WOMEN ARE NOT PROPERTY.

How could it ever be right to think that one person should own another person? Yet, the prevailing belief has been that husbands own their wives and daughters. The notion is that wives are the property of husbands, and therefore they are expected to serve in ‚their proper place‛ as the domestic and maternal overseers of the man’s household. Written in such blunt terms, the error of this thinking should almost jump off the page! Do you know that Jesus actually confronted this thinking? In John 8:3-11, He made it clear that women are not the property of men and are not to be treated as such. This point can easily be lost because most of us lack the knowledge to read it with understanding. But let’s look at Jesus’ encounter with the religious leaders in this passage and see what we can learn. The religious leaders brought a woman to Jesus who had been caught in adultery. According to Deuteronomy 22:22-30, she was to be stoned to death in public. The religious leaders used this occasion to challenge Jesus about whether or not He agreed with the Deuteronomy command. Normally, in a cursory reading of this passage in John’s Gospel, we focus on the efforts of the religious leaders to trap Jesus. We give little attention to the fact that they were willing to exploit a woman to do so. Does this reveal what little regard the religious leaders had for women, that they could use a woman to their advantage this way? According to the religious law, the woman was the property of one man, and the sin in this case was that his property had been damaged. The sin was not her behavior per se. The problem was that she—as property—had been misused. The sin was that the man—her owner—had been violated. Accordingly, this woman was now considered a disgrace to her owner and should be killed. Also, according to the law, the man was to be stoned to death, not for adultery per se, but because he had violated another man’s property. His part in all of this seems to be unimportant to the religious leaders. Why? Where was he? Why did the religious leaders bring only the woman to Jesus? The answers can only be attributed to the prejudice toward women, and perhaps, also, to the anger of the religious leaders toward Jesus’ compassionate and equal treatment of women. The end of the story is that Jesus turned the tables on them and they left. Jesus was so different from the religious leaders! He demonstrated an entirely different set of values from theirs. Jesus did not treat the woman as a man’s property. He treated her as a person of equal human worth. Also, a fact often overlooked is that He spoke directly and personally to her in public. This kind of recognition is almost always a sign of respect, and in this case Jesus made this woman a subject of His respect instead of an object of social disgrace. (How many times have we—simply because we are women— been treated as though we were invisible or with disrespect?) Beyond this point, Jesus, by speaking to the woman publicly, was doing something that the culture prohibited. Another thing of note in this story is that Jesus’ words to the woman were forgiving and compassionate. Without embracing sin, He related to her in a way that did not cast blame or shame on her. He gave her a new start in life: ‚Neither do I condemn you, go and sin no more‛ (John 8:11 NKJV). The stated purpose of the religious leaders in this situation had been to trap Jesus (Jn. 8:6). But Jesus refused to take their bait, and since He was not controlled by other people, He put the focus where it needed to be. He proactively changed the focus to what really mattered! That was what God thought of all of this, of the error of the leaders, and of the welfare of this abused woman. And He showed that this woman was not a piece of human property, not a tool of religious systems, not a worthless item to be used as men pleased. She really was worth something to God! Today, whose values do we embrace?