A stone people trip over

Every self-portrait so far has been something a reader would want. This one is not.

A sanctuary — and a stone that causes stumbling. The same stone. To the two houses of Israel, in one sentence.

That is a strange thing for God to say about His own word and His own presence, and Isaiah says it in a chapter about people consulting mediums instead of the testimony he had been told to seal up.

Paul quotes the verse and Peter quotes it, and both of them apply it to Christ. But the thing the New Testament repeatedly says people stumble over is not a stone in a road. It is a word.

They stumble because they disobey the word. Peter is precise. The stumbling is not intellectual, and it is not the fault of the stone.

And Paul, quoting the same verse in Romans, says Israel pursued a law of righteousness but did not attain it because they pursued it by works rather than by faith — they stumbled over the stumbling stone.

There is a common and understandable instinct to smooth those places out — to find a reading of the hard passage that removes the offense, or to file it under things to be resolved later.

Sometimes that is right, and Week Nine’s cutting straight exists for exactly that work. A great many apparent offenses in Scripture dissolve when a reader finds out what the words meant and who was being addressed.

But some do not, and this day exists to say so plainly. There are places in this Book that will offend a modern reader after every legitimate interpretive question has been settled. The doctrine of judgment. The exclusivity of Christ. What it says about sin that our age does not consider sin. The sovereignty of God over things we would rather He were not sovereign over.

A reader can trip on those and be angry at the stone, or he can do what the same passages invite and take shelter behind it — because Isaiah’s sentence offers both, and to the same people.

There is also a word of caution in this day for anyone who teaches. A hard passage handled carelessly puts a stumbling block where God did not put one, and Scripture is severe about that. The stone in Isaiah is God’s to place. Our job is to make sure the reader trips on the real thing rather than on our explanation of it.

Peter finishes the thought with the alternative, quoting Isaiah 28: the one who believes in Him will never be put to shame. Same stone. Two outcomes. And the deciding factor in Peter’s sentence is what a man does with the word.

Three Old Testament stone passages are woven together in the New Testament: Isaiah 8:14 (a stone of stumbling), Isaiah 28:16 (a tested stone, a precious cornerstone), and Psalm 118:22 (the stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone). Jesus quotes the psalm about Himself; Paul and Peter combine all three.

Isaiah 8 is the chapter from Week Eight where the prophet is told to write on a large scroll with witnesses and to bind up the testimony among his disciples. The stumbling-stone verse sits a few lines after instructions about a written document nobody wanted to read.

The Greek word behind offense in these passages is skandalon, the trigger of a trap or the thing that trips a foot. It gives us scandal, and the New Testament uses it of the cross itself: we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles.

Note the clause in 1 Peter 2:8 that has occupied readers for centuries: as they were appointed to do. Its scope is disputed, and honest commentaries disagree over whether the appointment is to the stumbling or to the consequence of disobedience. The verse is a fair example of what this day is about.

Peter’s passage moves in both directions within four verses: to you who believe, this stone is precious; to those who do not believe, it is the stone the builders rejected, which has become the cornerstone. The same paragraph holds the honor and the offense.

Look it upG4348 πρόσκομμα proskomma, stumbling · G4625 σκάνδαλον skandalon, trap trigger, offense · G204 ἀκρογωνιαῖος akrogoniaios, cornerstone · H4383 מִכְשׁוֹל mikshol, stumbling block

Then read John 6:60–69, where many disciples say this is a hard teaching and turn back, and Peter answers the question of whether the twelve will also leave with: Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.

Where this touchesIsaiah 8:13–15; 28:16 · Psalm 118:22 · Romans 9:30–33 · 1 Peter 2:4–8 · 1 Corinthians 1:23 · John 6:60–69. Fire and hammer, honey, lamp, sword, seed, milk, mirror, goads and nails, gold, washing, the fire in the bones and dew were the earlier self-portraits.