It would be [more] profitable for him if a millstone were hanged about his neck and he cast into the sea, than that he should be a snare to one of these little ones.
Jesus warns His disciples here about causing others to fall, and the picture He uses is violent: a millstone, a neck, the open sea. Who are these "little ones," and what does it mean to make one of them stumble?
What "cause to stumble" means
The same saying appears in Matthew, and there one writer draws the line between wounding a believer's faith and speaking honestly to him:
What does this mean? Anything likely to shake their confidence in Christ, anything that puts a stumbling block in their way. It does not mean anything said in faithful love to their soul. People may take offence at that, but that is not what the Lord is speaking of here. It is whatever tends to shake the little one's confidence in God Himself.
The weight of the millstone
The picture is not only about an ugly death. One writer sets it beside the fall of Babylon:
To make one of these little ones stumble is to be on the road to the judgment of the millstone. In Revelation 18, we see Babylon under that same judgment of the millstone. Here the Lord sees the same character in making a little one stumble.
Not everyone accepts that trade. One writer says so plainly, and still holds to it:
No doubt not everyone would agree that death is preferable to sin against God, but it is true.
Who the little ones are
The phrase does not describe a special class of weak people. It describes those the world writes off:
The Lord goes on to speak of these in a way that shows how earnestly He wants every stumbling block cleared away from the feet of the least of all. The people men despise for being small are the ones His tender compassion would give special care to, and He presses this now on His disciples.
Another writer widens it further, applying it to God's people as a whole in a world that counts them for nothing:
The Church of God is His little one. In the eyes of the world she is a nobody, but in the sight of God she is everything. So you and I must watch out for any way of living that might make the little one stumble.
Where stumbling blocks come from
If the verse asks us to avoid something, it helps to know where the danger usually lies. One writer traces it back to the thing Christians are meant to display above all:
Scripture teaches us that we are to "show forth," even "in the ages to come the exceeding riches of God's grace." Grace is the mark of this present age, unlike law, the strict teacher whose rule came before it. What, then, can be so great a failure as to fail in grace? This is why the Lord goes on with an urgent "take heed to yourselves."
Rebuke, not silence
Does this mean we should stay quiet with a brother who sins? One writer answers no, and says silence is the real danger:
Yet this does not mean that we should never speak to our brother for fear of stumbling him. The opposite is true. If he goes astray into sin, we are to rebuke him, and forgive him as soon as he repents — even if it happens again and again. We might think that rebuking him risks making him stumble. In fact, we take that risk by not rebuking him. Of course, this assumes we give the rebuke not in human anger but in the power of divine love.
Summary
- Little. God's care runs to "the least of all" — those the world despises for their smallness are the ones He guards.
- Shake. To make one stumble is to do anything that unsettles a believer's confidence in Christ and in God Himself.
- Weigh. Christ weighs it out: drowning would be the better outcome — a judgment that echoes the millstone of Babylon.
- Fail. Stumbling blocks arise where Christians fail in grace — the very thing they are meant to display.
- Speak. Rebuke given in love is not an offence. Staying silent is what trips a brother up.