The
Merriam-Webster online dictionary defines offend thus: to cause to feel
vexation or resentment usually by violation of what is proper or fitting <she
was offended by their language>; to transgress the moral or divine law: <SIN
“if it be a sin to covet honor, I am the most offending soul alive” –William
Shakespeare.
Mention
in passing to someone that you are a Christian and chances are about 100:1 that
you will receive a negative response. That response will range from downright skepticism
or indifference and/or ridicule, right “across the board” to open hostility. This
reaction is somewhat surprising, considering that Western Civilization is supposedly
founded upon Judeo/Christian principles
Tell someone that you are a Buddhist, a
Hindu, a member of the Santa Monica Inner Light Oneness Fellowship, a Jedi Knight, or that you
worship gay fireflies and you likely will be met with open-handed tolerance,
acceptance and a wish not to offend…why is that?
Tell
your medical practitioner that your bunions have been healed by a combination
of crystals, poultices of ragwort, grape seed extract, ginseng and goji berries and you will be
likely to get a study grant, but tell your doctor that reason your broken ankle
healed in two weeks rather than the usual two months was because of prayer, and
the “laying on of hands” at church and he or she will probably recommend a good
psychiatrist…why is that?
Send
your children to a “Christian school”, or worse still, home-school them, and
you will be hounded by the authorities, possibly ruled ineligible for state
funding, or even vilified as a “bad” parent…why is that?
Mind you, nothing has changed. Over 200 years
ago, the French philosopher, François-Marie Arouet, known universally as Voltaire, wrote: “Religion is the chief cause of
all the sorrows of humanity. Everywhere it has only served to drive men to
evil, and plunge them in brutal miseries...it makes for history an immense
tableau of human follies.”
An influential 19th century American,
Benjamin Franklin Underwood, said this: “To many liberals, Christianity appears
an unmitigated evil; a superstition which although it had its origin in
innocent ignorance and credulity, has been the greatest obstacle to human
progress that mankind has had to encounter.”
The atheist Robert Ingersoll said that the
church had, for 1,000 years, “extinguished the torch of progress in the blood
of Christ.”
Jesus said… “Blessed are you when men shall hate you, and
when they shall cut you off, and when they shall reproach you and shall cast out your name as
evil, for the sake of the Son of Man.
Luke 6:22 MKJV
Blessed are you when men
shall revile you and persecute you, and shall say all kinds of evil against you
falsely, for My sake. Matthew 5:11
Paul called this message “the offense of the cross” (Galatians 5:11).
Again and again he warned that the true gospel of God’s grace and glory would
meet with great opposition from the “unsaved” world. “The preaching of the cross is foolishness” (1 Corinthians 1:18). But
the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; neither can
he know them, because they are
spiritually discerned. 1Corinthains 2:14 MKJV
Our Lord said, “Marvel not, my brethren, if the world hate you.” (1 John 3:13). He
also said, “They shall put you out of
the synagogues: yea, the time cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think
that he doeth God service.” (John
16:2). If what we preach is NOT offensive to the unsaved, then we are
preaching a different gospel!
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