The apostle Peter is writing about the letters of the apostle Paul, and he has this to say: “There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures.” When something is hard to understand, it can stumble people, becoming an obstacle to faith or discipleship.
Believe it or not, that’s not always a bad thing.
Things Hard to Understand
Some people, even Christians, love using big words to impress others with their erudition. That was not Paul. When Paul wrote things “hard to understand”, he was not being deliberately obscure or difficult. He was not ignorant of the differences in intellectual capacity, education or experience between himself and some of those to whom he wrote. But he was writing about heavenly things, and many such truths surely surpass human comprehension. So he did the best job he could to make himself clear. I will not second guess the Lord Jesus Christ, who personally chose him for the task of explaining the implications of the cross, the resurrection and how to live out Christ in the world in his absence.
All the same, Paul wrote some things in his letters that even Peter conceded are hard to understand. The potential to twist them to one’s own destruction existed, despite Paul’s efforts to explain them.
Stumbling Blocks as a Good Thing
Stumbling blocks and obstacles are not inherently bad. God uses them all the time. His Son was one:
“Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense.”
In case you’re wondering, that’s one of those “hard to understand” things Paul wrote. But here’s Isaiah saying the same thing about the Lord Jesus:
“He will become a sanctuary and a stone of offense and a rock of stumbling to both houses of Israel, a trap and a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem. And many shall stumble on it. They shall fall and be broken; they shall be snared and taken.”
So Jesus was for some an obstacle to faith and discipleship, and God made him that way.
Two Ways to Respond to an Obstacle
There are two ways you can respond to a spiritual obstacle: you can trust in it, or you can tumble over it. Concerning that same stone of stumbling, Paul writes, “Whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.” Isaiah calls him “a sanctuary” and “a tested stone, a precious cornerstone, a sure foundation”. The Stumbling Stone can hold you up, or he can knock you over: it’s your choice.
Peter writes, “They stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do.” In other words, it’s not the existence of an obstacle to faith or discipleship that’s the problem, it’s the absence of a faith response in the unbeliever that causes him to fall headlong.
Consider God’s dealings with his servants over the years. They are full of potential occasions for stumbling. “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering.” A potential obstacle to Abraham’s faith? Absolutely. Also, it turns out, irrefutable proof of it. The loss of Job’s wealth, health and family. A potential obstacle to his faith? Certainly. Also an occasion to display his steadfastness under incredible pressure. How about Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego faced with Nebuchadnezzar’s idol. A potential faith killer, but what a comeback: “Our God is able to deliver us, but if not, we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up.” Faithful in the face of death. Who does that remind you of? Probably the unidentified fourth man in the fiery furnace.
But don’t tell me that episode couldn’t have ended very badly. God sets obstacles in our way to bring out true faith and dash false faith to pieces.
Driving Away the Disciples
Consider the dealings of the Lord Jesus with his would-be disciples. “If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” That would-be disciple went away sorrowful, as the Lord knew he would. The obstacle to his faith showed it wasn’t there yet. Perhaps the young man would not have known this otherwise. How about this one? “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.” His followers left him in droves. That was the most desirable outcome. But what an obstacle to faith, and deliberate too. Or how about “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.” Now there’s an obstacle to discipleship. But the Lord was uninterested in maximizing the number of his followers. He was after quality.
Even the gospel message is designed to drive the uncommitted away. “We preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.” The gospel itself is an obstacle to faith, and it’s meant to be that way. Stand on it or fall over it, as you see fit.
Putting Obstacles in the Way
So then, should Christians put obstacles in the way of the unsaved coming to faith? God certainly does.
I don’t think so. I’m not wise enough to devise an appropriate obstacle to faith, and I’m certainly not keen on the judgment that goes along with succeeding at it. I am unaware of any place in scripture where mere men and women are counseled to set little spiritual traps for one another. Besides all that, it’s completely unnecessary. The Lord has laid obstacles to faith all over the place to distinguish true from counterfeit, to create opportunities for the professing believer to stand or fall.
Sunday’s post considered the doctrine of inerrancy as a potential obstacle to faith. Rightly understood, it isn’t, but we should be careful that we understand and explain the concept faithfully, rather than allowing people to write their own definitions of it unchallenged. Likewise, the word “omnipotent” can lead people into the foolish notion that God can do anything at all, no matter how ridiculous. That too may be an impediment to faith. Unsurprisingly, omnipotence is not a biblical concept when we misunderstand it like that. God can do anything consistent with his own character. Beyond that, we are unwise to conjecture.
Christians should be concerned to remove every impediment to faith caused by poor wording, incautious speculation, bad scholarship and inaccurate teaching. If we are going to offend people with the Bible, we have an obligation to make sure the offense is coming from the truth of God itself, not from our misrepresentations of it.
Leaving Obstacles Where They Belong
But if the faithful presentation of God’s word offends unbelievers and drives them away, or if the accurate teaching of scripture causes a young professing Christian to turn his back on the faith, that is not our problem. That’s is God’s word doing what it was intended to do, distinguishing between truth and falsehood, discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. We have no license to water down the Word, to dodge difficult questions, to rewrite the scriptures to accommodate unbelief or modernism. The submission of Christian wives to husbands is an obstacle to faith for some in our feminized society. Too bad. The requirement of lifelong heterosexual monogamy is an obstacle to faith for others. Again, too bad. It’s God’s obstacle, not mine or yours. A gospel that makes Christ the Lord of every human thought, word and deed is a definite obstacle to faith, but it’s the only one we are authorized to share with the world.
By all means, let’s remove the obstacles Christians have created ourselves from impeding belief. We don’t want sloppy, ill-conceived representations of the faith to become a cause of the unsaved turning away from Christ. But when God himself lays a stone of offense, let no man (or woman) seek to remove it. Every opportunity for professed faith to fail that God has appointed is also an opportunity for true faith to shine.
That’s not a process we have any right to interfere with. We are messengers, not marketers.
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