Offending the Little Ones

Yesterday there was a shooting in Newtown, Connecticut.  Twenty-eight are dead.  Twenty are children.  I was looking up the verse today about harming the little ones and I found it rather fascinating.    The verse in Matthew 18:6 says.  "If any one should offend one of the little ones, it is better that a millstone be thrown around his neck and he be cast into the sea."   The word offend in the Greek is the word that we get scandalize from.  The idea is to entrap, trip up or entice to sin, apostasy or displeasure.  The Middle English word for offend means, make to.  So who is more at fault in this crime?  Is it the person pulling the trigger or is it the education system that has scandalized our little ones?

When doing a word search for millstone, I looked at the four usages in the New Testament.  There is three in the gospels all having to do with this conversation that Jesus was having about the children with his disciples.  Matthew 18:6, Mark 9:42, Luke 17:2.

The next usage is in Revelation 18:21-22.  It refers to Babylon.  "And a mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone, and cast it into the sea saying, Thus with violence shall the great city Babylon be thrown down and shall be no more at all.  And the voice of the harpers, and musicians, and of pipers and trumpeters shall be heard no more at all in thee; and no craftsman, of whatsoever craft he be, shall be found any more in thee; and the sound of a millstone shall be heard no more at all in thee;"

Is this an indictment against Babylon?  Has Babylon scandalized the little ones?  I ask you.  If America is Babylon then we are in trouble?  If Rome is Babylon, then they are in trouble?  Be careful how you are teaching the little ones.  Proverbs 22:6 says "Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it".