The Gospel of Christ has its enemies, and it has its people who embrace Jesus as their Messiah. Periodically, the enemies of the Gospel will make gains among the disciples, causing believers to believe wrong doctrine, believing lies, some of which will even deny Jesus (cf. 2Peter 2:1). How are those who are faithful to Jesus to react to these things? Our Lord addresses this imagery in Luke 17 and shows us that it is all part of the coming Kingdom of God. The Lord is not surprised when offenses come and neither should we. The matter that we need to be most concerned with is what has happened to those who have fallen prey to such lies that not only deny our Savior, but also bring division and trespasses among the believing community.
In Luke 17:1 Jesus is speaking with his disciples, and he says that believers need to expect offenses. Offenses will come, and there is nothing we can do to prevent their occurring. The Greek word Luke uses is skandalon (G4625), from which our word “scandal” is derived. Thayer defines this word as “the moveable stick or trigger of a trap… (it is) a snare, any impediment placed in the way and causing one to stumble or fall… a stumbling block.” Jesus tells us that this type of thing will occur in the lives of his disciples, as some folks seek to undermine one’s trust in him.
When Jesus pronounced a woe upon such people, he meant those people who are responsible for setting the trap, not those who are taken in by it. These people set themselves up as enemies of Christ and seek to remove his disciples from following him. To such Jesus gives warning: “Woe to them…” He used the millstone (G3684), a large stone which a donkey turned to grind grain (Luke 17:2), to answer to the stumbling stone used by men who trapped unsuspecting believers in order to turn them away from Christ. Jesus claimed that it would be better for them, i.e. for those who caused offenses (Luke 17:1), that a large millstone would be tied around their necks and cast into the sea so they drowned. That fate would be better than the one facing them in the judgment.
The offenses that would come would be directed at those who had influence over the flock of Christ. Normally, offenses would not be directed toward non-influential people, because the fall of one with no influence probably wouldn’t affect many other believers. However, if a man who had the confidence of many were to be scandalized, those over whom he had some influence, might be caught in the trap and caused to withdraw their support and be friendly to the other side—namely, those against Jesus. The offense was meant to transfer allegiance or to increase the power of one side at the expense of the other. This is the kind of thing is done in politics and when one hopes to gain commercial power in a market held by a competitor.
According to the context of Luke 17, which includes Luke 16, offenses come, because believers obey the command of Jesus to make friends (Luke 16:9) for the sake of the Kingdom of God. Offenses may come in the form of ridicule (Luke 16:14). That is, the trap is set (skandalon – G4625) and the believer is baited in an effort to make him look foolish before others who had been considering his claims (cf. 2Peter 3:1-3). These people are they who covet power over and popularity with the people (cf. Luke 16:15). They are often special interest groups who undermine the word of God (Luke 16:18; cf. Matthew 19:3, 7) in an effort to establish their own worldview among the people (Luke 16:15), presuming that experience is a better teacher or better evidence (Luke 16:27-30) than the word of God itself (Luke 16:17, 31).
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