THE BEST DEFENSE IS NOT BEING OFFENDED:
Rejecting being habitually offended
Being openly and unapologetically Christian in today’s culture can come with its share of social dangers. Often times on social media and out on the front lines of ministry we can feel like we’re running around a shooting range, dodging bullets. Keyboard jihadists fire their poisonous barrage of insults and profanity. Passers-by will curse you out; spit on you; and tell you to go kill yourself. And usually the Christian comes up against the temptation to run out there and fire back.
Our culture teaches us that we should be highly offended; angry; and that we need to push back with equal or greater force. We are taught in the public school system to run and tell the teacher every time someone says something that we don’t like. And when we are adults we see people running to their boss or their pastor (gossip?); or even sometimes to the police simply because they are offended. We also see people firing back with the insults or trying to get even.
We are a culture that is saturated with pride. Like a fish isn’t aware that it’s in water, we often aren’t even aware of the depth of our own pride. It is ultimately our pride that is offended. And it is ultimately our pride that fuels a variety of ungodly responses.
Does this lead to reconciliation? Does this lead to righteousness? Does it make us look like Jesus? Does this lead other people to Christ, or glorify our great God?
What does the bible say?
Proverbs 19:11
“Good sense makes one slow to anger, and it is his glory to overlook an offense.”
James 1:19
“Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger”
Proverbs 12:16
“The vexation of a fool is known at once, but the prudent ignores an insult.”
Ecclesiastes 7:21-22
“Do not take to heart all the things that people say, lest you hear your servant cursing you. Your heart knows that many times you yourself have cursed others.”
It is literally our glory to overlook offensive statements and actions! We show ourselves to have greater wisdom when we ignore insults, no matter how down-and-dirty they are. We show ourselves to not be hypocrites when we are mature enough to overlook what others are saying about us.
I remember going to share the gospel with a group of mediums and psychics recently. While some of my brothers went inside to share the good news, I stayed outside in the parking lot and talked to people there.
I spoke to several people and several of them approached me before I even had a chance to approach them. I had a few takeaways from that day, looking at how the Holy Spirit works in us, versus how those who are lost in their sins react.
Many of these people who approached me to talk to me about what was going on inside were glad to speak with me about their communicating with demons. However, when I spoke to them about the grace of our Lord Jesus towards sinners, they were quickly offended. Some got angry. Some got defensive. Some were argumentative.
However, almost none of them would walk away from the discussion. That is, they would not walk away unless it was to call the police on me.
I had a man walk up and try to get in my face and intimidate me. He was acting threatening and seemed to be genuinely irritated when I did not back down from his bullying. I calmly spoke to him and for probably over a half hour the man kept getting more and more in my face and making veiled threats, because he heard that I was sharing the gospel outside and he was offended by it. He made sure to tell me that he found me offensive. And when I told him, “you are free to leave if you don’t like what I am saying, sir” he doubled down on his attempts to intimidate me.
When the man finally gave up on that tactic, he went and called the police. All of this happened because I was having a calm discussion with him about Jesus (which he initiated).
The people were fine when they thought I would be another nodding head in their echo chamber. However, when confronted with truths that did not line up with their world view they were unable to overlook any kind of offense or even walk away from it. To them they couldn’t even hear a dissenting voice, or attempt to reason with me. The solution was to try and force me to be silent, through intimidation or the police.
God tells us to be kind, gentle and patient; and to correct our opponents. Our Hope is that God will lead them to repentance! We want to see more brothers and sisters in the kingdom worshiping God! What good does it do to stomp on their pride and send them away to lick their wounds and resent us?
I can think of numerous times preaching the gospel and handing out tracts outside of the abortion clinic in a town nearby. I have been called all manner of vile names, sworn at, given different hand gestures, been screamed at, and numerous times been asked to kill myself. I have seen those with me be assaulted and reviled. There are grown men who work nearby who have wished rape onto the teenage daughters of a woman handing out gospel tracts and trying to save babies from being murdered. One coward threw dirty mop bucket water at a group of children who were there handing out tracts. One small group got spit on. And I’ve even heard a man issue a threat to shoot a different preacher.
What is our response to be Christians? Are we going to be offended by this? Do we get angry?
Of course we don’t.
Jesus taught us that there are blessings that come to those who are persecuted, reviled or hated on account of Him or the gospel.
1 Peter 4:14
If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you.
Psalm 109:28
Let them curse, but you will bless! They arise and are put to shame, but your servant will be glad!
Matthew 5:11
“Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.
But the bullets that we dodge aren’t always fired by those people that we call “the enemy” (see Ephesians 6 on who is the real enemy). The most dangerously accurate and painful shots fired often are friendly fire, from our own brothers and sisters in Christ.
What do we do then? What happens when the wounds are deep and raw and painful? What if we have to see these people and minister with them every day? How do we respond?
The first thing to remember is that as Paul instructs, do everything in love. Jesus said we would be known by our love for one another. So our grace for brothers and sisters in Christ and our desire to be reconciled and restored to them (especially the ones in our own congregation) should be greater than that for any other group of people.
1 Corinthians 13:4-6
Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.
Romans 13 lets us know that we are actually indebted to our brethren to love them. And as such we actually have an obligation to them to be patient and to not be irritable or resentful.
This is greater than just a sense of Christian duty though. We have a duty to love our children, but the reason that we love them is not normally solely out of a sense of duty. We have great affection for them. We have a commitment to them. We rejoice in them!
This is how it should be with our brothers and sisters as well! God teaches us to not repay evil for evil, and to outdo one another in showing honor. Think of what it looks like when we respond with nothing but honor and grace when someone says or does something that should normally offend us. What does it look like to the world? How much more will we love people if we’re able to respond to wrongdoing that way?
This is not giving honor because of their offense. This is giving honor despite their offense.
That still doesn’t tell us how we are to reconcile and restore though. That simply gives us God’s instructions on love being our ultimate response.
So how do we reconcile and restore?
First of all we need to know that NO SIN that is common to man is unforgiveable (blasphemy of the Holy Spirit is another blog altogether). God has given Christians the grace and love to be able to forgive murder and rape. We are also instructed that just because someone has a pattern of sinning against us, doesn’t mean we’re permitted to not be forgiving. There’s literally no limit to the amount of grace and forgiveness that God offers us. He is so wonderfully gracious! If we want to look like Him, we must desire to demonstrate that kind of graciousness.
Even with excommunication the motive is love and the goal is restoration. It is something we do when everything else has failed.
There is a process that Jesus gave us to be reconciled and restored when someone sins against us.
Matthew 18:15-17
“If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.
So we are seeing here a few things. The first is that it is incumbent on us to confront the person who sinned against us alone before we bring the issue to anyone else. I have seen people falsely accused of sins (slander); seen people blindsided about something that they weren’t even aware of by multiple people who weren’t involved, and even charges brought against someone in front of a congregation that they were not made fully aware of beforehand.
These types of behavior are wrong. I know personally that many times before I’ve had people offended by something I’ve said based on their own faulty perception of my words. I’m grateful that these brothers and sisters had the wisdom and maturity to approach me and ask me to explain what I meant. I’ve also had some reveal to me that they were offended by something when they understood me rightly, and I had the opportunity to apologize to them and seek to correct the problem. None of this would have had a need to go beyond myself and the person involved.
I’ve seen someone who was approached by an elder once, because the elder had heard that they had said or done something sinful. It turns out that there was a misunderstanding; the allegation was false; and that the person had been brought to the point of initiating church discipline for something that could have been avoided if the person who was offended simply went to the man and talked to him.
You can see where the potential for some very deep wounds and bitter grudges can arise when we aren’t gracious and when we don’t follow the instructions of Jesus in Matthew 18.
We also see in that passage that we are required to specifically bring the charge up against them. We are to tell them their fault. We don’t sit there and try to make them guess and hope that they will confess to something. Corrupt police; bad school administrators and the like use tactics like this. We don’t do that as Christians.
If I think I overheard a brother saying something across a crowded room, or from outside a closed door; or if I’m told that they said something, I will go to them by myself first and tell them what I thought that I heard or what I had been told. I do this to establish the truthfulness of it and again, to avoid misunderstanding. We as Christians also do this because we are not part of the Spanish Inquisition. We make sure we have actual charges before we bring someone to trial to question them. We also do this so we don’t try and steer someone towards what we want them to say.
The third thing that we see is that the offended party is also present when one or two others from the church go. There is no biblical warrant for the accusing party to not be present. It is usually a good indication that the supposed “sin” did not actually occur if they are unwilling to face the person.
If crude speech, false teaching, backbiting, or gossip is said to have occurred, the person reporting it should be there and state what they heard to the best of their abilities. And the witnesses are not partial. So the accused has the opportunity to deny, explain them self, clear things up, or confess. The charges must be established by the witnesses as valid before we proceed as Christians to anything further.
Why do I say all of this? It is because these types of things can cause wounds from friendly fire. People can become bitter from these things. I’ve literally seen a church divide and cause people horrible pain based on actions like these.
I know I have personally been wronged once or twice, and I can overlook that and still have fellowship with the people who have wronged me. It is because God has put that on my heart and given me the grace to do so.
I’ve also been in the wrong and needed to repent, like every other sinner out there. Let’s not let pride keep us from admitting when we are in error and repenting quickly!
If this seems difficult, remember it is God who empowers us to do so. It is God’s word and His Spirit that enable us to even be capable. We must be in His word and focused on Him in prayer to be built up to be able to withstand these schemes of the devil.
It is Satan who wishes to cause bitterness and divide churches. It is Satan that wants us to respond to our pain by insulting our brothers and sisters or by lashing out at them publicly. God does not desire for us to wound one another or to abandon one another. He desires us to be healed and reconciled, to be at peace with all so much as it depends on us.
Jesus gave the perfect example of when to overlook an offense, and when to be offended. Yes, there is an appropriate time to be offended.
In John 8 when Jesus was insulted, they said ‘we are not born of sexual immorality’. That was a huge insult! They were essentially saying that Jesus was a bastard and His mother a whore! This was an awful and horridly offensive thing to say, especially during that time in that culture.
Jesus had a right to exact wrath right then and there, but he did not. Jesus overlooked the offense, confronted their sin, and gave them correction. And nothing in the text that suggests that Jesus was not calm when he spoke to them so directly.
However, if you look at the times where Jesus cleanses the temple in John 2 and Matthew 21, we see that Jesus was rightly offended and angered by those who were dishonoring God and putting a hurdle between the people and worship of the Father. This is a good reason to be offended. And even in His anger, Jesus did not sin (even with driving out the money changers).
Let’s remember to be patient and gracious with those who would offend us. And especially remember to show grace to those who are our own brothers and sisters in Christ. Even our closest friends in our congregation are sinners and can hurt us. Our hope is fixed on Jesus.
Let’s have a good defense and not be offended!
Rejecting being habitually offended
Being openly and unapologetically Christian in today’s culture can come with its share of social dangers. Often times on social media and out on the front lines of ministry we can feel like we’re running around a shooting range, dodging bullets. Keyboard jihadists fire their poisonous barrage of insults and profanity. Passers-by will curse you out; spit on you; and tell you to go kill yourself. And usually the Christian comes up against the temptation to run out there and fire back.
Our culture teaches us that we should be highly offended; angry; and that we need to push back with equal or greater force. We are taught in the public school system to run and tell the teacher every time someone says something that we don’t like. And when we are adults we see people running to their boss or their pastor (gossip?); or even sometimes to the police simply because they are offended. We also see people firing back with the insults or trying to get even.
We are a culture that is saturated with pride. Like a fish isn’t aware that it’s in water, we often aren’t even aware of the depth of our own pride. It is ultimately our pride that is offended. And it is ultimately our pride that fuels a variety of ungodly responses.
Does this lead to reconciliation? Does this lead to righteousness? Does it make us look like Jesus? Does this lead other people to Christ, or glorify our great God?
What does the bible say?
Proverbs 19:11
“Good sense makes one slow to anger, and it is his glory to overlook an offense.”
James 1:19
“Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger”
Proverbs 12:16
“The vexation of a fool is known at once, but the prudent ignores an insult.”
Ecclesiastes 7:21-22
“Do not take to heart all the things that people say, lest you hear your servant cursing you. Your heart knows that many times you yourself have cursed others.”
It is literally our glory to overlook offensive statements and actions! We show ourselves to have greater wisdom when we ignore insults, no matter how down-and-dirty they are. We show ourselves to not be hypocrites when we are mature enough to overlook what others are saying about us.
I remember going to share the gospel with a group of mediums and psychics recently. While some of my brothers went inside to share the good news, I stayed outside in the parking lot and talked to people there.
I spoke to several people and several of them approached me before I even had a chance to approach them. I had a few takeaways from that day, looking at how the Holy Spirit works in us, versus how those who are lost in their sins react.
Many of these people who approached me to talk to me about what was going on inside were glad to speak with me about their communicating with demons. However, when I spoke to them about the grace of our Lord Jesus towards sinners, they were quickly offended. Some got angry. Some got defensive. Some were argumentative.
However, almost none of them would walk away from the discussion. That is, they would not walk away unless it was to call the police on me.
I had a man walk up and try to get in my face and intimidate me. He was acting threatening and seemed to be genuinely irritated when I did not back down from his bullying. I calmly spoke to him and for probably over a half hour the man kept getting more and more in my face and making veiled threats, because he heard that I was sharing the gospel outside and he was offended by it. He made sure to tell me that he found me offensive. And when I told him, “you are free to leave if you don’t like what I am saying, sir” he doubled down on his attempts to intimidate me.
When the man finally gave up on that tactic, he went and called the police. All of this happened because I was having a calm discussion with him about Jesus (which he initiated).
The people were fine when they thought I would be another nodding head in their echo chamber. However, when confronted with truths that did not line up with their world view they were unable to overlook any kind of offense or even walk away from it. To them they couldn’t even hear a dissenting voice, or attempt to reason with me. The solution was to try and force me to be silent, through intimidation or the police.
I can think of numerous times preaching the gospel and handing out tracts outside of the abortion clinic in a town nearby. I have been called all manner of vile names, sworn at, given different hand gestures, been screamed at, and numerous times been asked to kill myself. I have seen those with me be assaulted and reviled. There are grown men who work nearby who have wished rape onto the teenage daughters of a woman handing out gospel tracts and trying to save babies from being murdered. One coward threw dirty mop bucket water at a group of children who were there handing out tracts. One small group got spit on. And I’ve even heard a man issue a threat to shoot a different preacher.
What is our response to be Christians? Are we going to be offended by this? Do we get angry?
Of course we don’t.
Jesus taught us that there are blessings that come to those who are persecuted, reviled or hated on account of Him or the gospel.
1 Peter 4:14
If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you.
Psalm 109:28
Let them curse, but you will bless! They arise and are put to shame, but your servant will be glad!
Matthew 5:11
“Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.
But the bullets that we dodge aren’t always fired by those people that we call “the enemy” (see Ephesians 6 on who is the real enemy). The most dangerously accurate and painful shots fired often are friendly fire, from our own brothers and sisters in Christ.
What do we do then? What happens when the wounds are deep and raw and painful? What if we have to see these people and minister with them every day? How do we respond?
The first thing to remember is that as Paul instructs, do everything in love. Jesus said we would be known by our love for one another. So our grace for brothers and sisters in Christ and our desire to be reconciled and restored to them (especially the ones in our own congregation) should be greater than that for any other group of people.
1 Corinthians 13:4-6
Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.
Romans 13 lets us know that we are actually indebted to our brethren to love them. And as such we actually have an obligation to them to be patient and to not be irritable or resentful.
This is greater than just a sense of Christian duty though. We have a duty to love our children, but the reason that we love them is not normally solely out of a sense of duty. We have great affection for them. We have a commitment to them. We rejoice in them!
This is how it should be with our brothers and sisters as well! God teaches us to not repay evil for evil, and to outdo one another in showing honor. Think of what it looks like when we respond with nothing but honor and grace when someone says or does something that should normally offend us. What does it look like to the world? How much more will we love people if we’re able to respond to wrongdoing that way?
This is not giving honor because of their offense. This is giving honor despite their offense.
That still doesn’t tell us how we are to reconcile and restore though. That simply gives us God’s instructions on love being our ultimate response.
So how do we reconcile and restore?
First of all we need to know that NO SIN that is common to man is unforgiveable (blasphemy of the Holy Spirit is another blog altogether). God has given Christians the grace and love to be able to forgive murder and rape. We are also instructed that just because someone has a pattern of sinning against us, doesn’t mean we’re permitted to not be forgiving. There’s literally no limit to the amount of grace and forgiveness that God offers us. He is so wonderfully gracious! If we want to look like Him, we must desire to demonstrate that kind of graciousness.
Even with excommunication the motive is love and the goal is restoration. It is something we do when everything else has failed.
There is a process that Jesus gave us to be reconciled and restored when someone sins against us.
Matthew 18:15-17
“If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.
So we are seeing here a few things. The first is that it is incumbent on us to confront the person who sinned against us alone before we bring the issue to anyone else. I have seen people falsely accused of sins (slander); seen people blindsided about something that they weren’t even aware of by multiple people who weren’t involved, and even charges brought against someone in front of a congregation that they were not made fully aware of beforehand.
These types of behavior are wrong. I know personally that many times before I’ve had people offended by something I’ve said based on their own faulty perception of my words. I’m grateful that these brothers and sisters had the wisdom and maturity to approach me and ask me to explain what I meant. I’ve also had some reveal to me that they were offended by something when they understood me rightly, and I had the opportunity to apologize to them and seek to correct the problem. None of this would have had a need to go beyond myself and the person involved.
I’ve seen someone who was approached by an elder once, because the elder had heard that they had said or done something sinful. It turns out that there was a misunderstanding; the allegation was false; and that the person had been brought to the point of initiating church discipline for something that could have been avoided if the person who was offended simply went to the man and talked to him.
You can see where the potential for some very deep wounds and bitter grudges can arise when we aren’t gracious and when we don’t follow the instructions of Jesus in Matthew 18.
We also see in that passage that we are required to specifically bring the charge up against them. We are to tell them their fault. We don’t sit there and try to make them guess and hope that they will confess to something. Corrupt police; bad school administrators and the like use tactics like this. We don’t do that as Christians.
If I think I overheard a brother saying something across a crowded room, or from outside a closed door; or if I’m told that they said something, I will go to them by myself first and tell them what I thought that I heard or what I had been told. I do this to establish the truthfulness of it and again, to avoid misunderstanding. We as Christians also do this because we are not part of the Spanish Inquisition. We make sure we have actual charges before we bring someone to trial to question them. We also do this so we don’t try and steer someone towards what we want them to say.
The third thing that we see is that the offended party is also present when one or two others from the church go. There is no biblical warrant for the accusing party to not be present. It is usually a good indication that the supposed “sin” did not actually occur if they are unwilling to face the person.
If crude speech, false teaching, backbiting, or gossip is said to have occurred, the person reporting it should be there and state what they heard to the best of their abilities. And the witnesses are not partial. So the accused has the opportunity to deny, explain them self, clear things up, or confess. The charges must be established by the witnesses as valid before we proceed as Christians to anything further.
Why do I say all of this? It is because these types of things can cause wounds from friendly fire. People can become bitter from these things. I’ve literally seen a church divide and cause people horrible pain based on actions like these.
I know I have personally been wronged once or twice, and I can overlook that and still have fellowship with the people who have wronged me. It is because God has put that on my heart and given me the grace to do so.
I’ve also been in the wrong and needed to repent, like every other sinner out there. Let’s not let pride keep us from admitting when we are in error and repenting quickly!
If this seems difficult, remember it is God who empowers us to do so. It is God’s word and His Spirit that enable us to even be capable. We must be in His word and focused on Him in prayer to be built up to be able to withstand these schemes of the devil.
It is Satan who wishes to cause bitterness and divide churches. It is Satan that wants us to respond to our pain by insulting our brothers and sisters or by lashing out at them publicly. God does not desire for us to wound one another or to abandon one another. He desires us to be healed and reconciled, to be at peace with all so much as it depends on us.
Jesus gave the perfect example of when to overlook an offense, and when to be offended. Yes, there is an appropriate time to be offended.
In John 8 when Jesus was insulted, they said ‘we are not born of sexual immorality’. That was a huge insult! They were essentially saying that Jesus was a bastard and His mother a whore! This was an awful and horridly offensive thing to say, especially during that time in that culture.
Jesus had a right to exact wrath right then and there, but he did not. Jesus overlooked the offense, confronted their sin, and gave them correction. And nothing in the text that suggests that Jesus was not calm when he spoke to them so directly.
However, if you look at the times where Jesus cleanses the temple in John 2 and Matthew 21, we see that Jesus was rightly offended and angered by those who were dishonoring God and putting a hurdle between the people and worship of the Father. This is a good reason to be offended. And even in His anger, Jesus did not sin (even with driving out the money changers).
Let’s remember to be patient and gracious with those who would offend us. And especially remember to show grace to those who are our own brothers and sisters in Christ. Even our closest friends in our congregation are sinners and can hurt us. Our hope is fixed on Jesus.
Let’s have a good defense and not be offended!