Matthew 18 Pt. 2 – Beware Of Causing Others To Stumble!

by Michael Robson

In these verses Jesus is still referring to the little ones, which now refers to young believers, since He said ‘These little ones who believe in Me“. And if the context is still to do with interpersonal relationships, as in Church or amongst church members, then that is interesting because we would expect the temptations to sin to come from the world, and not from within the church. And yet there the warning is given, perhaps to “professing Christians” against anyone who was put a stumbling block, or cause a new believer to stumble into sin, perhaps by their own sinful “antinomian” lifestyle!

The hard part of the text is whether we are to take Jesus’ sayings as literal when it come to cutting off feet, or hands, or plucking out eyes. It seems obvious enough that Jesus was using hyperbole! But if we are to see this all as hyperbole, then someone might accuse us (as has happened) of not taking the Bible literally. The thing is that if we don’t take it literally, how can we take the next words, that speak about everlasting hellfire, literally? Well these are called the hard sayings of Jesus, but perhaps you should listen to the sermon for more information. You can watch the video of this service on Youtube, by clicking on this link!

Michael Robson