Stumbling Blocks and Millstones
The gospels of Jesus can appear
deceptively simple. At least that has been my experience. The teachings of
Jesus at first glance can appear to me to be merely wise sayings, perhaps worth
saving in a scrapbook as handy quotes applicable to others, but not addressed to
me.
However as soon as I stop to
seriously meditate on the words of Jesus in the four Gospels, layers of meaning
come to the surface. Quite a bit of what Jesus said is highly convicting and
stops me dead in my tracks. Does
something Jesus said 2000 years ago apply to my life and whom I am here and
now? Usually the answer is affirmative.
"For
the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword,
piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and
is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. And there is no
creature hidden from His sight, but all things are naked and open to the eyes
of Him to whom we must give account." (Hebrews 4:12-13)
On his final trip to Jerusalem,
accompanied by a number of disciples, a very mixed crowd of ordinary people,
and some increasingly angry religious leaders, Jesus did not follow a
"seeker-friendly" approach in asking men to follow Him. He made cleat
that it could be very costly to be a disciple,
Now
it happened as they journeyed on the road, that someone said to Him, ÒLord, I
will follow You wherever You go.Ó And Jesus said to him, ÒFoxes have holes and
birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.Ó Then
He said to another, ÒFollow Me.Ó But he said, ÒLord, let me first go and bury
my father.Ó Jesus said to him, ÒLet the dead bury their own dead, but you go
and preach the kingdom of God.Ó And another also said, ÒLord, I will follow
You, but let me first go and bid them farewell who are at my house.Ó But Jesus
said to him, ÒNo one, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit
for the kingdom of God.Ó (Luke 9:57-62)
ÒThe
Son of Man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders and chief
priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised the third day.Ó Then He said to them all, ÒIf anyone
desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily,
and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever
loses his life for My sake will save it. For what profit is it to a man if he
gains the whole world, and is himself destroyed or lost? For whoever is ashamed
of Me and My words, of him the Son of Man will be ashamed when He comes in His
own glory, and in His FatherÕs, and of the holy angels." (Luke 9:22-26)
ÒI
came to send fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! But I
have a baptism to be baptized with, and how distressed I am till it is
accomplished! Do you suppose that I came to give peace on earth? I tell you,
not at all, but rather division. For from now on five in one house will be
divided: three against two, and two against three. Father will be divided
against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter
against mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law
against her mother-in-law.Ó (Luke 12:49-53)
Of course the person who decides not to follow Jesus will lose everything in the end. so
there is clearly only choice which leads to life. But being changed into new
men and women in order to meet the standards of the kingdom of God requires
radical changes in how we live and think--and how we treat others. The training
program starts now.
"The
Christian life is different: harder, and easier. Christ says, "Give me
all. I don't want so much of your time and so much of your money and so much of
your work. I want you. I have not come to torment your natural self, but to
kill it. No half-measures are any good. I don't want to cut off a branch here
and a branch there, I want to have the whole tree down. Hand over the whole
natural self, all the desires, which you think innocent as well as the ones you
think wicked-the whole outfit. I will give you a new self instead. In fact, I
will give you Myself; my own will shall become yours." (C. S. Lewis)
To me, one of the most ominous of
Jesus' teachings about our conduct before others is found in two short verses
in Luke:
ÉHe
said to the disciples, ÒIt is impossible that no stumbling blocks should come,
but woe to him through whom they do come! It would be better for him if a
millstone were hung around his neck, and he were thrown into the sea, than that
he should offend one of these little ones." (Luke 17:1-2)
The "little ones" Jesus speaks
of can refer to small children of course, but the main reference is to a weaker
brother or sister--a less mature Christian, an inquirer, a person open to God,
but not yet fully instructed in the faith. The "stumbling blocks" may
come from Christians or non-Christians. In the latter case, we have an
additional final warning from Jesus addressed to unbelievers who cause others to
stumble, found in Matthew's gospel:
ÒTherefore just as the
tares are gathered up and burned with fire, so shall it be at the end of the
age. The Son of Man will send forth His angels, and they will gather out of His
kingdom all stumbling blocks, and those who commit lawlessness, and will
cast them into the furnace of fire; in that place there shall be weeping and
gnashing of teethÓ (Matthew 13:40-42, NASB).
It is easy to find obstacles in the
path of seekers or new Christians coming from unbelievers, obstacles which
hinder finding and knowing God as He really is. Paul's letter to the Romans
indicates that most people don't want a relationship with the real God, so we
have invented religion instead. In our fallen state, we all repress the truth
about God we already have and pretend we are righteous when actually we are
not.
Much of our
difficulty as seeking Christians stems from our unwillingness to take God as He
is and adjust our lives accordingly.
We insist upon trying to modify Him and bring Him nearer to our own
image. --A. W. Tozer (1897-1963), The Pursuit of God.
For outsiders to the Christian faith
who think they would like to know God, the Christian church is often not a very
attractive place to start one's search these days.
I like your
Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your
Christ. --Mohandas Gandhi
Many church goers who say they are
Christians, are not. Some are seeking to know God, others "haven't decided
yet." This group of people may or may not impede the individual who is on
his or her quest to know God. Many of the pulpits of our land these days are
occupied by men (and women) who do not know God at all, or whose teaching is
blatantly heretical.
I remember my first visit to Egypt in
1974. Taxi-drivers and street vendors and "tour guides" besiege
incoming tourists, eager to provide every helpful service imaginable. Egyptians
are personable, warm and friendly and one can soon see that there impressions
of Americans tends to come from our movies and television programs. All
Americans must be Christians (since we are not Muslims), they say. We are all
rich and self-indulgent, living in the lap of luxury with lots of drinking,
promiscuous sex, easy divorce and pleasure-driven life styles. It is no wonder
that the conservative Muslims in the world think of us as "the Great
Satan." Real Christians are a tiny minority in America today, and we don't
stand out from the crowd nor live very differently from the pagans around us.
What about our TV Evangelists,
especially the rich and famous ones who got into scandal and big trouble a few
years ago? How many inquirers did they drive away from the Christian church?
How many outsiders to Christianity consider TV preachers to be our finest and
best? Surely some of these self-appointed highly-visible spokesmen for the
faith are stumbling-blocks for inquirers, and new Christians?
Over the years I have met dozens of
younger men and women who have "left the church" because they found
the preaching poor, boring and irrelevant. How is the character of the living God
represented to people through poor preaching? Not very well of course. Of
course some people drop out of church because they have been convicted by the
Spirit of God. They may be running away and not facing what God wants them to
learn about themselves. Nevertheless, non-Christians very often get their first
glimpses of who God is supposed to be when they drop into a church to see what
is being said and done there. How many never return? Sad to say, I have a good
many Christians friends who will come to a home Bible study but refuse to
darken the doors of a church.
"There is
scarcely anything so dull and meaningless as Bible doctrine taught for its own
sake. Truth divorced from life is not truth in its Biblical sense, but
something else and something lessÉNo man is better for knowing that God in the
beginning created the heaven and the earth. The devil knows that, and so did
Ahab and Judas Iscariot. No man is better for knowing that God so loved the
world of men that He gave His only begotten Son to die for their redemption. In
hell there are millions who know that. Theological truth is useless until it is
obeyed. The purpose behind all doctrine is to secure moral action." (A. W.
Tozer, Of God and Men,
1960)
I have talked to, or emailed, a good
number of younger people who made an appointment and went to meet with a "trustworthy"
pastor or church leader for help with a sensitive issue in their lives. Many
found themselves judged, rejected and condemned on the spot. They left the
church, badly burned, and never came back. Thankfully God tracks down these
wounded children and helps them find a place in Christ's church in the long
run, but what about the judgmental or legalistic pastor still sitting in a
place of leadership--a man who lacks the basic compassion to identify with a
hurting sinners, a struggling person who wanted help and was turned away?
Romans 14 asks us to be careful not
to stumble a weaker brother or sister who may misinterpret our freedom in
Christ. Weaker Christians can mistakenly assume our liberty in Christ is
license--we may stumble them without even knowing it.
"I
know and am convinced by the Lord Jesus that there is nothing unclean of
itself; but to him who considers anything to be unclean, to him it is unclean.
Yet if your brother is grieved because of your food, you are no longer walking
in love. Do not destroy with your food the one for whom Christ died. Therefore
do not let your good be spoken of as evil; for the kingdom of God is not eating
and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. For he
who serves Christ in these things is acceptable to God and approved by men.
Therefore let us pursue the things which make for peace and the things by which
one may edify another. Do not destroy the work of God for the sake of food. All
things indeed are pure, but it is evil for the man who eats with offense. It is
good neither to eat meat nor drink wine nor do anything by which your brother
stumbles or is offended or is made weak. Do you have faith? Have it to yourself
before God. Happy is he who does not condemn himself in what he approves. But he
who doubts is condemned if he eats, because he does not eat from faith; for
whatever is not from faith is sin. We then who are strong ought to bear with
the scruples of the weak, and not to please ourselves. Let each of us please
his neighbor for his good, leading to edification. For even Christ did not
please Himself; but as it is written, ÒThe reproaches of those who reproached
You fell on Me.Ó (Romans 14:14-15:3)
Sin likes to find company. What is
the effect on younger Christians of locker-room talk, impure jokes or off-color
remarks by the older men of the church on a camping trip? Younger people watch
not only what their leaders say but how their leaders live! Loose living puts a
Christian leader in the same class as false teachers who are actually apostates
from the church. Hypocrisy is a very big sin as far as God is concerned.
Counterfeit Christianity, and
Christianity lived in the energy of the flesh: Most professing Christians today
are not living the genuine New Testament life style specified by the Lord and
the Apostles. Rather they have bought into cheap substitute. Ray Stedman
writes,
"TheÉnew Christian may discover what millions of
others before him have learned: It is possible to avoid the pain and
humiliation of these cycles of repentance and renewal by maintaining an outward
facade of spiritual commitment, moral impeccability, and orthodox behavior. He
can simply maintain an outward reputation for spiritual maturity that is
satisfying to the ego, even though he is inwardly haunted by the fact that his
"Christianity" is a hollow shell. Such an outwardly Christian
life-style is so prevalent today that a new Christian can hardly be blamed for
adopting it and regarding it as the expected thing. He drifts into it with only
an occasional twinge of doubt or a rare, faint pang of conscience.
He is in denial, and would be deeply offended if
anyone called him what he really is: a hypocrite. To him, the word
"hypocrite" suggests something nasty and sinister, like the Pharisees
of old. He sees himself as a "real Christian," even though his faith
is only an inch deep. It is not the kind of rock-solid, deep-rooted
relationship with Jesus that can carry him through any crisis. The fact is, the
"peace" he claims to have is present only while his circumstances are
untroubled; when his circumstances turn dark and troubling, his
"peace" evaporates in an instant. The "joy" he sings about
seldom shows on his face, and the "Christian love" he is talks about
is reserved only for those who please him and get along with him. It is all a giant
(though largely unconscious) sham. He may be a true Christian in whose heart
Christ dwells, but he does not live the Christian life on a consistent basis.
He may be a highly moral, highly religious, even a highly generous person--but
the reality is that he is living pretty much as he did before his conversion,
only now his speech and behavior are covered with a thin glaze of Christianity.
That glaze is the first thing to crack and crumble when life becomes
irritating, difficult, or threatening.
You may think
this is a harsh judgment. Many people think that the mark of an authentic
Christian is doctrinal purity; if a person's beliefs are biblical and
doctrinally orthodox, then he is a Christian. People who equate orthodoxy with
authenticity find it hard to even consider the possibility that, despite the
correctness of all their doctrinal positions, they may have missed the deepest
reality of the authentic Christian life. But we must never forget that true
Christianity is more than teaching--it is a way of life. In fact, it is life itself. "He who has the Son has life," remember?
When we talk about life, we are talking about something that is far more than
mere morality, far more than doctrinal accuracy. Life is a positive quality,
not negative--a description of what we fundamentally are, not what we are not.
The eternal life that Jesus brings to us is radical, not superficial. It is
humble, not self-promoting. It is compassionate, not indifferent. It is
courageous, not timid or retiring. It is a far cry indeed from the mild
compatibility, agreeability, and affability that passes for Christianity in
thousands of churches across the land. In fact, the Great Imitation is so
widely accepted as genuine Christianity that the real thing is often regarded
as a threat or a heresy whenever it appears." (Ray C. Stedman, Authentic
Christianity, http://raystedman.org/authenxnty/.
In ancient Israel, worship in the
temple fell to such a low level of vitality that God actually said he would
prefer no worship at all to the kind
of worship the people were offering Him,
ÒWho
is there even among you who would shut the doors [of the temple], So that you
would not kindle fire on My altar in vain? I have no pleasure in you,Ó Says the
LORD of hosts, ÒNor will I accept an offering from your hands. For from the
rising of the sun, even to its going down, My name shall be great among the
Gentiles; In every place incense shall be offered to My name, And a pure
offering; For My name shall be great among the nations,Ó Says the LORD of
hostsÉ." (Malachi 1:10-11)
Obviously hypocrisy and phoniness in
Christian leaders is more serious than less-than-genuine Christian living in
less conspicuous Christians. On the other hand Christians are few and far between
in our world--any one of us may find himself or herself to be the only
representative of God in an office, or a neighborhood or a social group.
I have omitted here a private list of
my own long and painful personal list of occasions when I know something I said or did caused a weaker brother or
sister to stumble. I can only guess that my carnal conduct in years past has
caused many more to stumble--people I have not heard from or who are still
suffering in silence. I speak as a sinner saved by grace. By now I should have a
garage full of my own engraved millstones waiting for the day of my judgment. Meantime,
I am not about to throw stones or millstones.
The good news we need to bear in mind
is the lavishness of God's grace and mercy. All sin can be forgiven. Though consequences
remain, over time God even gives us back our "wasted years" to some
extent. Yet damage we have done to others by causing them to stumble can never
be fully undone. The hurt we cause others by our failures to faithfully
represent God in word and deed sends ripples through time and eternity.
For example, a court of law may award
generous monetary damages to an accident victim's widow whose husband was
killed by a drunk driver. But the dead man does not return to life after the
fines have been paid and earth's limited justice has been served. The widow's
entire life, and her family's, and a whole circle of friends has been
drastically altered forever. Something of irreplaceable value has been taken
from the family and friends of the deceased--and the whole society also bears a
loss. How can this be undone? It can't. We who have offended and hurt others
can only plead for God's grace and mercy. We offenders will surely suffer
sorrow and loss at the Judgment Seat of Christ at the very least.
Fortunately, we can have as much
grace a we need.
Édo
you think that the Scripture says in vain, ÒThe Spirit who dwells in us yearns
jealouslyÓ? But He gives more
grace. Therefore He says: ÒGod resists the proud, But gives grace to the
humble.Ó Therefore submit to God.
Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your
hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Lament and mourn
and weep! Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble
yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up." (James
4:5-10)
Therefore
gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and rest your hope fully upon the
grace that is to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ; as obedient children, not conforming
yourselves to the former lusts, as in your ignorance; but as He who called you is
holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, because it is written, ÒBe holy,
for I am holy.Ó And if you call on the Father, who without partiality judges
according to each oneÕs work, conduct yourselves throughout the time of your
stay here in fear; knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, like
silver or gold, from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers,
but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without
spot. He indeed was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was
manifest in these last times for you who through Him believe in God, who raised
Him from the dead and gave Him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God.
Since you have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit in
sincere love of the brethren, love one another fervently with a pure heart,
having been born again, not of corruptible seed but incorruptible, through the
word of God which lives and abides forever, because ÒAll flesh is as grass, And
all the glory of man as the flower of the grass. The grass withers, And its
flower falls away, But the word of the LORD endures forever.Ó Now this is the
word which by the gospel was preached to you. Therefore, laying aside all
malice, all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and all evil speaking, as newborn babes,
desire the pure milk of the word, that you may grow thereby, if indeed you have
tasted that the Lord is gracious. Coming to Him as to a living stone, rejected
indeed by men, but chosen by God and precious, you also, as living stones, are
being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual
sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. Therefore it is also
contained in the Scripture, ÒBehold, I lay in Zion A chief cornerstone, elect,
precious, And he who believes on Him will by no means be put to shame.Ó
Therefore, to you who believe, He is precious; but to those who are
disobedient, ÒThe stone which the builders rejected Has become the chief
cornerstone,Ó and ÒA stone of stumbling And a rock of offense.Ó They stumble,
being disobedient to the word, to which they also were appointed." (1
Peter 1:13-2:8)
In summary, we Christians in America,
it seems to me, do not take God seriously enough when it comes to the basic
standards of conduct which our Lord expects from His own. Probably we all need to make major
life-style changes--I know I do.
Pastor Bob Deffinbaugh in his fine
commentary on Luke offers a helpful summary off this topic:
Characteristics
of Stumbling Blocks
(1) Stumbling blocks
increase the temptation to sin. To put the matter just a bit differently, the
stumbling block makes sin harder to resist.
(2) Being a stumbling
block is very much a matter of misused influence. Stumbling blocks are
generally Òstronger,Ó more mature, more influential than those they adversely
influence (Òlittle onesÓ).
(3) Leaders, then, are
in great danger of becoming a stumbling block.
(4) Stumbling block may
or may not deliberately intend to be such; they may or may not be conscious of
the impact of their deeds.
(5) Stumbling blocks may
or may not cause the other person to sin. A stumbling block makes sin more
appealing, although he may not succeed at causing the other person to sin.
(6) The stumbling block
issue has some desire or attraction to the weak.
(7) The stumbling block
may or may not be a believer.
(8) The occasion of
stumbling may not only be appealing, but may well not be evil, in and of itself
(e.g. the ÒlibertiesÓ of 1 Corinthians and Romans 14).
Second, we must ask
ourselves, ÒWhat are some of the ways in which we can become a stumbling block
to another?Ó Consider these ways as a starting point:
Ways we can
cause others to stumble
(1)
Competition—cf. Matthew 18:1ff.; also Mark 9—when we seek to get
ahead of our brethren, we will not seek to build them up, but rather to tear
them down; we construct ways in which to see to it that our brethren fall.
(Note that the disciplesÕ arguing over who was the greatest brought about our
LordÕs words about stumbling blocks in both Matthew and Mark).
(2) False
teaching—Malachi 2:8; Romans 16:17; James 3; Revelation 2:14 (?).
(3)
Flattery—Proverbs 7:21-22; 26:28; 29:5.
(4) Ungodly rebuke &
counsel—JobÕs friends/Peter & Jesus (Matthew 16:23)
(5) Use of liberties
which are detrimental to weaker brethren—Romans 14:20; 1 Corinthians 8:9;
10:32; 2 Corinthians 6:2.
(6) Passing judgment on
others—Romans 14:13 (?).
(7) By abusing our
position or power / setting a bad example—James 3. Sexual, physical,
psychological abuse of children (?)
(8) By not living in the
light, but continuing in the deeds of darkness: 1 John 2:10. 2 Corinthians 6:3
(cf. vv. 1-13).
(9) By Òjudging,Ó I take
it, imposing standards above the Scriptures—cf. Romans 14:13; cf. James
4:11-12.
Finally,
if we take sin in the life of a brother seriously, we will do everything
possible to turn that brother from his sin when he falls. The Pharisees prided
themselves for taking sin seriously. They, however, looked for sin in others,
and then withdrew from those whose sins they found personally offensive. The
Lord, who came to seek and to save sinners, calls upon His disciples to do
likewise. Thus, we show that we take sin seriously when we seek out our sinning
brother and do all we can to turn him from that sin to God, by repenting. (http://www.ldolphin.org/luke/luke17.html)
Postscript: After studying a dozen
commentaries and then teaching this passage in Luke--and the related verses
which follow--I discovered a sermon On Living Together by Ray Stedman. As usual,
Ray wonderfully ties together this great teaching of Jesus in Luke 17:1-10. Highly
recommended. See http://www.raystedman.org/misc/0284.html.
Recommended
summer reading:
1. John C. Sanford, Genetic
Entropy & the Mystery of the Genome, 2005.
2. David Stove, Darwinian
Fairytales : Selfish Genes, Errors of Heredity and Other Fables of Evolution,
2006.
3. Mary Midgley, Evolution as
Religion, 2002
4. D.A. Carson, Becoming
Conversant with the Emerging Church, 2005.
5. Isaac C. Mozeson, The Origin of
Speeches, 2005
6. David L. Rowe, I Love Mormons, 2005.
7. Richard and Joan Ostling, Mormon
America, 1999.
8. Francis Beckwith, Carl Mosser,
Paul Owen, The New Mormon Challenge, 2002
9.
Robert Millet, A Different
Jesus?: The Christ Of The Latter-day Saints, 2005.
10. Craig
Blomberg and Stephen Robinson, How Wide the Divide? A Mormon and an Evangelical
in Conversation,
1997.
Other
News:
Four Mormon missionary friends from my area have been visiting me regularly for
two hours on Friday mornings at my home for wide-ranging discussions about what
we have in common and where we differ. My new friends are polite, well-informed,
gracious, and obviously eager to know the Bible better. Two of them have joined
our Wednesday night men's group now studying Romans. It is a pleasure to know
these fine young men on a first name basis. We've discovered that when our
discussions center around the Person of Jesus we make the most progress, and find
that we often are not all that far apart in our basic beliefs. My Mormon friends
tell me they would like to find out what mainstream Christians believe these
days, but they are frequently turned away at the door of evangelical churches
as unwelcome visitors! According to ExMormons.org about half of Mormon
missionaries leave the LDS church after their two-year stint as missionaries, usually
because of the influence of individual evangelical Christians they met along
the way. If one of my Mormon friends decided to leave the LDS church I'd be
hard pressed to find a local church where I could send him for the support and
care-giving he has grown up with in the Mormon culture.
News:
I
appreciate the privilege and opportunity given me to teach through Luke's
gospel in the Forum Class at my home church, Peninsula Bible Church of Palo
Alto. We are continuing into the summer months and currently we're over
two-thirds through Luke. Weekly MP3 audio files are on my web site, and they
are Podcast as well. [http://ldolphin.org/luke/]. Cassette tapes are
available. The Wednesday Brothers of Thunder, meeting now for 15 years at my home,
has finished a seven week study of The Four Loves by C.S. Lewis and we
are now into Romans.
Contributions: Friends who want to
help out with my expenses may send contributions directly to me by means of the
PayPal or Amazon.com links on my web site. For those who'd like to contribute
for tax purposes, checks may be sent to Peninsula Bible Church, 3505 Middlefield
Road, Palo Alto, CA 94306. Please include a note designating your gift to my
support account. I am not an organization nor employed by any organization so I
depend very much on the support I receive from friends. I do not receive a list
of those who send in contributions to my church so I can't send thank you notes
in most cases. But thank you!
Contacts: I answer my own email
every day, and am glad to be able to do so. Working with me on email questions
is a splendid team of men and women in the Paraclete Forum, http://paracleteforum.org. Feel free to write us
at inquiry @ paracl eteforum .org (remove spaces). The Paraclete Forum also
addresses questions sent to us via the Ray Stedman and PBC web sites, http://pbc.org and http://raystedman.org/. For excellent help in
studying the Bible I always recommend Blue Letter Bible, http://blueletterbible.org/.
Lambert Dolphin
lambert@ldolphin.org
http://ldolphin.org/