Following Jesus with Peace

Last week, we saw the NT word “offend” (used 4x in this passage) means “to what? to trip”, to cause a “little one” to stumble.

When our daughter Karis was learning to walk, we lived in a house on a concrete slab. The flooring downstairs was all tile & engineered wood. So as she started toddling, large bumps & bruises started appearing on her forehead.

It got so bad, as brand new parents, we panicked & ordered this teal foam helmet that strapped around her head. Fortunately, toddlers aren’t fashion-conscious.

Well the first week with the helmet, things were going well. We’d put it on in the morning and take it off before bedtime, and she did fine.

But one Sunday night, we came home from church. We didn’t bring her to church in the helmet. We were all 3 in the kitchen. Karie was fixing supper. I was on the phone. Karis was running around pretending to be a bumblebee.

In the middle of my conversation, to my horror, I looked down. And it almost seemed to go in slow-motion, but it was too late. I tried to pull back. Karis was running full speed across the ceramic tile, right into my big black dress shoe. And before I could do anything, her un-helmeted face slams against the unforgiving tile. She couldn’t even get her little arms out to break the fall. It was awful.

Her ear-piercing wail could be heard for miles. The goose egg growing like Pinnochio’s nose. It was like the goose egg had a goose egg. The lump was so large, we couldn’t fit her safety helmet over it.

I felt horrible. There’s nothing worse than causing a little one to stumble.

Last week, we saw Christ’s warning in v. 42: Don’t trip younger believers because of your spiritual pride. And don’t trip yourself by failing to deal radically with sin. Today, we’ll see Christ’s warning not to trip other believers by expecting them to follow you.