Let us therefore no longer pass judgment on one another, but resolve instead never to put a stumbling block or hindrance in the way of another. [Romans 14:13 (NRSV)]
Having witnessed Jesus’ God-like power over nature when He walked on water, the disciples recognized Him as “the Son of God!” [Mat 14:32] Recognizing Jesus’ divinity, however, did not mean they understood He was the Messiah. While Jesus’ power to heal, multiply food, still storms, and walk on water implied a godlike nature, most 1st century Jews didn’t expect the Messiah to be divine. Expecting a righteous judge and a great political and military leader coming from the lineage of David, they assumed he would be a human being. So, when Jesus asked His disciples who people thought He was, they said John the Baptist, Elijah, Jeremiah, or another one of the prophets—godly men who performed miracles, spoke of judgment, and called the people to return to covenant faithfulness.
Jesus then asked the men, “But who do you say I am?” With insight that came from God, Peter identified Jesus as “the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”[16:15] He understood that Jesus was both divine and the Messiah! Blessing the disciple, Jesus gave Simon (meaning “hearer”) the new name of Peter (meaning “rock”). When the disciple recognized Jesus as both the Messiah and “the Son of the living God,” the hearer became the foundation rock upon which the new church would be built.
Following Peter’s confession of faith, Jesus began to tell his disciples the implications of His Messiahship. He clearly described His suffering and death at the hands of the Jewish high court. Unfortunately, like the rest of the disciples, Peter believed the Messiah had come to provide economic and political relief for the Jews—not atone for our sins with His blood. Still thinking about an earthly kingdom, Peter took Jesus aside and said, “God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you.” [16:22]
It was then that Jesus addressed the rock as “Satan” and called him a “stumbling block.” In an instant, the man to whom Jesus gave the keys to the Kingdom and a name meaning rock had become a stumbling block and a tool for Satan! Like Satan’s temptations in the wilderness, Peter’s words tempted the Lord to thwart God’s plan and achieve greatness without suffering and death. Jesus roundly rebuked the disciple for wanting to put man’s plan ahead of God’s.
Hoping to protect Jesus from the suffering He’d predicted, Peter didn’t deliberately choose to be Satan’s tool. His error was in assessing the situation from his viewpoint rather than God’s. Having just proclaimed Jesus as the Son of the living God, Peter should have known that God had the situation firmly in control and that the only plan that mattered was God’s!
With Peter we see how easy it is to unwittingly move from being a rock to a stumbling block. Are we rocks—the solid people who can be relied upon, the ones who encourage, who can be trusted to hold things together, the firm foundations who support those who are weak and lift those who fall? Is ours a rock-solid faith that will follow God’s plan wherever it takes us? Or, like stumbling blocks—do we ever discourage, hinder progress, or cause doubt? Could our hypocrisy or less than stellar behavior hinder our witness? Even unintentionally, are we stumbling blocks that trip up the faith of those around us?
We know that wasn’t the last time the Apostle would disappoint the Lord. He wasn’t perfect and neither are we. Nevertheless, Peter proved to be the rock upon which Christ’s church was built. Like the Apostle, we too can be rocks that serve as stepping stones to further God’s purpose.
Like his cousin Jesus, John’s impending birth was announced by the angel Gabriel, it took God’s intervention to take place, and his name and calling were determined before he was conceived. The angel Gabriel told Zechariah that, “in the spirit and power of Elijah,” John was “to make ready for the Lord a people prepared.” When John was circumcised, Zechariah prophesied that John would “go before the Lord to prepare his ways, to give knowledge of salvation to his people in the forgiveness of their sins.”
Occasionally, I’ll spot a partially open moonflower (Ipomoea alba) during an early morning walk at the park. While the Moonflower’s cousin the Morning Glory opens wide to welcome the sunlight, the Moonflower prefers darkness. It’s only when the sun sets that it opens to a large trumpet-shaped bloom. Rather than competing during the day with brightly colored flowers for pollinators like bees and butterflies, Moonflowers enjoy pollinators like bats and moths at night. As the morning sun rises, the Moonflower again rejects the light and rolls up into itself.
In a book about evangelism, the author wrote of bringing a new believer into his office and the two of them saying the “Sinner’s Prayer.” After the new believer repeated the Pastor’s words, he was pronounced saved. While there is no official version of this “sinner’s” prayer, it probably goes something like this: “God, I know that I am a sinner and that I deserve to go to hell. I believe that Jesus Christ died on the cross for my sins. I do now receive Jesus Christ as my personal Lord and Savior. Thank you, Lord, for saving me and forgiving me! Amen.” Many evangelical Christians speak of saying some sort of prayer like this at the moment of conversion. Is a special “Sinner’s Prayer” a requirement for salvation?
In the ruins of Oxyrhynchus, Egypt, a scrap of parchment known as P.Oxy. 1786 was discovered in 1918. Only 11-inches long and 2-inches wide, it consists of four lines of text along with musical notations on the back of a grain contract. Found in an ancient garbage dump, it was just one of 500,000 parchments dating from the 1st century BC to the 7th AD. Along with grocery lists, official records, and business contracts, the rubbish heap yielded a play by Sophocles, poetry by Sappho, portions of the Old Testament, fragments of both Matthew’s and Mark’s gospels, and an arrest warrant for a Christian.
The Resurrection story didn’t end on Easter with Jesus’ appearance to ten disciples, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and John, Salome, and Joanna, along with Cleopas and another believer who broke bread with Him in Emmaus. Appearing and disappearing at will, Jesus remained on earth for forty days. While He probably appeared other times, Scripture tells us He later appeared to Thomas and the ten others, to seven of the disciples beside the Sea of Galilee, to His half-brother James, to over 500 believers at one time, and to the disciples on his last day with them.
Devotions of the Heart 