Offenses Must Come: What Jesus Teaches in Matthew 18
Short answer: In Matthew 18:6-9, Jesus says that whoever causes one of his little ones who believe in him to stumble would be better off drowned with a millstone around his neck. Offenses will come, as Luke 17:1 confirms, but the inevitability of stumbling blocks does not excuse the person who lays them. Jesus then tells his disciples to cut off hand, foot, and eye rather than let any member cause stumbling, language of radical urgency rather than literal self-mutilation. The passage is a warning against causing weak believers to sin and against tolerating sin that destroys us. It is not a command to amputate body parts, but a call to ruthless seriousness about whatever lures people away from Christ, especially the vulnerable.
Why Jesus Uses a Millstone, Not a Slap on the Wrist
A millstone was not a small hand stone for grinding spices. It was the heavy upper stone turned by an animal or several people. Ancient executions sometimes tied a weight to a condemned person and threw him into deep water. Jesus takes that dreadful image and says it would be better for the offender than what awaits him. The phrase better for him is a comparison, and comparison language in Scripture assumes a real outcome to be compared against. Jesus is not exaggerating into nothing. He is saying that the judgment for leading a believer into sin is worse than drowning.
This is not the tone of a mild teacher offering optional advice. The word woe appears in Luke 17:1, and it is a prophetic word of grief and warning. Jesus does not delight in the destruction of the guilty, but neither does he shrug at it. The millstone image is meant to stop us cold and make us ask what we are doing with our influence over others. Parents, teachers, pastors, older siblings, friends, and online voices all shape people who are weaker in faith than themselves.
The New Testament consistently treats causing another to sin as a serious matter because it damages what God is saving. It is one thing to fall into sin yourself; it is another to pull someone else down with you. Jesus here places a fence around the little ones. He is not mainly giving a rule about how to punish offenders. He is telling his disciples how they must value those who believe in him.
Who Are the Little Ones Jesus Protects
The little ones whom Jesus speaks of are not merely children by age. Matthew 18:6 says whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to stumble. Faith in Christ marks them out. They are Christ's own, and they are little in the sense of lowly, dependent, and vulnerable. In the surrounding context Jesus has just placed a child among the disciples as an example of humility, so children are certainly in view. But the expression is wider than infancy or childhood.
New believers, weak believers, troubled believers, and those with a tender conscience all fit the category. Jesus is not saying only important people matter. He is saying the opposite: the ones the world overlooks are the ones he personally guards. To harm a little one is to touch something Jesus calls his own. That is why the offense is so grave. The offense may be a teaching that leads to sin, an example that normalizes sin, a pressure to conform, or a failure to protect.
Notice also that Jesus speaks of causing to stumble, not merely making someone upset. This is not about hurt feelings or personal preferences. It is about inducing a believer to sin or to turn away from the faith. Many things in church life are matters of freedom and should not be treated as stumbling blocks. The specific evil named here is causing another to fall into sin.
Offenses Must Come, but Woe to the One Who Brings Them
Luke 17:1 records Jesus saying, “It is impossible that no occasions of stumbling should come, but woe to him through whom they come!” There is a paradox here that many readers feel. If stumbling blocks must come, how can the person through whom they come be blamed? The answer lies in the difference between necessity and fault. God's sovereign plan includes the presence of temptation and false teaching in a fallen world, and that presence serves to reveal hearts. But the human agent who invents, spreads, or embodies the stumbling block acts freely and wickedly.
We see this pattern elsewhere. In 1 Corinthians 11:19, Paul says, “For there also must be factions among you, that those who are approved may be revealed among you.” The existence of factions is not good, but God uses it to make genuine believers evident. In 2 Thessalonians 2:9-12, Paul describes one whose coming is according to the working of Satan, with signs and lying wonders. The deceiver is real and active, and those who refuse the love of the truth are led astray. Yet the deceiver is not thereby excused.
So the doctrine of offenses must come is not fatalism. It does not mean we can stop guarding the flock, or that we should be indifferent to false teaching. It means we should not be shocked when stumbling blocks appear, as if God had lost control. And it means the one who facilitates the stumbling should tremble. The necessity of the offense does not soften the woe attached to the offender.
Cut Off Your Hand, Foot, and Eye: What This Command Does and Does Not Mean
Matthew 18:8-9 contains some of the most startling language Jesus ever used. If your hand or your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off and cast it from you. If your eye causes you to stumble, pluck it out and cast it from you. Readers through history have rightly understood this as hyperbole, a deliberate overstatement designed to shock us into seriousness. The church has never taken it as a command to maim the body. The point is that entrance into life, even maimed, is better than being cast into eternal fire whole.
But calling it hyperbole must not drain its force. Jesus is saying that nothing, no matter how precious or close to us, is worth keeping if it drags us into sin. The hand, foot, and eye represent the faculties we use to act, walk, and look. The command calls for radical action: remove the occasions, break the habits, end the relationship, change the schedule, install the accountability, confess the pattern. Half measures are not what Jesus describes. He describes a decisive, painful surgery on our own lives.
This is also the answer to a common objection. Some ask, if offenses must come, why should I try so hard? Because Jesus commands us to cut off the source of stumbling in ourselves, and he warns us against being a source of stumbling to others. The same seriousness that leads us to guard our own souls should lead us to guard our influence over the little ones. We cannot prevent every offense in the world, but we can refuse to be a channel for it.
Romans 16:17 and the Anatomy of a Stumbling Block
Paul applies the teaching of Jesus to church life in Romans 16:17-18. He begs believers to look out for those who cause divisions and occasions of stumbling contrary to the doctrine which you learned, and to turn away from them. Two things mark them: division and false doctrine. The stumbling block is not merely a personal flaw; it is a pattern that pulls people away from the apostolic teaching. The remedy is not endless debate but turning away.
The passage also tells us what motivates such people: they serve their own appetites, and by smooth and flattering speech they deceive the hearts of the innocent. This is the method of the serpent, who came with a question and then a promise. False teachers rarely announce themselves as enemies of Christ. They come with affection, with apparent depth, with claims that the old teaching was too narrow. They make the sinful path look like freedom and the faithful path look like bondage.
When Jesus says offenses must come, he includes offenses generated by teaching. Revelation 2:14-15 rebukes the church at Pergamum for holding the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to throw a stumbling block before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed to idols, and to commit sexual immorality. A stumbling block can be a doctrine. It can be a practice. It can be a compromise dressed in spiritual language. The church is commanded to spot it and turn from it.
The Difference Between Being Offended and Causing Offense
Modern readers sometimes hear the word offense and think of personal insult. But the biblical language of stumbling is about moral and spiritual ruin, not embarrassment. People may be offended by the gospel itself, and Jesus warns that this happens. But that is not the same as causing a little one to sin. If the truth of Christ offends someone, the fault is not ours for speaking it. If our conduct, teaching, or carelessness entices someone into sin, the fault is ours indeed.
This distinction matters for pastoral practice. It is not loving to remain silent about sin because we fear offending someone. Nor is it firmness to pressure weak believers into practices their conscience cannot bear. Romans 14 and 1 Corinthians 8 apply the same principle to matters of freedom: the strong have an obligation not to use their freedom in a way that destroys the weak. The question is never merely, am I allowed to do this? It is also, what will this do to the little one for whom Christ died?
Pastors, parents, and teachers carry this weight especially. A careless word from a platform can be repeated for years. A flippant example, an offhand joke, a habit witnessed by a younger believer can take root and bear ugly fruit. The millstone image is meant to make us slow to speak and careful to live. The gospel gives us liberty, but love governs how we use it when a weaker brother or sister is watching.
How to Apply Matthew 18:6-9 Without Becoming Harsh
Some readers take this passage and become suspicious, severe, and quick to accuse. That is not its spirit. Jesus is not teaching suspicion of everyone; he is teaching tenderness toward the little ones. The point is to be ruthless with your own sin, not harsh with the weak. The very ones Jesus protects are the ones we are tempted to despise or dismiss. The warning is aimed at the strong who use their strength to trample the lowly. It is a call to humility.
Practically, this means examining the influences we place in front of vulnerable people. It means being willing to change a habit, a job, a friendship, or a schedule, if it is feeding sin. It means confession rather than denial, transparency rather than image management. It means that when we have caused someone to stumble, we do not justify ourselves but repent and make repair where possible. Jesus' words are meant to produce that kind of repentance, not despair.
It also means trusting God's judgment. We do not have to avenge ourselves against those who cause stumbling. The millstone language tells us the Judge is not indifferent. Our part is to guard the little ones, to remove the plank from our own eye, and to leave vengeance to God. Jesus will prove faithful to the flock he purchased with his own blood. The offenses that must come will not have the last word over his people.
Biblical fidelity check
What the passage does establish is clear. Jesus teaches that causing one of his little ones who believe in him to stumble is a grave sin deserving the severest judgment, that stumbling blocks will certainly come, and that his disciples must take radical measures against whatever causes them to sin. The passage does not establish that drowning with a millstone is the literal punishment awaiting every offender, since the language is a comparison and an image. Nor does it establish that believers should literally mutilate themselves. Nor does it establish that any discomfort or disagreement counts as a stumbling block.
A common misreading treats the passage as if Jesus were speaking only about children and only about obvious harm. But the text says little ones who believe in me, which includes any vulnerable believer. Another misreading uses offenses must come as a fatalistic excuse for tolerating false teaching, as though inevitability removed responsibility. That directly contradicts the woe. Still another misreading turns the whole passage into an instrument of suspicion, in which every strong believer is presumed guilty. The faithful reading keeps both edges: the offense is inevitable, and the offender is responsible. We are to guard our own souls, protect the weak, and trust God to judge.
Other passages that speak to Matthew 18:6-9
The warning of Matthew 18:6-9 echoes through the New Testament. Luke 17:1-2 gives the same teaching in a different setting, joining the inevitability of stumbling blocks with a woe on the one through whom they come. Romans 16:17-18 applies the principle to church division and false doctrine, commanding believers to look out and turn away. First Corinthians 11:19 shows that God even uses factions to reveal those who are approved, and 2 Thessalonians 2:9-12 describes the deceptive working of Satan in signs and lying wonders. Revelation 2:14-15 names the teaching of Balaam as a stumbling block. For related studies, see What Does 1 Corinthians 1:10 Mean? Context, Theology, and Application, What Does 1 Corinthians 1:9 Mean? Context, Theology, and Application, 1 Corinthians 1: Called, United, and Boasting in the Lord, and 1 Corinthians 10: Warnings and Freedom.
Frequently asked questions
What does offenses must come mean in Matthew 18?
It means that stumbling blocks and temptations to sin will certainly appear in this fallen world, as Luke 17:1 states. Jesus does not say God causes anyone to sin. He says that occasions of stumbling are inevitable and that the person through whom they come is answerable to God. The inevitability of the offense does not excuse the offender. The passage calls disciples both to expect trouble and to refuse to become a channel for it, especially toward weak believers whom Jesus calls his little ones.
Who are the little ones Jesus is talking about?
They are those who believe in Jesus and are vulnerable, lowly, or weak in faith. Children are included, since the surrounding context places a child before the disciples as an example. But the phrase is broader than childhood. New believers, struggling believers, and those with a sensitive conscience all fall under this care. Jesus identifies himself with them, so that harming them is a serious offense. The warning is aimed especially at the strong who might despise or exploit the weak among God's people.
Should I literally cut off my hand or pluck out my eye?
No. The church has consistently understood Matthew 18:8-9 as hyperbole, a deliberate overstatement meant to convey the urgency of dealing with sin. Jesus is not commanding self-mutilation, which would not cure the heart anyway. He is saying that nothing, however dear, should be kept if it causes us to stumble. The point is decisive action against sin, not physical amputation. Entrance into life with loss is far better than eternal ruin with everything kept.
