GREAT THINGS ENTERPRISE
CLAUDE BLACK
Mark 9:45
Feet
I worked as a maintenance welder, often standing in one place for long periods. I wore steel-toed shoes, and my feet often began to ache. The company employed a podiatrist to help workers with foot problems, so I went to visit him. He prescribed arch supports, somewhat rigid device that he glued into my shoes. The arch supports provided a new level of pain, so I removed them a few days later. Like most people, I don’t pay much attention to my feet during the day, unless they ache. From the time I lace up my shoes in the morning until I remove them in the evening, I don’t think much about my feet.
In Jesus’ lesson to the disciples about the importance of avoiding anything that would endanger their faith, he called attention to the feet. He said, “And if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off. For you to enter into life lame is better than having two feet to be cast into Gehenna, into the unquenchable fire.” (Mark 9:45) Most scholars think Jesus was using the rhetorical device of exaggeration to illustrate his point: don’t let anything interfere with your faith. So if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off.
The apostle Peter said something similar: “They are surprised that you do not run with them into the same excess of dissipation.” (1 Peter 4:4) In other words, Peter cautioned about using the feet to run to ruin. Peter could have quoted Jesus’ words—if your foot causes you to run to ruin, cut it off—as a bit of exaggeration to support an important principle.
Mark’s word for “causes you to sin” is “skandalizó” (σκανδαλίζω), the root of the English word “scandalize,” and it can mean “cause…to stumble,” “fall away,” or “take offense.”
Applying this lesson, I must ask myself where my feet are carrying me.
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