Practical Faith · Bible Study

What Is a Stumbling Block in the Bible?

Nobody throws a block in front of a brother and thinks, he is going to fall.

By Tim Threadgill · Greater Phoenix Church of God

Adapted from the sermon “Words as Stumbling Blocks” · Published August 2026 · 7 min read

Tim Threadgill opens this message with two passages, and the jump between them is worth feeling.

Paul first:

“Therefore let us not judge one another anymore, but rather resolve this, not to put a stumbling block or a cause to fall in our brother’s way.”

Romans 14:13

Then Jesus:

“But whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to sin, it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were drowned in the depth of the sea.”

Matthew 18:6

Paul says resolve not to do it. Jesus reaches for a millstone.

Why the language is that severe

A millstone was not a decorative object. It was a large grinding stone, in some cases heavy enough to require an animal to turn it. Jesus is describing a weight that guarantees the outcome.

He is not offering a punishment. He is making a comparison. Better that, He says, than this.

The severity tells you how God weighs the spiritual welfare of one person against the convenience of another.

Which means this passage is largely about how believers treat each other.

The many shapes this takes

Tim runs through a list early in the message, and the length of it is the point.

And the list keeps going. There is no shortage of ways to put something in a brother’s path.

Paul had a specific application in mind in Romans 14. The dispute in that congregation was about food and observance, and his instruction to the group with more freedom was not to press it:

“It is good neither to eat meat nor drink wine nor do anything by which your brother stumbles or is offended or is made weak.”

Romans 14:21

He says the same thing to Corinth:

“But beware lest somehow this liberty of yours become a stumbling block to those who are weak.”

1 Corinthians 8:9

Notice what Paul is asking. He is not telling anyone they were wrong. He is telling people who were right to consider what being right in that moment costs somebody else.

The kind almost nobody talks about

Here is where this message goes somewhere most teaching on the subject does not.

Tim points out that it is not usually our intent to be a stumbling block. Nobody hurls a block in front of a brother while he is walking and thinks, there he goes, he is going to fall.

That is not what is happening. And that is exactly why it keeps happening.

He gives a small example that most people will recognize immediately. Think about someone at work who complains constantly. You come in Tuesday and say good morning, and you get back: well, it is just another Tuesday. Wednesday, same thing. In an Arizona summer, it is going to be a billion degrees again today, as though everyone in the building had not already noticed.

Nobody in that exchange intends any harm. There is no malice in it at all.

But Tim describes the effect honestly: it wears on him. He walks away tired. He was not tired before that conversation. The joy and the zeal can come out of a whole morning because of a two-sentence exchange at the coffee machine that the other person forgot about instantly.

The same thing happens with gossip. Being in that environment, even as a bystander, changes something. You walk away from it feeling worse than you arrived, and nobody involved thought they were doing anything.

One practical rule worth stealing

Tim offers a rule of thumb he applies when a conversation starts moving that direction.

If we are going to talk about someone, that person should be here too.

The test is simple. If you are comfortable enough to say a thing about a person, you should be comfortable enough to say it in front of them. When the conversation starts drifting, the line is: hold on, we are not going to talk about him unless he is here too.

He is careful to allow for exceptions. There are legitimate settings where someone must be discussed in their absence, and pastoral care, employment decisions, and protecting someone from harm are obvious ones. But as a default posture in ordinary conversation, it holds up remarkably well, and it ends most gossip before it starts.

What Paul says to do instead

Romans 14 does not stop at the prohibition. Six verses later Paul gives the replacement:

“Therefore let us pursue the things which make for peace and the things by which one may edify another.”

Romans 14:19

Pursue. That is an active word. He is not describing the absence of harm, he is describing an effort in the opposite direction.

Paul says the same thing to Ephesus with the mechanism attached:

“Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but what is good for necessary edification, that it may impart grace to the hearers.”

Ephesians 4:29

Read the standard in that verse. Not avoid saying harmful things. What is good for necessary edification, that it may impart grace to the hearers.

The question is not only whether your words did damage. It is whether they built anything.

Where this leaves you

If stumbling blocks were mostly laid deliberately, this would be an easy problem. You would simply decide to stop.

Because they are mostly laid by accident, by habit, by tone, by an offhand remark at a potluck, the work is different. It is a matter of awareness before it is a matter of willpower.

That awareness is learnable. It starts with noticing that the effect of your words on another person is not determined by what you meant.

And it is worth saying plainly that this is not an invitation to walk on eggshells or to say nothing at all. Scripture does not ask you to become silent. It asks you to become deliberate.

There is a real difference between a person who says nothing for fear of getting it wrong, and a person who has learned to weigh what a word will do before it leaves.

Jesus was not warning the second person.

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Tim Threadgill taught this message, “Words as Stumbling Blocks,” at Greater Phoenix Church of God. Watch it in full, then come see what this looks like in a room. Casual, all ages, questions welcome.

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