You guys might have already seen Piper's latest sermon on John 7:53-8:11. It's the story of the woman caught in adultery, and the vast majority of NT scholars believe it should not be in our Bibles. Piper spends half his sermon explaining textual transmission and why he believes the story is not the Word of God. He spends the second half bringing out some great points from the text which he warrants by the fact that these truths are taught elsewhere in the bible. Its a really interesting sermon on a really tricky text.
My question: what would you guys do? Have you guys preached through John? Would you skip the passage? Would you preach the passage but with some disclaimers?
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I haven't seen Piper's sermon, but from what you describe, that is exactly what we did when we preached through John. To me, the only unacceptable option is to ignore it. We want to avoid causing people to doubt the Bible they hold in their hands. Dealing with the difficult technical issues wisely should actually increase people's confidence in the Scripture.
I'm not preaching through John, nor will I be in the near future, so it makes it easier for me to say this... but I think I'd address it and then skip the passage. That's what I plan on doing with the long ending of Mark.
Why would we do that with Mark, but not with John? Because the addition to John isn't weird.
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