But we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness.
1 Corinthians 1:23
The word stumbling block occurs 11 times in scripture but only once does it refer to Christ. In the remaining ten verses, four times God’s people are told not to purposefully lay down obstacles for others, and six times were told that sin trips us up. The Lord Jesus is neither sinful or deliberately trying to bring down the Jewish people, so, how is the Savior a Stumbling Block?
The New Testament quotes five times from Psalm 118:22: “The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone.” The fact that this verse was cited so many times emphasizes the importance of the teaching. The Jewish teachers of the law were those builders. Instead of embracing Old Testament prophesy, proclaiming the arrival of the Messiah, they rejected Him; they discarded the Holy One of Israel.
Obeying the letter of the law became more important than honoring and having fellowship with God. Christ came to establish that fellowship much deeper than it had ever been before by becoming the Mediator of a Better Covenant. The problem is that the rulers of the Jewish people had become comfortable with observing the rules and regulations they had added, and so rejected the King of the Jews.
God, on the other hand, highly exalted Christ and gave Him a Name that is Above Every Name. Since the fourth century, the Jewish people have seen the rise of Christianity and this dispersed people have lived under the control of so-called Christian nations for centuries.
To this day, most of the descendants of Israel still stumble and fall over the Key Stone that their ancestors threw away. Blessings have become few and antisemitism is on the rise all over the world. Yet, most of the Jewish people today don’t understand what is happening, because Christ is still their Stumbling Block rather than a Savior.
October 17
