Shedding light ONTO Scripture helps us receive light FROM Scripture

Even before Jesus made atonement and carried us beyond the Mosaic Law, prophets operating _within_ the Law were aware that "the letter of the law" was not everything. They were able to deal also with people's character and motives.  

                                                                                                     
 Here is a bit of background on the Herod family. We know from the Gospels that Herod Antipas (a son of the evil old phony king) had a wife named Herodias; but no one asks why someone who married _into_ the family would have such an obviously derivative name. The explanation is that Herodias _didn't_ marry into the Herod family, she was _born_ into it. She was a granddaughter of the first Herod. I forget which of the many sons was her father, but I'm pretty sure her first _husband_ was Herod Philip. Thus Herodias was married to her uncle; and Antipas who stole her was _another_ of her uncles.    

                                                                                   
 Now, the Law forbade sex between an uncle and a niece, or between an aunt and a nephew. So by the letter, Herodias' marriage to Herod Philip _wasn't_ valid in the first place, that John the Baptist should have bothered caring about its dissolution. But John doubtless understood that the Herods, who were part Arab, were not big on Mosaic observance anyway; and in their ignorant world, an uncle-niece marriage might be perceived by _them_ to be valid. Therefore, _within_ that worldview, there would still have been some vestige of moral virtue in Herodias deciding "I'll be faithful here," and in Herod Antipas deciding "I won't intrude on that." But since Antipas and Herodias _didn't_ follow the relatively high road, John the Baptist got on their case EXACTLY AS IF the original marriage had been legitimate in every way.
                                                                                               
   
 It would be cheap and easy, at this point, for Christians to oversimplify by saying: "None of that matters! All that matters is that the Herods were unsaved sinners, which means that _every_ possible action of theirs would be _exactly_ as bad as every _other_ possible action!" But John the Baptist, who I think did have some spiritual authority, cough cough, _didn't_ act or speak as if every possible action by a sinner was the same as every other possible action. He acted as if it would in fact have been _better_ for Herodias not to have left one uncle for another uncle.
                                                                                     
   
 There was a reason for John's attitude. Of _course_ Herodias would not have been eternally saved by the mere fact of staying with her first husband, even if the inbreeding had not been an issue. But if she _had_ been faithful, God could have _used_ this choice on her part as a spark of light-- part of the process of awakening her to spiritual truth. In "Mere Christianity," Mister Lewis writes: "Virtue, even attempted virtue, brings light; indulgence brings fog."
                                                                         
   
 The next shallow dismissal would be to say: "No action matters! God either chooses to save someone or _doesn't_ choose to save that person!" But no matter how super-duper-sovereign God's work of grace is, it still _reaches_ us through particular experiences. We created beings live among the particulars.
                                                         
   
 Unless we think that God's sovereignty means we should go to bed and never DO anything in His service, it is fully appropriate for us to try to understand other people's feelings and wishes. Surely our understanding of our fellow mortals can be at _least_ as useful to God as our being utterly clueless would be.