How often do we find ourselves mentally condemning someone for an opinion or action with which we don’t agree?
Christ Jesus was once approached by a group of religious leaders, who brought with them a woman they had condemned for adultery (see John 8:1–11). They were ready to kill her by stoning. When they asked Jesus what he thought should be done, he answered, “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.” With that, one by one they dropped the idea of throwing stones and left.
What might it have been that caused the men to drop their stone-throwing mentality? Jesus’ pointed answer seems to have caused each to examine his own life. This counsel from the Discoverer of Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy, may broadly describe something of what happened: “In patient obedience to a patient God, let us labor to dissolve with the universal solvent of Love the adamant of error,—self-will, self-justification, and self-love,—which wars against spirituality and is the law of sin and death” (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 242).
