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As I said, we have to interpret this matter from the very spare account provided us by John MacArthur. In this minimalist account, nothing is really explained. There are no details.

Why did this woman feel desperate? What things did they talk about? What else was said about her life and circumstances, and that book? Did MacArthur offer her any help, including further counseling?

And, again, this woman is being talked about, and she isn’t heard from.

With so many unanswered questions, then, we’re left to just take MacArthur’s account and conclusions about the woman as “Gospel truth.”

And that is really an offense against God — His truth and justice.

It’s not that MacArthur necessarily meant to do her wrong, to whatever extent he did here. And this is from 1993.

It’s that to judge people — especially including their hearts and motives — is perilous and questionable enough, and to do so without presenting sufficient evidence does put “the judge” in the wrong. And to immediately devise a “performance test” for a prostitute who’s taken steps to approach a pastor with her sinful situation, that’s quite questionable without offering any real evidence for the spiritual appropriateness of it all.

It’s as though MacArthur conducted a brief, one-sided trial here, with really no evidence, and found this woman guilty.

When someone — even a mature Christian — tells us similar bare bones stories about people, along with their own judgments on them, are we really just to unquestioningly accept them?

No, we’re not.

MacArthur rendered a judgment here on this woman’s spiritual sincerity at that moment, finding her insincere, and even apparently devised an extra Biblical test of his own making that she had to pass to his satisfaction right then and there for him to declare her faith sincere and genuine. He’s not Jesus, who knows her intimately because he’s God. One could credibly wonder if this episode was a mild formal of spiritual abuse

In any case, the evidence for MacArthur’s judgments here has to be genuinely considered. That’s our duty to the Lord, more so even than it is to that woman.

Maybe it is true that she wasn’t sincere. But from the account he provided, he nowhere near conclusively proved it to his readers.

Now, anyone can look at what he told us and say, “she’s guilty of the terrible sin of prostitution, and so on the matter of her sincerity, I’d say she was ‘credibly accused.’ That’s enough evidence for me to find her guilty of insincerity, too.”

But that is being indifferent to God’s will for us to uphold truth and justice.

And no, I’m not in any way making liignt of her sin, or the seriousness of sexual sin. I repented of lesbianism because I love and believe the Lord
Our worldly society has promoted and reveled in sexual sin to Satanic, Hellish levels, and the Laodicean church today participates in that culture to a considerable extent. I used to say often that I’m “almost Amish,” and that’s still the case. The entertainments, hobbies, material things I’ve happily left behind for the Lord. But I seek to have understanding and appropriate compassion and humility for the the grip that the world generally has many people today.