It's Better To Tear Your Eye Out ~ Day 21

October 22 2006 - Day 21

Mark 9:36-50

Passage: Today’s passage is a continuation of yesterday’s. Jesus is still teaching what I will call “kingdom ethics.” He first takes a child into His arms and says that the follower of Christ should embrace children. The disciples then ask Jesus what they should have done with a man they met who was casting out demons in Jesus’ name but he was not in the group of the twelve disciples. Jesus said that they should not have told this man to stop casting out demons. Jesus then gives a strong warning to the disciples that they should be sure to never cause someone to stumble and sin, especially not a child. He said it would be better for a huge stone to be tied around their necks and then for them to be cast into the ocean. He then gives another serious instruction concerning their own sins. He said that it would be better for them to tear their eye out or cut off their hand or foot if one of these members causes them to sin than to go to hell with two eyes or hands or feet.

Application: The best way to summarize the main application of this passage for my life is to say: I must live humbly and holy so that the heaven-bound don’t live like the hell-bound. The disciples are still struggling to understand what the kingdom of Christ is all about and how they should live in it. Jesus is driving home the idea that the kingdom is not about prestige and praise and it is not about living as one’s flesh pleases but rather in a manner that honor’s God and brings people to Christ. I must be willing to minister to the “lowest.” I must be so careful not to sin or live in a way that promotes sin in front of people so that I do not cause them to sin with a freer conscience. Jesus is so serious about this that He uses the graphic language of tearing out eyes and cutting off limbs. Of course He did not mean this literally but rather as an exaggeration to give emphasis. Help me God.