Imagine a place where nobody throws stones.
Where everything said or done is to build up, not break down. To help, not hurt. To support, not accuse.
No gossip. No mockery. No words that cut like a knife.
No pointing fingers. No getting even. No eye for an eye, but giving freely, even to save a life.
A place where anyone gets a fresh start, as long as they are contrite, repentant, and commit to living life the right way.
What a wonderful place that would be.
You can be that place.
But here’s what nobody tells you: that place costs something.
Suffering as a Virtue
I’ve loved Dr. John Perkins ever since I read his book, Count It All Joy. There’s something about his voice, weathered, wise, and unbreakable, that gets into your bones and stays there.
Dr. John Perkins went home to glory on March 13, 2026. He was 95. To honor him, Dr. Tony Evans released a previously unaired conversation on the March 24th episode of The Unbound Podcast. I listened, and I was reminded all over again of what this man’s life actually cost him and what God did with that cost.
His wisdom isn’t just for Black Americans. It’s for Black, Brown, White, every race, and every background. America needs it right now. Desperately.
Here’s what wrecked me.
Dr. Perkins was tortured in a Mississippi jail. Beaten so badly that he thought he would die. In that moment, he wanted revenge. He admitted it. Then God convicted him. “My sin would be just as bad as theirs,” he declared.
He survived. And white doctors, the same race that nearly killed him, prayed over him at night, cared for him, and one even took him on peaceful drives in the country to aid his healing.
He said simply, “They outloved me.”
That’s when he learned it. Suffering is a virtue. Not because pain is good. But because suffering, surrendered to God, disciplines you for love. It teaches you what love is not and makes you desperate for what it is.
You cannot be a no-stone-throwing place until you’ve felt the stones yourself.
A New Direction
There’s a parable in the Gospel of John (verses 2-11) that addresses the temptation to throw stones.
At dawn, he appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered around him, and he sat down to teach them…
The Pharisees dragged a woman into the open. Caught. Exposed. Humiliated. Every eye was a stone before the first one flew.
They weren’t just judging her. They were using her, a broken human being, as a theological trap.
Jesus bent down and wrote in the dirt.
We don’t know what He wrote. But I think He was giving them a moment. A chance to feel something. Has no one ever had to show grace to you?
Then He stood up and said it:
“Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.”
One by one, they left. Maybe because they’d lived long enough to know their own wreckage.
Suffering has a way of doing that, of dropping the stone from your hand.
When everyone was gone, Jesus looked at her.
Not with pity. Not with disgust. With something harder and holier than both.
“Neither do I condemn you. Go now and leave your life of sin.”
No stone. No lecture. No list of everything she’d done wrong.
Just grace. And a new direction.
You Can Be That Place
That’s the place.
Not a place without standards. Jesus didn’t pretend the sin wasn’t real.
But a place where the broken are received, not destroyed. Where the suffering of others reminds you of your own. Where love, strong enough to absorb the accusation, speaks the last word.
Dr. Perkins was right. Suffering disciplines you for love. The Pharisees dropped their stones when they felt the weight of their own sin.
Jesus never picked one up because He was already carrying the cross.
You can be that place.
Feed Your Good Wolf. Build on the Word. And the next time your hand reaches for a stone, let suffering remind you why you should drop it.
“Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone.” – John 8:7 (NIV)
This post was originally published on August 5, 2017, and was republished on June 12, 2022, with the addition of John 8:2-11 (NIV). Today’s revision was enhanced by the incorporation of Dr. John Perkins story and how it can be used to Feed Your Good Wolf.
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