A man’s wisdom gives him patience;
it is to his glory to overlook an offense.  –Proverbs 19:11

¹⁸Do not deceive yourselves. If any one of you thinks he is wise by the standards of this age, he should become a “fool” so that he may become wise. ¹⁹For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God’s sight. As it is written: “He catches the wise in their craftiness”; ²⁰and again, “The Lord knows that the thoughts of the wise are futile.” ²¹So then, no more boasting about men! All things are yours, ²²whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future—all are yours, ²³and you are of Christ, and Christ is of God. – 1 Corinthians 3:18-23

Technology is making the world smaller and smaller.  But it’s not making it friendlier and more understanding.

A couple of weeks ago, I had an experience where I took what I thought was unfair criticism on one of the social networking sites.  Someone who is a contact on one of these sites commented on a post I made, making generalizations about my character and nature as though they knew me.  In this case, the “friend” was not someone I’ve ever really talked with and it’s someone who doesn’t “know” me, except from the contents of my posts on this particular social networking site, and perhaps some secondhand contact.  Leaving aside for a moment why such a person is a “friend” or “contact” in my network (a valid point, but in this case there is also a valid reason), I’d like to talk today about taking offense.

After I received this rather nasty and ill-informed comment, I noticed a private message from a “real-life” friend who confirmed my first impression:  that the comment was inappropriate.  The friend then listened to me ponder how I should respond to it.  I’d already posted a rather vanilla acknowledgment that I’d received the criticism, but was pondering if further activity was necessary.  After listening to my complaints and the responses I was considering, my friend gave me a VERY wise piece of advice:  “let it go.”  After considering the matter for about 24 hours, I was able to receive this wisdom from my friend and did what he suggested.

Today, I’d like to commend that model to you, and in a far wider application range than my friend originally intended.  Today, I’d like to ask you to make it your goal to take offense less–for you to become less offend-able.  There is a compelling list of reasons why you should (in somewhat random order):

1.  The Bible commends being harder to offend.

In the verse from Proverbs 19:11 I linked above, the statement is explicit:  wise people are offended less.  But there are other locations where the Bible talks about what we might call “taking offense” and related concepts.  James 1:19-20 makes a similar point:  My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, for man’s anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires. In other words, no matter what you hear, listen to it, and then keep quiet and don’t be angry, because your anger doesn’t make you holier, and doesn’t bring you closer to God.  Sounds a lot to me like not taking offense would be included in that concept.  Ecclesiastes 7:9 makes a similar point:  Do not be quickly provoked in your spirit, for anger resides in the lap of fools. The theme is not hard to pick out:  Godly people are listeners.  They take time listening.  They hear what is being said, and even if it might potentially offend them or make them angry, they are consistently known by the fact that they do not respond quickly or in anger.   Taking offense is the primary result of responding quickly and in anger.  Most people who are offended do so immediately after encountering the offensive thing.  You don’t usually see people become offended days after being presented with something which is offensive–it’s a snap reaction.  Wisdom, holiness and righteousness are found in avoiding making this “snap.”

2. Being hard-to-offend is counter-cultural.

Our culture has trained all people to be too sensitive, and now people take offense at things which 20 years ago would’ve been ignored.  I could talk a bunch about this, but I think Kevin DeYoung has written a really, really excellent blog article about this which I suggest you read.   Short version:  we now train people to ignore truth and instead respond to how something makes them feel.  (“Political correctness” grows out of this same impulse.)’  The logical outcome of this is that people become more sensitive.  There is such a thing as too sensitive, and there’s a good chance most of us (yes, I’m including myself) are.  As DeYoung points out, it’s easier to be offended than deal with the truth claims, and harder to prove a claim than state how something makes you feel.   This really is a logical outcome of teaching people to care less about the truth, but as Christians, we claim to KNOW the truth.  In short, being easily offended is a statement you care more for your emotions than the truth.  If you want to be counter-cultural today, be hard to offend.

3. Jesus is never recorded as being offended in the Bible.

This one is pretty self-explanatory.  If we’re CHRIST-ians, and we believe we’re being conformed into CHRIST-likeness, we ought to aim at the “author and perfector of our faith,”  Jesus Christ himself.   I dare you to find a place where Jesus is reported as being offended.  Let me spoil the suspense: there isn’t one.  There are plenty of people who were offended by Jesus, but he is never said to have been offended.  He had plenty of opportunities, between the Pharisees, Scribes, Sadducees and a mockery of a trial which lead to his death.  If anyone ever had reason to be offended, it would be Jesus, and yet, no offense was taken by him.  You wanna be like him?  Being hard to offend is a start.

If there was ever a being who had a defensible claim to being offended by sinful humanity and their deeds, it was the sinless Christ.  Yet he routinely reached out to people, even in cases where they were thought by everyone around Him to be offensive.  (Need examples?  How about the Woman at the Well?  Zacchaeus?  Lepers?  Those thought to be Cursed?  Demon Possessed?)  See #6 below.

4.  Being offended is a waste of time, emotions and energy.

I can’t think of an outcome from being offended that leads to the offensive thing being removed.  Your being offended will create exactly no change in the larger world.  If you are really interested in removing things you find offensive, rude, lude, distasteful, et.al, you MUST take steps beyond being offended to affect any kind of change anyways, so rather than wasting your time and energy being offended, skip to the action step.  Offended-ness cripples activity, encouraging us to sit and make the offensive thing the center of attention, which only increases the likelihood of another person being offended or us being more hurt then is appropriate (or healthy or beneficial or…well, you get the idea).

If something offends you and it’s not worth taking an action step to remove it, it really isn’t worth being offended over.   If something does offend you and taking offense causes you to delay doing something about it, then being offended is counterproductive.   Let me give you an example.  Let’s say that the most offensive thing you can think of is happening directly in front of you.  If it’s going to stop anytime soon (which if it is truly offensive is the thing you most want to happen), you still have to DO something.  I’m not trying to deny that there are things which are (or should) be offensive, I’m merely trying to say that feeling offended doesn’t help in any way towards ending the offense.

5.  In a world marred by sin, offensive things are commonplace.

Christians believe that sin is in the world and that all people are sinners.  Sinners are people who don’t behave rightly in relation to God.  Inappropriate behavior is the basis for all offensive things.  That there would be offensive things in the world follows logically, therefore, from the core beliefs of the Christian.  In that sense, being offended at sinful deeds, actions and activities is a denial of one of the core tenets of the Christian faith, and in some ways, as bad as denying that people sin.  (This is because…)

6.  Easily or Oft-offended Christians are less likely to share the Gospel.

If you’d like me to say this another way, usually it is offensive people who most need the Gospel message.  If you’re easily offended, there’s an excellent chance you’ll ignore the fact that the people responsible for offending you are the ones that most desperately need Jesus Christ.  You will be so occupied defending your own kingdom that you will ignore the most basic responsibility of the Christ-follower:  to extend the rule and reign of Jesus Christ and His kingdom into the lives of others.  Think about that the next time you’d like for your empire to strike back.

7.  Perpetuating offendedness makes for an opinionless world.

For those people who would say that ideas can be offensive and I haven’t taken that seriously enough, I have a couple of brief remarks.  I agree that some ideas (say Nazism or Racism or other unfortunate isms) are offensive.  But an idea that isn’t lived out in some sort of activity isn’t really a reason to be offended–it is a reason to be worried or a reason to grieve or a reason to work harder to reveal truth to ignorant people.  Likewise, in a world filled with sinful people, we should EXPECT for there to be a variety of ideas.

A far worse outcome than offensive ideas or opinions is a world without ideas or opinions.  We are moving to this currently through people being hypersensitive to the opinions of others.  In our era of hypersensitivity, it is likely that any opinion expressed would be offensive to someone.  If we are going to make it our effort to avoid offending anyone, we will necessarily remove opinions from all discourse.  Since modern discourse relies almost solely on opinion (as opposed to verifiable facts and real logic), the current trend in our Society, if left unchecked, will lead to a state of affairs where people will stare dumbly at one another, afraid to speak, waiting for another person to do anything, so that everyone else can point and call it offensive.

A world where truth exists must also be a world where falsehood (and wrong opinions and bad ideas) are also possible.  In other words, unless you’re prepared to remove all ideas and communication of opinion from language and culture, or you’re going to mandate that only true things can be spoken (however that could happen), get ready for someone to say something that will offend you.  And rather than screaming about being offended, you should be prepared to evaluate why you disagree and why it is offensive.   It will get you further.

So, enough of the list of reasons why you should strive to be less offendable.  On to a few tips about how to do this.

• Breathe. Distance yourself as much as you can from the offensive thing.  If you’re still offended after a day, you might consider doing something about it.
• Try to figure out why you’re feeling offended. If it’s because someone took a shot at your reputation, ask yourself if your reputation on the matter is worth defending more than being peaceable.
• Remember your Example. Christ promises that people will be persecuted for being known as His follower.  If someone is taking a crack at you for being a Christian, skip being offended–it’s Christ who is being maligned, not your personal reputation.
• Don’t dwell on it. Usually, people will forget offenses if there aren’t repeated reminders, so go ahead and move on.
• Forgive the source of offense, if it was a person. You’ve likely offended people as a fallen human.  God has forgiven your offense to Him.  Pass that forgiveness along.  Decide not to hold the offense against the offending party.
• Think in terms of activity. If it’s not worth doing something about, it’s not worth being offended about.  Think about what results confronting the offender would bring.  If there are good outcomes and it’s not wrong for you to go to the offender in peace to let them know (not to accuse them), you can think about talking to them about it.  Otherwise, my advice is to avoid it.  If you’re going to go to someone, wait long enough for your emotions to calm down before you try.
• See your offendedness through Kingdom-eyes. If you’re feeling offended for Jesus, let that slide–he did while he was on earth.  If you’re feeling offended for someone else, go to them and ask if they are offended.  (Sometimes, people are offended for others when the “others” aren’t!)  If the person causing the offense is a Christian, you have kingdom responsibilities to them.  If the person causing the offense is not a Christian, you have kingdom responsibilities to them.  Get on with them.
• Claim ownership of your offendness. It belongs to you.  Don’t immediately assume that everyone else wants to hear about it, or that it’s holy because it’s yours.  Once its yours, you need to decide if it’s a possession worth holding on to.  Most of the time, it’s not.  If you must share with someone, don’t try to get them offended with you to validate yours.  Seek wise people who can help you to see a pathway forward, either through forgiveness or action (or both).

In case of life, be offended less, and work for Christ’s kingdom.  You’ll make your load lighter and be more open to the work that God is calling you to.