When I was a kid, my buddies and I sometimes spent long summer days hanging out at the creek near the railroad tracks. In the stream were tiny, menacing-looking creatures — crawdads.

Occasionally, we'd waste a few hours hunting these creatures, grabbing them carefully to avoid their pincers.

I never really liked handling crawdads. They're ugly and hard and wear their bones on the outside. We never cuddled them like, say, puppies, whose bone structure is upholstered with soft, furry, tail-wagging flesh.

Unfortunately, some Christians remind me of crawdads. These are people who wear their bone structure — convictions, standards of behavior — on the outside. They are often edgy types who measure their own acceptability, and that of others, by how much they or others conform to external expectations.

Curiously, Jesus' greatest skirmishes were never with those who fell short of external standards, but with this type of religious person with a rigid, exterior "bone structure." In a classic confrontation, some extreme "crawdads" caught a woman in the act of adultery. They brazenly dragged their humiliated prize to Jesus and publicly challenged him as to what should be done with her.

At her expense, they had coyly painted the prophet of growing fame into an inescapable corner. The ancient law required both male and female adulterers be executed by stoning.

If Jesus concurred, he'd be viewed by the gathered crowd as heartless and unmerciful. But, if out of compassion he contradicted the law, he'd be attacked by the "crawdads" as a compromising false prophet. Either way, the traumatized woman would likely lose her life. No way out.

In an understated, but powerfully transformative gesture, the carpenter's son leaned into the trap, offered the accusers a stone and suggested that whoever is himself without sin begin the execution.

Stunned by Jesus' unexpected response, the woman's hypocritical accusers stood dumbfounded. Humiliated, they began to gradually slink away one by one.

Jesus turned to the shaken woman, and asked, "Where are they? Did no one condemn you?"

"No one, Lord," she replied. To her unspeakable relief, Jesus assured kindly, "Neither do I condemn you" (John 8:2-11).

It's not that Jesus had no bones — no convictions — about life, values, things like adultery. But he carried them inside warm, tender flesh, accompanied by a heart of love and esteem for all people, particularly the wounded, the humble and the vulnerable.

In parting, Jesus said gently to the woman, "Go your way; from now on sin no more." If this greatly relieved woman was indeed ever impelled to seek happiness without self-destructively sleeping with married men, it doubtless resulted from the quiet flame Jesus ignited in her heart through his respect, compassion and grace.

Such an internal flame rarely results from external imposition by "crawdads." Rather, their approach is spiritually suppressive and misleading. It's also emotionally toxic. And it's a turnoff.

As a kid, I never really liked handling creatures that wear their bones on the outside. Still don't.

Pastor Bob Levin serves at North County Community Church, 7410 Howdershell Road in Hazelwood. He can be reached at bob_levin@sbcglobal.net.