JESUS SAID TO his disciples: “Things that cause people to sin are bound to come, but woe to that person through whom they come. 2It would be better for him to be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around his neck than for him to cause one of these little ones to sin. 3So watch yourselves.
“If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him. 4If he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times comes back to you and says, ‘I repent,’ forgive him.”
5The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!”
6He replied, “If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it will obey you.
7“Suppose one of you had a servant plowing or looking after the sheep. Would he say to the servant when he comes in from the field, ‘Come along now and sit down to eat’? 8Would he not rather say, ‘Prepare my supper, get yourself ready and wait on me while I eat and drink; after that you may eat and drink’? 9Would he thank the servant because he did what he was told to do? 10So you also, when you have done everything you were told to do, should say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty.’”
Original Meaning
THIS SHORT UNIT contains four parts: a warning (vv. 1–3a), instruction (vv. 3b–4), exhortation (vv. 5–6), and a parable about service (vv. 7–10).1 Each of these parts concerns some aspect of discipleship, a topic Jesus highlights as he draws closer to Jerusalem.
The warning (vv. 1–3a) treats the topic of causing someone to sin. This is inevitable within the Christian community, but woe to the one responsible for being the source of stumbling in the body. The term skandalon probably refers to serious enticement to sin, like actions leading to apostasy.2 Jesus says the fate of the culprit is worse than if a huge millstone were placed around his neck and he were cast into the sea. In sum, death would be a better fate than to face God’s judgment for his crime. That is how seriously Jesus takes causing sin in the body. The members of the body are called the “little ones.” They are special objects of God’s tender care.
The major responsibility for this warning resides with teachers. So Jesus issues a final warning for his disciples to watch themselves (v. 3a). The present imperative indicates the constancy of attention Jesus’ followers should give to their spiritual walk.
But though the warning about sin is serious, equally important is the need to forgive (vv. 3b–4). Sin is to be rebuked, which reveals the community’s commitment to righteousness. Yet the sinner’s repentance should produce the church’s forgiveness. Disciples pursue spirituality in dependence on each other for support. Religion is not a private pursuit, but is a shared family responsibility. It is a supportive environment, not a matter of keeping a constant watch on each other. This is why forgiveness is central.
The possibility of forgiveness raises the question of how often forgiveness should follow repentance. Jesus answers that seven times a day is required—a figurative way of saying that as often as repentance occurs, forgiveness should be given. The sin that needs forgiveness involves the participants (“if he sins against you”). This means that accountability for keeping relationships working comes from those involved in the events. Often in such situations, the participants refuse to interact with each other, but Jesus argues that maturity handles such matters directly.
Another key characteristic of discipleship is having faith (vv. 5–6). The issue for Jesus is not the amount of faith, but its presence. The disciples ask for their faith to be increased, but Jesus replies that all that is needed is faith the size of a mustard seed. Such faith is able to take a black mulberry tree with a deep root system and say to it, “Be rooted up and planted in the sea,” and it would happen. In other words, a small faith can accomplish amazing things and lead to unusual events.3
A final image in the passage is a short parable about service (vv. 7–10). Jesus discusses the life of a slave. Whether he plows or watches sheep, when he comes in, the slave will still have to fix dinner for his master and then serve him before he gets to have his own meal.4 Yet no thanks is offered to the slave, since he is simply doing what is commanded. The service of Jesus’ servants works in precisely the same way. Our attitude should be that we have only done our duty. Obedience is not a matter of merit (though God does honor it), but of duty. We do not have the right to pick and choose what to obey.
Bridging Contexts
EACH OF THE four major parts in this text deal with fundamental relational aspects of our walk with God. The warning about being the cause of sin in the body is a serious remark about the responsibility members share. Jesus knows that sin will come. Nonetheless, one should not be the cause of any stumbling in the body, for God takes the source of sin in the body seriously. The remark here is like the warning of 1 Corinthians 3:17: The one who causes destructive damage to the body is himself destroyed by God.5 The warning crosses the centuries. God holds the source of such falls totally accountable.
The second topic treats corporate relationships. It, too, concerns mutual accountability in the body. Sin must be rebuked and forgiven. Both parts of the equation are important. The rebuking of sin shows how seriously the community takes the pursuit of righteousness, while forgiveness points to how sincerely the community honors the road to restored relationships. No matter which side of the divide one is on, the goal is to produce a community where the destructive effects of sin are not allowed to eat at the body. As 1 Corinthians 5:7 argues, unchecked sin is like yeast roaming through the community, a virus that grows if unchecked. If forgiveness is not offered, there is no way to restoration after someone turns from sin. The absence of restoration can be as deadly to the life of a community as the presence of sin, since through restoration we can grow beyond our past failures.
Faith also plays a central role in our spiritual lives. We are saved by faith and we walk by faith (Gal. 5:25; Heb. 11). There is no more basic attitude of the spiritual life than to walk with God in trust, which means recognizing what God is capable of doing while accepting what he delivers. Jesus is primarily concerned that faith is present; he is not concerned about its size. We must ask God to do the extraordinary or enable us to exercise spiritual strength, not in a selfish way but for our spiritual welfare (cf. 11:9–13). Faith may mean having the strength to endure rejection. It may mean trusting God for spiritual insight. It may mean asking him for deliverance. It may mean accepting what he has brought into our lives and relying on his grace (1 Cor. 12:7–10). Above all, it means never letting go of the commitment to go where God is taking us. What it does not mean is treating God like a king of a “give me what I want” machine, who simply answers requests we make because we have them. Our spiritual development requires that he be in charge of where we are going.
The last timeless theme of this text is service without strings attached. Sometimes we want to bargain with God, but Jesus instructs us to understand what being a servant of God means. A “servant” (doulos; cf. Rom. 1:1) responds to God without question as a matter of duty. This text, however, should not be left by itself when it comes to the theme of service, for God does honor faithful service (see 12:37). The balance is important, because the servant needs to appreciate what his duty is, while God is clear that service well done is honored. God rewards those who serve without thought of reward.
I once heard a message on this text, given by a person in corporate authority, that stressed the duty side of the equation alone. The message communicated was that subordinates should do their job, period. There was no sense of collegiality or no sense that the ministering institution also had responsibility. The point of the balance is that servants should serve dutifully, but the one who is served may not brusquely treat his servants as if they mean nothing (Eph. 6:8). Our heavenly Father does not treat his children that way, and neither should we.
Contemporary Significance
JESUS’ WARNING ABOUT being the cause of sin treats the possibility of leading others in the community into serious sin. Such defection can result from serious doctrinal deviation or be caused by dangerous practical advice about sin. The church today is prone to pay too little attention to details of doctrinal teachings in God’s revelation, a response that puts the community at risk. Some practical errors emerge because theological errors stand behind them. The spiritual and theological advice we give should be carefully thought through in terms of its faithfulness to maintaining a strong walk with God. No doubt Jesus is anticipating here the battles with false teachers like those Paul warns the Ephesians about in Acts 20:28–30 (cf. also 1 Tim. 4:1–5; 2 Tim. 3:1–9). These warnings deal with a kind of ethical indifference to the presence of sin or to the lack of pursuit of moral values. These admonitions suggest that truth and integrity belong together. God cares about character as well as truth. Both need to be pursued with diligence and tender loving care.
Regarding balancing the pursuit of righteousness with the necessity for restoration, a major applicational test of this balance is whether a community is recognized simply for being a watchdog about sin or has a reputation for compassion that seeks quickly and unconditionally to restore a sinner, even again and again (“seven times in a day”!). It is easy to keep those who have sinned down in the muck of their past failure and constantly remind them of past missteps. Both in our personal and community relationships, this tendency to remind is not a sign of true forgiveness.
Sin must be acknowledged and dealt with. But once confessed, the blood of Jesus is sufficient cleansing to prohibit any additional requirements being added on top. Discipline may require some time to pass before one takes on full responsibilities again, in order to demonstrate that the issues leading to the failure have been dealt with, but the acceptance of someone who sins and repents should not be a matter of debate. Friends should give support and encouragement to those who stood previously rebuked, so that the love of the community for those who seek to honor God is evident.
This passage also requires us to reflect why communities are so slow to forgive. Do they feel they must control restoration? Is it out of a sense of risk about God being taken advantage of? Is God not big enough to take care of himself? Are not people ultimately accountable to him for their response and not us? We should reflect on such questions when we are hesitant to forgive. It is too easy to want to make people pay in full for their failures rather than to create an environment where restoration is possible. We must consider how to make our communities sensitive to sin, but not closed to grace.
When one thinks of the issue of trust, the applications are numerous. Do I trust God that he desires what is best for my spiritual welfare? Do I recognize that sometimes suffering is what is best for spiritual growth? Do I believe he can transform my heart, so I can walk righteously? Do I believe that God will support my efforts to share his goodness with others? Do I trust God to fight for me when I uphold his honor? Can I trust God to reverse a severely damaged relationship? The spheres in which true faith can exercise itself in uprooting trees and planting them in the sea are endless.
Of course, the remarks about uprooting trees and planting them in the sea are figurative for doing amazing things. Faith has a way of opening us up for God’s use and presence to work in us. This is more than positive thinking; it is relating to and connecting with God. Sometimes faith requires going in a direction that differs from the direction our culture says we should go. Sometimes it means walking by faith and not by sight (2 Cor. 5:7), trusting in God’s care for us. Faith that merely means living life on natural instincts is not faith. No trust is required if we simply cruise through life on the basis of our own expectations. In this passage, Jesus does not call for a magic amount of faith, just its presence. When we lean on him, his strength can carry a long way and will accomplish amazing things.
The major application of this text with respect to service is to avoid getting in a bargaining position with God. In fact, we should not have a reward mentality at all. We should serve God because of who he is and because he is worth serving. If a good slave does his duty for his master faithfully, how much more should God’s children, as those loved by him, serve him faithfully? Service, obedience, and duty are not rights we negotiate with God to exercise. They are the natural outgrowth of appreciating his act of grace in saving us, so we might bring honor to him.
The earlier picture in 7:41–43 of forgiven sin as a debt removed helps us to appreciate the attitude reflected here. If someone paid a lifelong debt for me so that I am now freed from its limitations, my gratitude would cause me to honor that person for what he or she had done. Our service for God comes as a duty, because he freed us to have a relationship with him.
Note, however, that though Jesus uses the picture of the slave here, the Scripture also uses the image of adoption to express our position with God. That image is also revealing, because children who love what their parents have provided for them will respond to them with faithfulness. In fact, one can compare the family-adoption image to an orphan rescued and brought to a new home. Expressing appreciation for God’s action means being both a faithful child and a faithful servant. Given our past, I have no right to negotiate with God about the conditions of my service. I serve willingly and proudly to honor the privileged position he has obtained for me.