Internet Moments with God’s Word

In Matthew’s Gospel the lexical group skandalizein/skandalon defines various negative spiritual responses to Jesus and his teaching, as well as moral failure. Matthew, Mark and Paul use this vocabulary most frequently within the New Testament canon. Mark only used the verb form. Luke (7:23; 17:1-2) and John (6:61; 16:1) employ it very sparingly and we have occasional use in 1 Peter (2:8), 1 John (2:10) and Revelation (2:14). The noun skandalon describes a trap or snare set to catch animals. Metaphorically it defines something a person does to cause the destruction of an enemy. For example, Saul uses his daughter, Michal, as a snare (skandalon 1 Samuel 18:21ff) to secure the death of David. By establishing the bride price as the death of a hundred Philistines, Saul expects that David will be killed in the process of securing the bride price. The earliest usage of this noun in the Greek Old Testament occurs in Leviticus 19:14 where Moses tells Israelites not to “put a stumbling block (skandalon) in front of the blind.” Presumably this means they should not place an obstacle in the path of a blind person so that this person trips and falls. By extension the word comes to mean something that causes a person to stumble morally or spiritually, an offence, something that causes the downfall of a person. The verb skandalizein in the active voice describes the action of setting a trap or snare so that someone stumbles or, metaphorically, an action that gives or causes offence to another person. For example, Jesus in Matthew 18:6-9 used the active voice to warn his followers not to “give offense (skandalisēi)” to the least disciple. The passive voice defines a person who is offended or caused to commit moral failure by the actions of another. Sirach in a section (9:5) where he is giving advice concerning women warns males: “do not look intently at a virgin lest you be trapped (skandalisthēis) by her penalties.” However, as Stählin notes1 “there are no examples of use [of this verb] independent of the Bible.”2 In fact the moral or religious use of this terminology reflects Jewish practice, rather than Roman or Greek usage. Continue reading ‘70. Spiritual “Stumbling”’