Mark 9:42-50

Mark 9:42-50 New International Version

Causing to stumble

⁴² ‘If anyone causes one of these little ones – those who believe in me – to stumble, it would be better for them if a large millstone were hung round their neck and they were thrown into the sea. ⁴³ If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life maimed than with two hands to go into hell, where the fire never goes out. ^{[a] 45} And if your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life crippled than to have two feet and be thrown into hell. ^{[b] 47} And if your eye causes you to stumble, pluck it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into hell, ⁴⁸ where

‘“the worms that eat them do not die,
    and the fire is not quenched.”^[c]

⁴⁹ Everyone will be salted with fire.

⁵⁰ ‘Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can you make it salty again? Have salt among yourselves, and be at peace with each other.’

Personal Insights

The lessons from Jesus continue in these next verses in Mark 9.  The disciples had a lot to learn concerning living out their faith as do we.  Jesus tells the disciples that to cause a fellow believer to stumble in the faith has severe consequences.  His analogy with the millstone shows us Jesus’s heart on the issue.  This millstone that he was talking about was not the small one that women would use for grinding grain but the more industrial one.  This one if tied around your neck would take you down into the depths of the sea.  Jesus is emphasizing to the disciples the importance of getting along with other people.  It is not always easy but something that Jesus considers highly important.

Jesus gives us an analogy of cutting away anything in us that causes us to sin.  This is not something we are to do literally but gives us a good visual of the seriousness that Jesus places on sin.  Sin starts in the heart and mind and needs to be dealt with there before it gets put into action.  “What He is teaching is that sin is to the inner person what a cancerous tumor is to the body, and it must be dealt with drastically”. (Wiersbe)

A topic that is often avoided is the subject of hell.  When was the last time you heard a sermon on hell.  It probably wasn’t recently.  Jesus doesn’t expound too much on what hell is like but what He does say is enough that should encourage us to share the Gospel with the lost.  Jesus believed in hell and knew it was a place of eternal torture and punishment.   The Hebrew word for hell is gehenna.  Gehenna originally was the valley of Hinnom where the rubbish, filth and dead animals would be thrown out and burned.  This was where King Ahaz worshipped Molech and sacrificed his children in the fire to appease this false god.  You can read what happened to King Ahaz in 2 Chronicles.  Hell is an everlasting punishment and not something to be taken lightly.

Depending on the context in which the word “fire” is used it can have a negative connotation such as hell or it can have a positive association such as purification.  God can use the fire of trials and testing to purify us.  Although not pleasant at the time it is removes all the dross, the unwanted stuff in our lives.  (Proverbs 25:4-5)

If you didn’t understand the fire of purification then Jesus gives us another example of salt.  Salt has many uses.  In ancient times it was used as a seasoning, a preservative and a disinfectant.  In Ezekiel 16:4 it talks about a practice of rubbing newborn babies in salt. In general it was used to prevent something going bad or to improve the taste of food.  Salt is seen as a positive thing.  How about us?  Are we considered salty in the way we live our lives?  Or could we do with another shake of salt over us to purify and preserve us to live a life worthy of our calling?  Something to ponder over today.