A stumbling-block is ‘a circumstance which causes hesitation or difficulty’, something which causes a person to trip up or fall. There are many natural stumbling-blocks which cause us to trip or fall: an uneven kerb, for example, or a flagstone that is not evenly laid. This kind of stumbling-block is usually not intended to hurt, but these ‘trip hazards’, as they are known in Health & Safety parlance, can often be avoided with a little bit of forethought (eg moving trailing cables out of the way or warning people when a floor has been cleaned to avoid slipping.)
Health & Safety issues means we have to consider not only our own safety but the safety of others. General Health and Safety Legislations covers all employers and workplaces and is intended to include obligations to protect employees and the public from risks associated with slips, trips and falls (in addition to the ‘moral duty’ of protection upon employers.) Paul is, in essence, enforcing a spiritual ‘Health and Safety’ measure in his exposition of whether to eat meat sacrificed to idols or not. Consideration of others is the key factor.
The Greek word for ‘stumbling-block’ (‘skandalon’, from which we get the word ‘scandal’ and which can also be translated ‘offence’) gives us a picture not only of tripping up, falling or stumbling, but being the thing that actually causes someone to fall (and from this, metaphorically, to sin.) Jesus used this word when Peter tried to stop him talking of his death and resurrection: ‘Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.’ (Matt 16:23) Peter had no desire, I am sure, to trip Jesus up, but Jesus knew that the cross could not be avoided and that any hint of another way other than that of the cross would not bring about the salvation humanity so desperately needed.
Throughout the Bible, we are urged not to do anything which causes people to stumble. Perhaps the most vivid example of this is in Matt 18:6, when Jesus says ‘If anyone causes one of these little ones—those who believe in me—to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.’ Paul is concerned that we do not use our Christian freedom in such a way that causes others to fall, saying, ‘Be careful that the exercise of your freedom does not become a stumbling-block to the weak.’ (1 Cor 8:9) Here, the word for ‘stumbling-block’ is ‘proskomma’, which can also be translated as ‘stub’: ‘an obstacle in the way which if one strikes his foot against he stumbles or falls.’ (Thayer) Garry once walked into the skirting-board on our landing at night and stubbed his toe: in so doing, he actually broke the toe and was in agony, but that at least was not caused by anyone else. When in 1 Cor 10:32, Paul urges the Corinthians ‘do not cause anyone to stumble, whether Jews, Greeks or the church of God’, he is urging them not to put any kind of obstacle in the path of another Christian which could cause them to trip up, stub their toe or fall. The Message version says ‘don’t be callous in your exercise of freedom, thoughtlessly stepping on the toes of those who aren’t as free as you are.’ We are called to be considerate and put other people first when deciding how we should act so that we do not cause anyone to stumble into sin. Paul wants us to ‘carry each other’s burdens and so fulfil the law of Christ.’ (Gal 6:2) That way, others will see Christ in us.
‘So come and empty me,
So that it’s You I breathe.
I want my life to be only Christ in me,
So I will fix my eyes,
’Cos You’re my source of life.
I need the world to see that
It’s Christ in me.’ (‘Christ In Me’, Jeremy Camp)