Stumbling Block Or Salt?

If we as disciples cause a brother or sister to stumble, Jesus says it would be better for us if we ”had a heavy millstone around our necks, and had been cast into the sea.” A disciple does not cause a brother or sister to stumble. We all need to guard against becoming stumbling blocks! Paul warns us about this possibility in Romans 14:13, “Therefore, let us not judge one another anymore, but rather determine this—not to put an obstacle or a stumbling block in a brother’s way.”

Love is the spiritual fruit that will prevent us from becoming stumbling blocks, as John encourages us so well in I John 2:10, “The one who loves His brother abides in the light and there is no cause for stumbling in him.” As we abide in the love of Jesus, the Holy Spirit empowers and enables us to love and not become stumbling blocks to another brother or sister in Christ.

This week I saw a picture in Men’s Health magazine that says it all. Remember the warning of Jesus in our text, “We are not to cause one of these little ones who believe in Him to stumble.” Our Lord is referring back in this case to the young child he exalted as the prime example of the one who is the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven in verses 37 and 38 of this same chapter of Mark. In the Men’s Health illustration the stumbling block is smoking, and this picture, which once more Rick will show us, says it all, “QUIT NOW, AND HE WON’T PICK IT UP!” This is what the short clip entitled “Do It for the Kids” that accompanied the photo had to say: “Another reason to quit smoking: Researchers at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center found that quitting smoking before your child reaches third grade can reduce his or her odds of becoming a smoker by up to 40 percent. ‘The period of time between the ages of 8 and 20 is when people are most likely to start smoking,’ says Jonathan B. Bricker, Ph. D., the study’s lead author. ‘However, if kids don’t see their parents smoking during this time, there’s a good chance they’ll never pick up the habit,’ he says” [--Brian Good, “Health Bulletin,” Men’s Health, Sept. 2003, 32].

Our behavior affects other Christians more than we can imagine. In his December 1985 article in Christianity Today entitled “The Covenant Companion” Lloyd Ahlem declares, “No one’s behavior is entirely his or her own business. . . . In our day of prized individuality and ‘it’s nobody’s business but mine’ attitude, we trip each other up in more ways than we recognize. Stumbling blocks may be unkind words we speak, unchristlike actions we may perform, or questionable habits to which we cling. Is there some stumbling block you have placed in another Christian’s pathway that the Holy Spirit is directing you to surrender to Jesus today?

Disciples are not to be stumbling blocks, but we are to be salt. Jesus closing words in Mark Chapter nine are these: “Salt is good; but if the salt becomes unsalty, with what will you make it salty again? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another” [--Mark 9:50]. Salt was a necessity of life in Israel. Job 6:6 declares, “Can something tasteless be eaten without salt?” What is the first thing most of us do in a restaurant after the waiter or waitress brings us our food? We salt it.