Day 105: Matthew 18:1–9

Woe to the world because of offenses. For offenses must come, but woe to that man by whom the offense comes (v. 7).

Let’s state a serious fact based on Matthew 18: events or situations can actually cause people to sin. Before we attempt to interpret Christ’s statements, let’s make sure we understand what He didn’t mean. Christ didn’t mean that in some cases people have no choice but to sin. He didn’t absolve the one who sins from the responsibility to repent. He did mean, however, that conditions can exist and things can happen that so greatly increase the tendency toward sin that a terrible woe is due the responsible party.

What are these offenses or “things that cause people to sin”? (Luke 17:1). The Greek word is skandalon. The idea of our English word “scandal” is present in the meaning. Skandalon is “the trigger of a trap on which the bait is placed, and which, when touched by the animal, springs and causes it to close, causing entrapment. It always denotes an enticement to conduct which could ruin the person in question.”

If you apply this concept to Jesus’ words, you see that the declaration of “woe” would apply to the one who set the trap or (figuratively speaking) became the trigger of the trap. But to be liberated we must not shift all responsibility to the trapper, because the truth remains that we did take the bait. To live consistently outside a trap, we must recognize our own responsibility in at least three ways. We are responsible for:

1. repenting of the sin of taking the bait;

2. learning why we took the bait;

3. asking God to mend and fortify the weak places in the fabric of our heart, soul, and mind so we will not continue life as a victim.

A critical part of my own personal freedom in Christ has been asking God to help me search my heart, soul, and mind for vulnerabilities to foolish decisions. Taking responsibility in these areas produced one of the greatest harvests of my life. I learned to willingly lay my heart bare before Him, to invite Him to reveal my weaknesses and handicaps, and to be unashamed. I also developed daily dependency upon Him because my old vulnerabilities had become such habits, practices, and ways of life.

This doesn’t minimize, of course, the sin of the trapper. The ramifications of this are so great that he becomes the object of “woe,” meaning “disaster, calamity.” Christ issued a woe to anyone who causes another person to sin, but He pronounced a particular indictment against anyone who causes “one of these little ones” to sin (v. 6).

The word Jesus used to refer to “little ones” certainly includes literal children, because He actually “called a little child and had him stand among them” (Matt. 18:2). However, careful attention to the word suggests additional meaning. I believe Christ includes those who are childlike or inferior to the trapper in knowledge, experience, authority, or power—anyone of whom it might be easy to take advantage. A sixteen-year-old may have the body of an adult, but he or she most assuredly is not grown up. Seduction by an adult is entrapment even if the young person “sinned” in any level of willing participation. Similarly, in adult life, one person often wields authority over another in much the same way through rank or position.

That Christ holds the trapper greatly responsible is a gross understatement! He appears to be saying, “If you have entrapped a weaker, more vulnerable person in sin, you’re going to wish you had drowned in the deepest sea rather than deal with Me.”

Most of us have asked, “Why do these things happen?” Matthew 18:7 tells us that these atrocities “must come.” “But why?” we ask. The original word for “must” means “compelling force, as opposed to willingness. As a result of the depravity and wickedness of men, there is a moral inevitability that offenses should come.” Add the kingdom of darkness to the depravity of humans, and you have a formula for exactly the evil we see in our world. But a day of reckoning is coming. No trapper gets away with entrapment forever—either of the human kind or the spirit kind. Neither can escape the eyes of El Roi, the God who sees.

Most of us are not naïve enough to think that these kinds of offenses never happen in churchgoing families. I’d like to highlight one area that doesn’t get much press but where people are at great risk for offense in the church: New believers are so impressionable. Sometimes their zeal far exceeds their knowledge. They sometimes believe virtually anything a more experienced Christian tells them. Biblical doctrines can be twisted into false teaching to entrap immature believers in all sorts of sins. If God would judge those outside His own household, I think we can rest assured He would discipline His own.

Let’s not start feeling guilty for some atrocity we may not have committed, but by all means let’s be on our guard never to cause another person to sin. The Word is clear we have that potential.