The Battle Within: Removing What Trips Us (Matthew 18:7-9)

📰 The Kingdom Newsletter – May 31, 2025

Lesson Title: The Battle Within: Removing What Trips Us

Passage: Matthew 18:7–9

📺 Want to watch the full teaching? [Click here to view the May 31st, 2025 Lesson.]

Introduction to Today’s Lesson

Hi Everyone,

Thanks for pausing with us today to open the Word together.

In this brief but piercing passage, Jesus speaks directly about temptation, sin, and the radical seriousness of the life we’re called into. The words are sharp. But the love behind them is deeper still.

And while these verses are only three sentences long, they confront three of the most pressing realities of Kingdom life:

• How we influence others.
  

• How we deal with what’s hindering us.

And how seriously Jesus wants to preserve what’s eternal in us.

Recap of Last Week’s Lesson (Matthew 18:1–6)

We saw how Jesus redefines greatness:

It’s not about rising up — it’s about turning around.

Unless we turn and become like children, Jesus says, we can’t even enter the Kingdom (Matthew 18:3).

We explored:

• That childlike humility isn’t immaturity — it’s spiritual maturity in disguise.
  

• That the Kingdom flips power, status, and security on their heads.
  

• And that real leadership looks like welcoming the lowly, not climbing over them.

Now Jesus continues His teaching — warning us about stumbling blocks, showing us what to do when sin shows up, and calling us to pursue one another in love.

Scripture Reading – Matthew 18:7–20 (ESV)

7 “Woe to the world for temptations to sin! For it is necessary that temptations come, but woe to the one by whom the temptation comes!

8 And if your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life crippled or lame than with two hands or two feet to be thrown into the eternal fire.

9 And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into the hell of fire.

🧭 Context & Background

Geographic Setting: Capernaum — The Home Base of Ministry

Jesus is still in Capernaum (Matthew 17:24), a small but significant fishing village on the northwest shore of the Sea of Galilee.

This town wasn’t just a backdrop — it was Jesus’ home base during His Galilean ministry. It’s where He called His first disciples, performed miracles, healed Peter’s mother-in-law, and taught in the synagogue.

But despite the nearness of His presence and power, many in Capernaum remained spiritually indifferent — which is why Jesus would later say it would be more tolerable for Sodom than for Capernaum on the day of judgment (Matthew 11:23–24).

So when Jesus teaches here, He isn’t speaking to strangers.

He’s speaking to people who have seen the most — and therefore, are held to the highest accountability.

Narrative Shift: From Miracles to Maturity

Up to this point, Matthew’s Gospel has focused heavily on Jesus’ miracles, parables, and confrontations with religious leaders. But now, we enter a new phase:

Matthew 18 is often called the “Community Discourse” — a set of teachings not aimed at the crowd, but at Jesus’ inner circle.

It’s a pivot from public confrontation to private formation.

Jesus begins talking like a spiritual father — giving vision for how His followers should live in close-knit community:

• How they handle sin
  

• How they guard one another
  

• How they reconcile when there’s conflict
  

• How they forgive, protect, and remain childlike
  

In first-century Judaism, most religious teachers built their authority by quoting past rabbis and legal traditions:

“Rabbi Eliezer says…”

“According to the tradition of the elders…”

But Jesus speaks with personal authority, not footnotes:

“If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off…”

“It’s better to enter life crippled than be thrown into hell…”

Where other rabbis tiptoed, Jesus addresses head on.

Where others focused on religious systems, Jesus zeroes in on the heart — and on the stakes.

This is not a detached theological lecture.

This is a visceral call to spiritual seriousness.

He’s not promoting literal mutilation. He’s issuing a warning:

Whatever entices you toward destruction — no matter how close, how personal, how “yours” — let it go.

Why?

Because in the Kingdom, what you tolerate could endanger what you carry — and your influence on others matters just as much as your personal morality.

👶 Jesus Centers the Vulnerable — Not the Elite

What’s most striking is the audience Jesus keeps coming back to:

Not the scribes. Not the Pharisees. Not the “spiritually impressive.”

But the “little ones” (Matthew 18:6) — a phrase that refers both to literal children and to spiritual outsiders, new believers, and the vulnerable.

He says:

“Woe to the one by whom temptation comes…”

In other words:

This isn’t just about your personal holiness.

It’s about your relational impact.

It’s about the wake your life leaves behind.

In a religious culture obsessed with individual righteousness and social standing, Jesus flips the value system on its head:

• Don’t just be holy — be safe for others.
  

• Don’t just worry about sin — worry about how your sin affects someone else’s faith.
  

• Don’t just pursue spiritual growth — pursue spiritual protection for the weak, the young, and the easily influenced.
  

This is a radically communal ethic, where love is measured not just in private devotion, but in public responsibility.

✨ Key Lessons & Takeaways

1. Temptation Is Inevitable — But Being a Source of It Is Dangerous

Jesus begins bluntly:

“Woe to the world for temptations to sin… but woe to the one by whom the temptation comes!”

(Matthew 18:7)

The Greek word for temptation here is skandalon — a stumbling block, a snare, a trap.

Jesus acknowledges that temptation is part of living in a broken world. It’s not avoidable — but it is addressable. And what matters to God isn’t just what we fall into — but what we cause.

In the Kingdom, we are held responsible not just for our private behavior, but for the impact our lives have on others:

• The way we speak.
  

• The example we set.
  

• The influence we carry — even silently.
  

Takeaway:

Temptation in the world may be inevitable. But being its source isn’t.

We’re called to be stepping stones, not stumbling blocks — especially to the “little ones” Jesus just spoke about.

2. Sin Is Too Serious to Be Managed — It Must Be Removed

Jesus continues with some of His most extreme language in all the Gospels:

“If your hand or foot causes you to sin, cut it off… if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out.”

(Matthew 18:8–9)

He’s not calling for literal self-harm — He’s calling for spiritual urgency.

If something in your life — even something useful, familiar, or comfortable — is consistently dragging you into sin, Jesus says: Don’t manage it. Remove it.

Why?

Because the soul is eternal. And nothing is worth forfeiting life in the Kingdom over.

Takeaway:

Jesus doesn’t call us to negotiate with sin — He calls us to cut it off.

No relationship, habit, or pleasure is worth the cost of your peace, your purity, or your soul.

3. Jesus Isn’t Warning You to Scare You — He’s Warning You Because He Loves You

At the end of this passage, Jesus says:

“It is better to enter life crippled or blind than with two hands or eyes to be thrown into the hell of fire.”

(Matthew 18:9)

He uses the word Gehenna — a real, literal place just outside of Jerusalem where trash burned day and night. It became a metaphor for spiritual ruin — for what happens when people live disconnected from the life of God.

But this warning isn’t fear-based — it’s love-based.

Jesus isn’t trying to scare you into heaven.

He’s trying to wake you up before your habits drag you somewhere you never intended to go.

Takeaway:

Hell isn’t just a destination — it’s the trajectory of a life unwilling to surrender.

And the fact that Jesus warns us? That’s proof He’s not done with us.

The warning is severe — because the love behind it is serious.

Challenge for the Week

Here are three questions to carry into the week:

1. Where might I be a stumbling block — not by intention, but by example?
   

2. What habits, relationships, or rhythms is Jesus inviting me to remove completely?
   

3. How seriously am I taking the things that are threatening my spiritual life right now?
   

Final Word

This passage may be short, but its weight is unmistakable. Jesus isn’t giving us a motivational message or a comforting proverb — He’s sounding an alarm.

Because the danger isn’t out there.

It’s not Rome.

It’s not politics.

It’s not the irreligious world.

The danger is anything — even something close to you — that lures your heart away from the life of the Kingdom.

And the warning is this: whatever causes you or others to stumble… must go.

Not because God wants you to live in fear.

But because He loves you too much to let you sleepwalk toward destruction.

This is the radical call of Jesus:

• To take sin seriously.
  

• To take your influence seriously.
  

• And to love others enough to remove anything that might trip them up.
  

And it’s not just about you.

Jesus keeps the “little ones” front and center:

• The spiritually vulnerable.
  

• The ones watching your life.
  

• The ones just beginning to believe that maybe, just maybe, God is as good as you say He is.
  

And so He asks:

What if your freedom is causing them to fall?

What if your pride is blocking someone else’s faith?

What if your refusal to deal with “that one thing” is the very reason someone else is confused about the Kingdom?

This isn’t legalism.

This is love — the kind that’s willing to lose a hand, a habit, a platform, a reputation… if it means gaining life and protecting someone else’s.

In a world that tells you to protect yourself at all costs, Jesus says:

“Cut off what compromises you — not just for your sake, but for theirs.”

This week, let’s take inventory.

Let’s get honest about what we’ve tolerated — not just because it harms us, but because it might be hurting the people we’re called to protect.

And let’s remember:

The most Kingdom thing you can do isn’t proving how righteous you are.

It’s removing whatever keeps someone else from seeing Jesus clearly through you.

Grace, truth, and courage to you this week,

— Michael