Month: September 2025

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Thoughts on Offense

It seems like everyone is offended these days. Whether social media, talk shows, news programs or the print media, the self-appointed politically correct police are always on the lookout for someone to vilify over a slip of the tongue, or worse yet, a statement they disagree with.

So what does the Bible have to say about “offense”?

In John 6, Jesus is telling His followers a solemn truth:

“I am the living bread come down out of Heaven. If a man eats this bread, he shall live for ever. Moreover the bread which I will give is my flesh given for the life of the world.” (John 6:51 WNT)

How did the crowds react?

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Fixin’ to get plowed

Read this AM:

Now hear this, you heads of the house of Jacob And rulers of the house of Israel, Who despise justice and twist everything that is straight,  who build Zion with bloodshed, and Jerusalem with malice.  Her leaders pronounce judgment for a bribe, her priests teach for pay, and her prophets divine for money. Yet they lean on the LORD, saying, “Is the LORD not in our midst? Catastrophe will not come upon us.”  Therefore on account of you, Zion will be plowed like a field, Jerusalem will become a heap of ruins, and the mountain of the temple will become high places of a forest. (Micah 3:9-12)

Question:

If twisting truth and taking pay for God’s word and ministry is a sin for Jacob (Israel), is it not also a sin for Christianity?

Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those with skin diseases, drive out demons. You have received free of charge; give free of charge. (Mat 10:8 HCSB)

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What is the assembling of the brethren?

If ever you hear the Father’s call to come out of man’s institutional church to follow Christ alone, you’ll no doubt be accused of “forsaking the assembly of the brethren”. That’s found in Hebrews 10:25.

It reads: Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the custom is with some; but encouraging one another … (Hebrews 10:25 Darby)

Ministers and church-goers assert that the Sunday morning worship service is the very “assembling” Paul wrote about. That’s preposterous of course, because when Paul wrote Hebrews, there was no such thing as a Sunday morning worship service. Rather, at the time believers assembled together in and by Christ and lived in community with one another.

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Caught up with Jesus, yet?

Hal Lindsay’s book The Late Great Planet Earth was first published in 1970 the same year I received Jesus as Lord. It was about 10 years later I finally read the book whereupon I was gripped by tribulation-mania and the possibility of being caught up at any moment in the rapture with Jesus. How well I remember deliberating whether to renew my subscription to the Wittenburg Door Magazine for 1 or 2 years. If the rapture were imminent, renewing for 2 years would be a waste of money. Ever trying to be a good steward, I renewed for just 1 year. Thanks Hal!

It’s a silly story, but the fact is Hal Lindsey’s book and others like it, have sewn much yeast into the body of Christ. Christians fixated on the impending rise of the antichrist, the tribulation and the rapture have been rendered ineffective in the present by constantly fixing their eyes on a future escape from reality. Instead of living and rejoicing in our Savior who is here even NOW and who said “the kingdom of God is WITHIN you” (Luke 17:21), they await a future encounter with Jesus.

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