Matthew 18—On Stumbling Blocks (vv. 6-9)

This post looks into Matthew 18:6-9. I use the NRSV version this time because its translators consistently translated the key word that ties together these verses. The word? Skandalizo (Gk. σκανδαλίζω and variants) found in each of these verses. The NRSV translates the various words as “stumbling block” and “stumble.” (The NASB and NIV are also consistent.)

Unfortunately many translations use and mix multiple English phrases so that the unifying thread is often lost. These other translations include –

• “trip and fall”
• “fall into sin”
• “to sin”
• “causes you to sin”

Is it such a big deal to remain consistent and so favor “stumble” (the more literal translation) vs. “to sin”? I believe it is. In the modern English context, the phrase “to sin” brings to mind much more of a immoral and evil behavior and action – it connotes concreteness and offense to a legal code. Causing another “to sin” (v. 6) connotes a deliberate evil and malicious intent by one leading their victim toward committing a crime or immoral action. When verses 8 and 9 speak of things in one’s life “causes you to sin,” that too connotes violations of legal codes and moral order. As a whole, when “sin” is the translation of skandalizo the focus seems to turn to an external code and norm that is violated.

But if we take the entirety of Matthew 18 to be about how to live together as a family with God as its head, the translation “stumbling block” and “to stumble” seem better ones. These give me far broader sense than breaking hard-coded laws or performing immoral actions. The terms are also more difficult to define and pin down as to exactly what they might mean, and I think that is precisely the point: what is a stumbling block might be quite different from one person to another, from one context to another. What causes a person to stumble may change from one time to another.

I think it is important to retain the more amorphouse “stumble” and to keep it consistently throughout these verses because what Jesus is speaking about here is far more than “doing bad things.” It is about anything and everything that might cause a person to leave God’s family. These certainly include actions, but I believe far more crucial are things like attitude and value priorities that are experienced within a community of believers.

… The “stumbling” envisaged is much more drastic than simply “being offended” or even “scandalized.” It appears to envisage fatal damage to the disciple’s relationship with God. They are caused to “trip” so as to be in danger of falling out of the race altogether. (New International Commentary on the New Testament: Matthew)

Perhaps most important is how a Christian community (as smaller and larger units) look upon those who are powerless, weak, and despised.

The “despising” of the little ones in v. 10 is the attitude which promotes such damaging behavior toward them. (NICNT: Matthew)

How are you and I, our local church community, our denominations, and the Christian world at-large addressing racial, gender, economic, and social inequalities, especially within their midst? Vv. 1-5 already revealed that hierarchy, and authority and power inequities have no place in the kingdom of heaven, aka God’s family. By maintaining them, through appeal to tradition or even because an interpretation that supports it seems to “be biblical,” those that do are placing stumbling blocks in God’s family. And those who do have much to answer for. We would be better to cut off our hands, feet, and gouge out our eyes – perhaps one metaphorical application for this “hard saying” is for removing even those very things that might be seen as “bliblical” but violates the law of love and equality – than to be complicit in the loss of “a little one” from God’s family.

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(Made a few minor edits to the last paragraph since initial publish. Changing “their” to “our” because we are all blind in one way or another.)

Matthew 18—Power and status (vv. 1-5)

Matthew 18:1-5 begins with a phrase translated as “At that time…” and continues “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” A footnote on this verse in the New International Commentary New Testament: Matthew suggests that this question implies “So who is the greatest…?”

The particle ἄρα normally indicates some inference from a previous statement (as in 17:26, “Well then;” cf. 7:20; 12:28; 19:25, 27).

Taken together this unit is connected to the question of paying temple tax immediately preceding in 17:24-27. Jesus has just expalined to his disciples that even though they were not recognized as such by the priesty and religious establishment, they are familial members of God’s royal household and not required to pay the temple tax. Jesus’ reasoning on this was based on the the familiar privilege extended to earthly royalty and their families.

It is in this context of family that the disciples ask Jesus about hierarchy, status, and power within the family. After all, in earthly royal families the king or emperor stood at the head, his eldest son typically held the next position of power, others sons with increasingly diminishing status, daughters with even less, and so on down the line. But as a family they held power and privilege over all who weren’t family. The disciples assumed the same kind of arrangement in God’s family and kingdom. (Note also that within this context, God’s kingdom is not a location or reward, but a set of relationships in the present.)

Usage so far in this gospel indicates that “the kingdom of heaven” here refers to the new values which Jesus is inculcating, and the communal life of those who embrace them, so that in effect the question means “Who is the top disciple?” (NICNT: Matthew)

Jesus’ response to this question and with everything else that follows in chapter 18 is that in God’s family, God is head but beyond that there is no hierarchy and no power or status differentials. No member of God’s family has the benefit of more privilege or power over another member.

As an illustration and parable, Jesus calls a child (an actual child) to him. He tells his disciples that they must “turn around and become” like this child, and is quite emphatic that if they do not, they “will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”

The phrase “turn around” (Gk. στρέφω) is sometimes translated “converted” (e.g., KJV). I think “turn around” better captures the intent: the disciples are to figuratively and literally “turn around” their hierarchical assumptions! The harmony of relationships in the kingdom of heaven depends on this. And I think that it can be extended to say that without this harmony, there can be no kingdom of heaven, and what I hear Jesus saying when he says “will never enter the kingdom of heaven” is that heaven can’t exist if there is ongoing strife and contending for power.

To abandon human thoughts of personal status and to accept or even seek a place at the bottom of the pecking order implies as radical a change of orientation as our term “conversion” involves. (NICNT: Matthew)

Sometimes verse 3 has been taken sort of by itself and its admonition “become like little children” has been taken (out of context) to mean that Christians should strive toward childlike innocece, dependence, etc – about adopting and growing childlike qualities and attributes. That is not what Jesus meant when we understand that the context is about power and status.

Jesus goes on to say that his disciples must “humble [themselves] like this child” and if they do so, they will be “the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.” We begin to see what Jesus wants to communicate about status-seeking: that there is no place for it in God’s family.

The instruction to “become like children” is thus not about adopting some supposed ethical characteristic of children in general (innocence, humility, receptiveness, trustfulness or the like) but about accepting for oneself a position in the social scale which is like that of children, that is as the lowest in the hierarchy of authority and decision-making, those subject to and dependent on adults…

Its meaning [“humble themselves”] is thus closer to “humiliate”, so that to “make oneself tapeinos like this child” (the literal translation of the expression here) does not mean to attempt to gain the mental virtue of humility which is supposed (by whom?—not by most parents or teachers!) to be characteristic of children, but rather to accept the low social status which is symbolized by the child, who in an adult world has no self-determination and must submit to the will of adults who “know best.” (NICNT: Matthew)

The irony and paradox presented is that those who make themselves lowest and most dependent, are in fact, the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. What does it really mean then, to be “the greatest in the kingdom of heaven”?

Verse 5 begins a transition in the discussion. The discussion remains on status and power, but moves from what we should seek for ourselves to how we view those who have no apparent status or power; those who are marginalized and powerless according to earthly, human standards. This gets to the heart of the remainder of Matthew 18: power, status, and relationships within God’s family, aka Church.

Perhaps the most important point to note in verse 5 is that Jesus identifies himself with the child. To welcome (not just tolerate, but to fully accept and include) those that the world casts out, that tradition and culture (both secular and religious) considers “outside”, is to welcome Jesus himself.

Jesus and Definition of Family

There are two passages in the gospel describing one event that is often used to show that Christian relationships must take priority over physical family relationships.

While he was still speaking to the people, behold, his mother and his brothers stood outside, asking to speak to him. But he replied to the man who told him, “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?” And stretching out his hand toward his disciples, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.” (Matthew 12:46-50, ESV)

Then his mother and his brothers came to him, but they could not reach him because of the crowd. And he was told, “Your mother and your brothers are standing outside, desiring to see you.” But he answered them, “My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and do it.” (Luke 8:19-21, ESV)

In the Western, individualistic, modernist culture, where we tend to think in either-or terms, we read Jesus seeming to say that a Christian must choose to prioritize either physical familial relationships or the spiritual relationship that s/he enters into upon acceptance of Christ as Lord.

But is there an alternative interpretation that may be more faithful to the culture and intent when the words were spoken? What might an ancient Middle Eastern, collectivist culture have heard in Jesus’ words? What if we took a both-and stance instead of either-or? E. Randolph Richards (M.Div. and Ph.D., Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary) and Brandon J. O’Brien (M.A., Wheaton College Graduate School), in Misreading Scripture With Western Eyes writes,

The non-Western concept of family is broader than the Western. But Jesus expanded it even more. For Jesus, family not only designated one’s immediate, biological relatives but included all who are knit together in faith. Once while Jesus was teaching in someone’s home, a messenger told him his mother and brothers wanted to speak with him. Jesus pointed to his disciples and said, “Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother” (Mt 12:49-50). This is a radical statement in a culture in which birth determines your family.^[1]

What Richards and O’Brien are telling us is that Jesus didn’t say that a spiritual family takes precedence over the biological, or that the more genuine family is a spiritual one; but rather, the definition of family now includes both biological and those who join in through a spiritual, faith relationship.

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^[1] Misreading Scripture With Western Eyes: Removing Cultural Blinders to Better Understanding the Bible. Kindle edition, location 1114.