Scandalon

Luke 17:1

“Offenses will certainly come, but woe to the one they come through! It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea than for him to cause one of these little ones to stumble

Offences are skandalon, a trip bait in a trap. In todays world it is easy to give offence, as we struggle to be politically, racially, gender correct in all sorts of ways that carve up society into segments that take easy offence on some pretext or the other. Whom are we offending, and what is this offense? Jesus warns that offenses will only increase. We offend as we illuminate one aspect of some knowledge over another. The original offence was also a distortion of knowledge, the knowledge of good and evil. As long as man had a viable relationship with God, he really did not need to face the consequences of the knowledge of good and evil. He by nature knew all he needed and did all he needed without any offence. But the moment he stepped out of the protection of God’s penumbra, he inherited the consequences of knowing good and evil. This offence became a generational sin. Only the offence of the cross is now able to remove this inheritance from our genes.

Today how we handle knowledge also casts the lot on our capacity to offend. Our pursuit of knowledge and our ability to create increases the onus to use what we create for the common good. What was originally created for good can easily be distorted for disaster. Nuclear power, the internet, are all powers that can become sources of woe rather than blessing. As man proliferates profusely, the capacity for offences also exponentially increases as his behavior patterns and thinking progressively distance him from a relationship with God.

What is an offence to another may not be an offence to me, even as Paul highlights this in 1 Cor 8, giving the example of food offered to idols. Paul’s knowledge liberates him, but he willingly subjects himself to restrictions on account of jeopardizing another person’s relationship with God on account of his actions. This ideology is not something we practice as our world spins relentlessly on to individual expression and individual freedoms.

Everything is permissible, Paul writes in 1 Cor 10:23 , but not everything is beneficial , everything is permissible, but not everything builds up. These touchstones could be very useful to us as we ponder our actions. Will this be beneficial to me and others? Will it build me and other up?

If we become causes for others to trip up, or be trapped (scandalon), jesus pronounces a woe upon us, something that should make us tremble because of its finality.  How we should guard our steps and examine our paths!