you say? Is Moses wrong?" Well, it goes on. They were using this question as a trap in order to have a basis for accusing him. But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. When they kept on questioning -- they're badgering him. "Is Moses wrong? What do you say? Should we kill this woman?" When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them,
Transcription truncated.
Biblical gentleness is not niceness or weakness! Biblical gentleness: acknowledging that people are fragile, so handle with care! Jesus' gentleness: kindness even towards enemies.