When God Met A Girl: Life-changing Encounters With Women of the Bible - Softcover

Snaden, Andrew

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0781444330 ISBN 13: 9780781444330

Publisher: David C Cook Publishing Company, 2007

Synopsis

<div><p><em>When God Met a Girl</em> portrays vivid snapshots of the loving meetings between Jesus and the women he encountered. Jesus was never dominant or insensitive, but was a healer who encouraged and empowered these women.</p><p>Be encouraged to imitate Jesus in your relationships with others and to have a deeper understanding of grace, God's life-changing love for women, and the realization that true self-esteem can only come from a committed relationship with him.</p></div>

About this title

About the Author

<div><p><b>Andrew Snaden</b> is an accountant by day and a novelist by night. He has written two top-selling books, <i>Flames of Deceit</i> (Barbour) and <i>Betrayed</i> (Barbour), as well as <i>Vancouver Mystery</i> (Barbour) and <i>Traitor</i> (Barbour). He lives in Prince George, British Columbia, Canada. </p></div>

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

WHEN GOD MET A GIRL

Life-Changing Encounters with Women of the Bible

By ANDREW SNADEN

David C. Cook

Copyright © 2007 Andrew Snaden
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-7814-4433-0

Contents

Acknowledgments, 
Introduction, 
1. A Woman Caught in Adultery (Grace), 
2. A Woman With an Issue of Blood (Faith), 
3. Bad Day to Be a Demon (Delivered), 
4. Off the Tracks (Slammed), 
5. The Woman at the Well (Thirst), 
6. A Boy Comes Back (Surprise), 
7. An Unusual Dinner Guest (Blindness), 
8. The Last Resort (Desperation), 
9. You Are of Great Value (Nobodies), 
10. I'll Get There When I Get There (Power), 
11. Unexpected Ally (Courage), 
12. Everything Has Changed (Loyalty), 
Afterword, 
Readers' Guide, 
Notes, 
About the Author, 
Extras, 

CHAPTER 1

A WOMAN CAUGHT IN ADULTERY (Grace)

* * *

The door banged open.

Her eyes flashed from lust to fear. Angry hands reached from behind, grabbing at her shoulders and pulling her away from me. Two large men held her between them while two more crowded into the small room. The eldest of the group, Simeon, spat on her.

"Harlot," he said.

She looked at me like a frightened child, hoping I could do something. Anything. The men also looked at me, smirking. I rose from the bed, slowly wrapping a sheepskin around myself. I measured each man carefully before turning to her, then I spat on her myself.

Her eyes searched mine. "I ... I don't understand."

Simeon stepped around and faced her. "You don't need to understand. All you need to know is you've been caught committing adultery. All you need to know is the law requires you to be stoned to death."

Her eyes looked to me, then back at Simeon. "No, that can't be."

"It can and it is," he said. The big men released her as Simeon grabbed her hair and pulled her toward the door. She looked back at me, frightened. Betrayed. "But what about him?"

Simeon paused, looked at me, and grunted. "What about him? He's done nothing wrong." Another of the men grabbed her and, with Simeon, pulled her from the room kicking and screaming. I picked my robe up off the floor, put it on, and followed them into the dry, dusty street.

Priests and scribes were waiting in the street, shouting and reviling the woman. Her pleadings fell on deaf ears as they dragged her toward the temple. The sharp little rocks embedded in the dirt road slashed at her bare feet. Eventually she lost her balance and the cuts appeared on her body. It wouldn't be long before rocks the size of fists crushed her to death. They just needed her for one more task, and then they could get it over with.

The little mob had neared the temple when a patrol of Roman soldiers blocked their path. A horse-mounted centurion looked down at the mob. His eyebrows lifted at the sight of the naked and bleeding woman.

"What's going on here?" he said.

Simeon stepped forward. "We caught this woman committing adultery. We're taking her to be stoned as it says in the law."

The centurion looked down at the woman, his face impassive, and then turned his attention to Simeon. "You're under Roman law. No one gets put to death without Roman consent."

"Then consent," Simeon said. "She's a harlot." He moved a little closer to the centurion. "Unless there's some reason you wish to protect her?"

The centurion's eyes shifted for a second. "There has to be a trial."

"There will be," Simeon said. "Jesus the great teacher is in town. We will have him judge her."

A slight grin flitted across the centurion's face. "You will have Jesus judge her?"

"Yes."

"And you'll accept his judgment?"

"Of course." It was Simeon's turn to grin.

The centurion leaned back on his horse and gently moved the reins. The horse backed away from the center of the street; the centurion's men followed suit. "Then you may go."

The crowd started to move.

"Wait!" The centurion held his hand up.

The crowd staggered to a stop.

"Yes," Simeon said.

"Where's the man she committed adultery with?"

My stomach roiled and my heart hammered. We had a deal, and it didn't include rocks bouncing off of my head. The woman started to turn—to look back at me, to point at me? One of the men grabbed her shoulder, and she winced in pain. She kept her eyes toward the ground.

"Oh, he ran away," Simeon said.

My heart started to settle down.

"Didn't she run?" the centurion said.

"What does that have to do with anything?" Simeon said.

"Well, if he ran, she ran. How come you only caught her?"

"He was very fast," Simeon said.

The centurion rubbed his chin. "I see. Tell me, what did he look like?"

Simeon tilted his head and my heart started to hammer again. "What he looked like?"

"Yes," the centurion said. "What did the man who got away look like?"

"Why?"

The centurion grinned. "We'll help you find him. Surely you'll want to bring both of them to justice."

Simeon glanced over at me and my knees almost buckled. "We didn't get a good look at him. We only saw his back."

"Of course you did," the centurion said. He unfastened his cloak and flung it toward Simeon. "At least cover her with this."

Simeon picked up the cloak and tossed it to the woman, who quickly wrapped it around herself. He looked up at the centurion. "Compassion? From a Roman? I've seen it all now."

The centurion smirked. "The day is young." He backed his horse out of their way.

It didn't take the mob long to work itself back into indignant rage as they dragged my "lover" to the temple. They burst through the temple entrance, and people inside quickly parted to make way for the priests and scribes. At the center sat the so-called prophet Jesus; now they'd prove he was nothing but a deceiver. He claimed to be the Son of God. Word was that Jesus was going around eating with and forgiving sinners. Only God could forgive sins, and if Jesus forgave this woman, they'd have him. And if he didn't, well, one less adulteress in town.

Someone gave the woman a hard shove, and she collapsed, trembling in front of Jesus.

"Teacher," Simeon said with mock respect, "this woman was caught in adultery, in the very act. Now Moses, in the law, commanded us that such should be stoned." Simeon paused, setting his trap and enjoying it. Finally, he continued, "But what do you say?"

I kept to the back of the priests and scribes, standing at an angle so I'd be out of the woman's sight. But it didn't matter. She never looked up anyway. She just lay there, sobbing silently, awaiting death.

A stillness settled over the temple. A nervous shuffling moved through the priests and scribes, and they started to demand that he answer them. Jesus stood up and locked his eyes on Simeon's. He said it quietly, without a hint of emotion, but the challenge was fierce nonetheless.

"He who is without sin among you, let him throw a stone at her first."

No one moved, no one breathed. It seemed as if time had stopped, just for this moment, just for this man. Just for this ...?

Suddenly, Jesus stooped down and began writing on the ground. I couldn't see what he wrote, but Simeon could. He turned, his face ashen, and walked past us all. In turn by age, all the priests and scribes, their faces drained of color, left.

I didn't have to fear the woman accusing me. Her eyes were on Jesus, tears streaming down her face. I stepped forward, looked at what he wrote, what he wrote for all to see. He'd written about me. Why had the priests and scribes just walked past me? With what Jesus wrote, they couldn't let me live.

I retreated to the back of the temple, waiting for the crowd to turn on me, but they kept their eyes on Jesus. They were waiting to see what he was going to do with the woman.

Jesus rose up and looked at the woman.

"Woman, where are those accusers of yours? Has no one condemned you?"

She said, "No one, Lord."

And Jesus said to her, "Neither do I condemn you; go and sin no more."

The crowd began to murmur. He was actually going to let her go. Jesus turned to them. "I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life." (Dialogue taken from John 8:4–12.)

* * *

One of my college instructors told the story of a divisional accountant who made an error that cost a multinational corporation more than a million dollars. He was "summoned" to the head office to meet with the president and vice president.

My instructor said he looked like he was going to an execution. His shoulders were stooped, his walk slow, his head hanging low. Not only was he going to be fired, but his professional reputation was effectively ruined as well. After that meeting, this guy's next job would probably include saying, "Would you like fries with that?"

My instructor—who was one of the home-office accountants at the time—said the guy went into the president's office and the meeting lasted less than a minute. When he came out, he looked stunned. My instructor asked what happened.

He said, "I opened the door and they both looked at me. Charlie (the president) asked, 'Do you know what you did wrong?'

"I said yes.

"'Do you think you'll ever do it again?'

"I said no.

"Charlie said, 'Well, there's no point in firing you, because the next guy will probably make the same mistake. Go back to work.'"

Imagine the intense relief he felt! He knew he deserved to be fired, and suddenly it was as if nothing had ever happened. He wouldn't have to sell his home, give up his golf membership, and return his Lexus.

The woman in the story at the beginning of this chapter—commonly known to history as "the woman caught in adultery"—must have felt something even more intense. She had no reason to believe she'd escape punishment just because her accusers had left. There was a law that demanded she be put to death. If Jesus were a prophet, he would follow the law.

Of course, she probably didn't know this at the time, but Jesus is more than a prophet, more than the law. He is God! And he did follow the law. The law says,

Whoever is deserving of death shall be put to death on the testimony of two or three witnesses; he shall not be put to death on the testimony of one witness. (Deut. 17:6)

After Jesus fingered that mysterious writing on the ground, the witnesses disappeared, almost like evaporating smoke. For some reason, they just didn't feel like testifying anymore, and without them, this bleeding woman couldn't be put to death.

Now, why did Jesus let her off? She wasn't a nice person. She ran a little business somewhere near town that contributed to the society's moral decay. Jesus could've kept his finger off the ground, let them accuse her, pronounced sentence, and let the rocks fly.

The rocks didn't fly because of one simple word with fathomless meaning:

Grace.

The dictionary defines grace as "the free and unmerited favor or beneficence of God." Do you know what that meant for the woman caught in adultery? Simply this: Jesus let her off because he felt like it. There was nothing she did or could have done to earn that break. The God who became man chose not to condemn her.

She must have been one confused girl. The people who were guilty condemned her, and the one who was guiltless forgave her. She must have felt like that guy who fully expected to be fired, only to return to his old job.

The big difference here, though, is I doubt she ever returned to her old job. How could she? She'd met the light of the world; she'd experienced true saving grace firsthand; she was changed. So changed, in fact, that I've taken to calling her something other than "the woman caught in adultery." I've grown fond of calling her by the name that describes how Christ treated her, the name that reminds me how I should treat others like her—like me.

Grace.

And so our wounded, broken Grace looked up and found freedom in the eyes of God, found joy in the face of the Savior, lost her life and found it again in the hands of the one who dared defend her when she deserved only death.

What about those guilty guys and their rocks?

No one knows for sure what Jesus actually scribbled in the dirt during this encounter, but whatever it was, it had a momentous effect on the priests and scribes. One minute they were lusting for the blood of a helpless, beaten woman. The next, the most they could muster was a meek and hasty retreat from God's presence.

And why was it so easy for them to condemn this woman to death?

During the time of Christ, stoning had to be right up there with crucifixion as a brutal form of execution, yet these so-called religious leaders had no problem with it. In fact, they were eager to spill the woman's blood, to crush her body into a disfigured shell of flesh. How could they be so "holy," and yet so bloodthirsty and cruel?

It's easy to kill what you don't know, but nearly impossible to kill what you love.

I once owned a horse that had to be put down, and I just couldn't shoot it, even though that was the right thing to do. Instead, I called my local vet and she did the deed for me. To her it was just another horse that needed to be euthanized. To me it wasn't just a horse; it was a friend—my companion and riding buddy, not an object.

So how did these religious men get to the point where they could, like that veterinarian, view Grace as simply another "horse" that needed to be euthanized? How could they actually look forward to the prospect of brutally killing her? Sure, the whole point of the exercise appears to have been a way to trap Jesus, but I believe they were counting on him having to go with the law. Once Jesus did that, I'm certain they would've been pressing a rock in his hand and making him join in.

The Scriptures don't actually say what this woman did for a living, but it seems to me if they needed a woman to catch in adultery on short notice, she would have to be a prostitute. So they found one, and what these men did from that point was remove the woman's humanity. She wasn't a woman in their eyes; she wasn't a child of God, created in his image and imbued with the beauty of his touch. She was a "harlot." And once her humanity was removed she became merely an object, and stoning an object was something they could do.

And yet ...

That's not what Jesus saw at all. His eyes looked at the same person the would-be killers looked at, but Jesus didn't see just an object or a "harlot."

He saw a woman.

In fact, he saw more than that. He saw the little girl she had been; he saw the twists and turns of life, the choices and desperation that thrust her on that path of life; he saw everything that led her to the moment she stood before him— and beyond. He saw Grace, who—made stainless with his love—would go on to live a new life of grace and hope, and with a passion for more than just satisfying her physical lust. Jesus saw the complete her and loved her as a result. So he did what only God can do. He forgave, and in his forgiving she found new life.

But the Pharisees couldn't do that. Hatred of Jesus consumed them. He was rocking the apple cart, and it didn't matter who died if they could discredit him. And yet Jesus showed them grace too, even though they didn't realize it.

Ever wonder what Jesus wrote in the sand? Well, no one knows, but I have an idea. I want to share it with you by ending the story.

* * *

Jesus' words cut right into me. I feared to go outside, but listening to Jesus made me want to scream. His words were like the rocks we were going to throw at the woman.

I stumbled outside the temple and held up my arms, expecting a volley of stones to batter me to death; but the priests and scribes weren't there. Maybe they were somewhere holding a meeting, a mock trial. Then they'd pass a sentence. A death sentence. I had to leave town.

I kept away from the main streets on my way home. I rounded the corner to my street and came face-to-face with Simeon. His face was filled with shame as he looked at me.

"So, now you know," he said.

"Know what?"

"My sins. He showed all of you my sins. How can someone who is supposed to be just a man know my darkest deeds and thoughts?"

I went cold. "Jesus wrote your sins in the dirt?"

Simeon nodded slowly.

Now I understood. Jesus had written one thing in the dirt, but we all read it differently. We all read only about our own sins. No man had this ability. Only God could know what Jesus knew.

I turned around and ran toward the temple, hoping Jesus would show me the same mercy he'd shown the woman.

* * *

Forgive me for shifting gears here, but stick with me, because it will all make sense in a moment.

Ever change your hairstyle, and all your "friends" lie to you and say it looks nice when it really doesn't? Then you ask your spouse what he or she thinks, and your spouse kind of looks away and says, "Do you want the truth, or a nice lie?"

"The truth, of course," you say. So they tell you the truth, and it hurts, but it beats walking around looking silly. The people who love us will tell us the truth even when it's going to hurt, because we can't get any better if nobody tells us the truth.

Now, even though it doesn't seem like it, Jesus actually extended grace to more than the woman before him; he also gave grace to the men who were craving the death of the sinner they'd brought. These guys had no clue about their own spiritual condition. They felt they were righteous enough to execute a fellow human being, unaware of the depravity of their own souls. And they were slow learners, too. How clear can you make it?

He who is without sin among you, let him throw a stone at her first. (John 8:7)

That should have been enough to open their eyes to the absurdity of the situation. They were all guilty of sin, yet they felt righteous enough to condemn this woman ... a woman who, in all likelihood, they enticed into sin, only to discover they'd entrapped themselves.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from WHEN GOD MET A GIRL by ANDREW SNADEN. Copyright © 2007 Andrew Snaden. Excerpted by permission of David C. Cook.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

Edition details

• Publisher: David C Cook Publishing Company
• Publication date: 2007
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0781444330
• ISBN 13: 9780781444330
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 288