Matthew 18:7-9
Woe to the world from the causes for stumbling! For the causes for stumbling are bound to
come, but nevertheless woe to the man through whom the cause for stumbling
comes. And if your hand or foot causes
you to stumble, cut it off and cast it away from you. It is better for you to enter into life
crippled or lame than while having two hands or two feet to be thrown into the
eternal fire. And if your eye causes you
to stumble, tear it out and cast it away from you. For it is better to enter into life one-eyed than
while having two-eyes to be thrown into the fire of Gehenna (Hell).
Thoughts for Today
First Thought:
This is a Great passage to talk about the Greek word that is
repeated over and over in the last two days.
The Greek word is skandalon (σκάνδαλον), and it obviously
is the root of our word scandal.
Anywhere in my translation for the last few days that you see the
expression “cause for stumbling” is a place where this word appears in the
Greek. It literally means “the stick of bait
that one places in a trap.” In other
words, skandalon is the thing that tempts us into a place in which we really do
not want to be in the end. That is an
incredible word to describe the process of sin.
Very few people go into sin knowing the dark and bad places that the sin
will lead. We all go into sin because it
seems fun and interesting at first. Only
when our sin becomes habitual and addicting do we truly understand the reason
that it is sin.
What bait have you fallen for in your life that led to
sin? What cause for stumbling is present
in your life right now? Why is it useful
to understand sin through this lens?
Second Thought:
Next, let’s understand clearly that Jesus says that the
causes for stumbling will come. In fact,
Jesus says that they are inevitable.
Welcome to the world! Temptation
abounds! We cannot get away from
temptation. At any point in our life, if
we want to find sin we can. The world is
absolutely full of places that we can go into temptation. Human beings are great at exploiting one
another’s propensity for sin. I believe
this is the core theology of the passage.
In our own quest for glory, power, prestige, reputation, fame, wealth,
or whatever other self-centered desire we often have to take things from other
people. For example, in order for people
to become wealthy they need to take wealth from other people! For people to become powerful they have to
have powerless people underneath them.
This is why human beings are so good at leading others into sin. On some level we want to amass what other
people have. We want what they have more
than what God wants for us naturally.
Thus we find causes for others to stumble.
Do you think that this portrayal of humanity is
correct? Where have you encountered
other people doing this in your life?
Where are you guilty of doing this in your life?
Third Thought:
Jesus gives us a very difficult
teaching in the second half of this passage.
Cut off your hand! Cut off your
feet! Gouge out your eye! And before anyone asks, no. Jesus does not mean this passage
literally. None of Jesus’ disciples
literally followed this teaching. He’s
using hyperbole! Therefore, we should
not literally follow this teaching, either.
What is Jesus really going after, then?
Jesus is trying to put eternal punishment into perspective. None of us would ever think of voluntarily
cutting off an arm. But the punishment
to come will make cutting off an arm seem desirable. That’s a really scary thought, one that we
should not miss. The eternal
consequences of sin far outweigh the temporary emotional value we might place
upon it.
Do you consider the consequences of sin
when you act? When is this easy? When is this difficult?
Fourth Thought:
As a bonus thought today, I want to
briefly speak about this thing called Gehenna and why it is always associated
with fire. You may remember that during
the period of the kings who followed David that child sacrifice was common,
especially among the kings of Israel (the northern kingdom). This child sacrifice was done to the god
Molech. You can find references to it in
2 Chronicles 28:1-6 and 2 Chronicles 33:1-9.
You can also find God teaching against this practice in Jeremiah
7:31-32, Jeremiah 32:34. This Valley of
the Son of Hinnom is a Hebrew word that through the centuries following the
Babylonian exile turns into a single word: Gehenna. You can probably see how closely the end of
Gehenna matches the sound of the name Hinnom.
It is sometimes argued that there is no greater thing that causes God’s
wrath than to end the life of another person for the sake of worshipping
another God. In that act a person is
denying God, putting other gods before God, and killing another life! Thus, because the Valley of Hinnom was a
place where people died at being burned, it was natural for people to
conceptualize Gehenna as the place where the offenders would be punished by God
in God’s fire. This is why we often
think of Hell as a place of eternal fire.
This is also why we distinguish between Hell (Gehenna) and the place of
the dead (Hades in the Greek and Sheol in the Hebrew). Hell (Gehenna) is the place of eternal
punishment following God’s judgment. The
place of the dead (Hades/Sheol) is the place where dead people went to await the
time of God’s judgment.
Passage for Tomorrow: Matthew 18:10-14
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