"And blessed is he who does not take offense at Me" (Matthew 11:6). The word 'offense' means "a stumbling-block, impediment, to see in another what I disapprove of."
Jesus understood that he offended a lot of people--especially the religious crowd. He didn't fit their notion of God.
Who Jesus was, what he said, what he did, how he lived, who he associated with--offended their religious mantra.
Jesus offended their traditions, cozy rituals, God-in-a-box theology, manipulative-control over others, their love affair with money and power. The Offense exposed their hypocrisy, confronted their disobedience, and unraveled their neatly packaged lives.
We've adopted their habits. We try our best to remove the offense from Christianity. We put God back in a box. A highly sophisticated box. But a box nevertheless.
We practice a compatible, bendable Christianity without the possibility of an offense. We preach soft, sweet, self-empowering messages that pretend to represent Christ. We make Jesus reasonable, miracles rational, faith universal, the atonement ritual, sin a mistake, and the Godhead symbolic.
We've figured God out and recreated Christ. We've traded his offense for community, his narrow road for a six lane interstate, his one way for many ways, his moral integrity for moral compromise.
When we take away from Christianity the possibility of offense, when we remove God's righteous judgment on sin and unrepentant sinners, when we annul the necessity of repentance and the call to Christ-like holiness, when we promote what's left as a viable religion, we've not only deceived ourselves, we've deceived our world. We've become peddlers of echos signifying nothing.
Take away the Offense and we'd be more honest to lock the church doors, or better, sell the property and turn it into an amusement park.
No offense... no Christ.
No Christ...no God.
No God...no hope.
It's our call.
Jesus understood that he offended a lot of people--especially the religious crowd. He didn't fit their notion of God.
Who Jesus was, what he said, what he did, how he lived, who he associated with--offended their religious mantra.
Jesus offended their traditions, cozy rituals, God-in-a-box theology, manipulative-control over others, their love affair with money and power. The Offense exposed their hypocrisy, confronted their disobedience, and unraveled their neatly packaged lives.
We've adopted their habits. We try our best to remove the offense from Christianity. We put God back in a box. A highly sophisticated box. But a box nevertheless.
We practice a compatible, bendable Christianity without the possibility of an offense. We preach soft, sweet, self-empowering messages that pretend to represent Christ. We make Jesus reasonable, miracles rational, faith universal, the atonement ritual, sin a mistake, and the Godhead symbolic.
We've figured God out and recreated Christ. We've traded his offense for community, his narrow road for a six lane interstate, his one way for many ways, his moral integrity for moral compromise.
When we take away from Christianity the possibility of offense, when we remove God's righteous judgment on sin and unrepentant sinners, when we annul the necessity of repentance and the call to Christ-like holiness, when we promote what's left as a viable religion, we've not only deceived ourselves, we've deceived our world. We've become peddlers of echos signifying nothing.
Take away the Offense and we'd be more honest to lock the church doors, or better, sell the property and turn it into an amusement park.
No offense... no Christ.
No Christ...no God.
No God...no hope.
It's our call.
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