Peter, of course, was a true “son of the kingdom”, and only an agent of Satan briefly and unwittingly. His error was due partly to his failure, as a Jew, to understand the scriptures that prophesied a Messiah who would be a ‘suffering servant’, and partly to his refusal, as a disciple, to accept his Master’s teaching. This is, in fact, the first of four recorded occasions when, in effect, he used those two self-contradictory words “no, Lord”, the others being his initial refusal to let Jesus wash his feet (John 13.8), his insistence that he would not be ‘scandalized’ by Jesus’ arrest, and so deny him (Matt 26.33-35) – we will return to this later – and, in his vision at Joppa (Acts 10.14), his refusal to eat anything unclean, when he uses these actual words. It is interesting to note that in all three of the gospel incidents the writers attribute to him the aforementioned double negative, a Greek idiom in which the two reinforce each other, rather than cancelling each other out, as in English; this usage is clearly characteristic of Peter’s vehement temperament. We have seen that Satan was using Peter as a means of tempting Jesus, but what caused Peter to blurt out such a passionate denial of what Jesus had just said ? Surely it was because, having just acknowledged Jesus as the Messiah, he was appalled, or ‘scandalized’ almost in its modern sense, by the thought that he might be rejected and killed by the people he had come to save. This brings us to the other meaning of ‘skandalon’ and ‘skandalizo’: a 'stumbling-block’ to ‘trip’ someone up. The purpose of a ‘trap’, as we have seen, is to turn people aside from the way of righteousness and the walk of faith by offering them as ‘bait’ something seemingly more attractive. A ‘trip’, by contrast, confronts people with an obstacle in their path of discipleship, so as to make them turn back. For Peter (though here it is he who is a ,scandal, to Jesus), and for many other Jews after him, as we shall see, it was the unthinkable prospect of a crucified Messiah that caused him to stumble; but there are several other contexts in which both the noun and the verb are used, and we shall look at these first.
Wednesday, 11 January 2012
SKANDALON 3 - a TRIP (a) the scandal of the cross
Peter, of course, was a true “son of the kingdom”, and only an agent of Satan briefly and unwittingly. His error was due partly to his failure, as a Jew, to understand the scriptures that prophesied a Messiah who would be a ‘suffering servant’, and partly to his refusal, as a disciple, to accept his Master’s teaching. This is, in fact, the first of four recorded occasions when, in effect, he used those two self-contradictory words “no, Lord”, the others being his initial refusal to let Jesus wash his feet (John 13.8), his insistence that he would not be ‘scandalized’ by Jesus’ arrest, and so deny him (Matt 26.33-35) – we will return to this later – and, in his vision at Joppa (Acts 10.14), his refusal to eat anything unclean, when he uses these actual words. It is interesting to note that in all three of the gospel incidents the writers attribute to him the aforementioned double negative, a Greek idiom in which the two reinforce each other, rather than cancelling each other out, as in English; this usage is clearly characteristic of Peter’s vehement temperament. We have seen that Satan was using Peter as a means of tempting Jesus, but what caused Peter to blurt out such a passionate denial of what Jesus had just said ? Surely it was because, having just acknowledged Jesus as the Messiah, he was appalled, or ‘scandalized’ almost in its modern sense, by the thought that he might be rejected and killed by the people he had come to save. This brings us to the other meaning of ‘skandalon’ and ‘skandalizo’: a 'stumbling-block’ to ‘trip’ someone up. The purpose of a ‘trap’, as we have seen, is to turn people aside from the way of righteousness and the walk of faith by offering them as ‘bait’ something seemingly more attractive. A ‘trip’, by contrast, confronts people with an obstacle in their path of discipleship, so as to make them turn back. For Peter (though here it is he who is a ,scandal, to Jesus), and for many other Jews after him, as we shall see, it was the unthinkable prospect of a crucified Messiah that caused him to stumble; but there are several other contexts in which both the noun and the verb are used, and we shall look at these first.
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