It’s Okay to Offend

It’s Okay to Offend
By: Brittany Shields

It feels like we should all be walking around with name tags that say ‘Hello, I am: Offended.’

Social media gives us a million different platforms to be offended on and a TV to tell us when and how the biggest offenders are being punished.

If you look outside your window right now, you’ll see all the eggshells we’re all tip-toeing around, trying not to drop a word that will be scrutinized and used to judge our entire character and philosophy on life. A word that, if dropped, inevitably crushes one of those shells causing an immediate nuclear reaction. Because that’s how powerful our words are.

In today’s climate, we are an offendable people. (At least in America, I don’t know about other parts of the world.)

And we’ve been conditioned to think that the cardinal sin is to offend. If we get through a day without making anyone mad or sad or annoyed, we’ve achieved something noble.

But that’s not true and it’s not noble. It’s not even biblical!

What if I told you it’s biblical to offend?

When we live to not offend, we stop telling the truth. About a lot of things, but most importantly— about the gospel.

The gospel is an offensive message. The world doesn’t want it.

It’s offensive because it forces us to tell the truth about our sin. The truth that our sin is actually serious. Our sin makes us enemies of God. The truth that sometimes we like our sin, even if we know it’s wrong. We want to excuse our sin, make light of our sin— ‘It’s not a big deal’— so we can keep it. The truth that sin destroys people and relationships. Sin leads to death. (Rm 6:23)

The gospel is offensive because it’s both exclusive and inclusive. God doesn’t save everyone, and he saves some we don’t want him to. The 'requirements’ for salvation don’t make sense to us who sometimes believe in karma (or at least act like we do) even though we’d never admit it.

It’s offensive because the gospel calls us to die to ourselves, die to our fleshly desires, take up our cross and follow him. It turns out even if our sins feel innate and even if our sins feel like our identity, we are called to die to them and be rid of them. What we thought defined us actually binds us.

And we don’t like to be wrong. Especially when so much of our life has been built on our sins.

But the gospel is about telling the truth. I think we’ve compromised the Truth in the spirit of not offending. And I think that’s wrong.

If we tell the truth, we will offend. And that’s okay.

If you read this and come away planning to tell your mom you hate her cooking, your wife that you don’t like her hairstyle, and your friend that his Covid vaccine is a conspiracy, you’ve missed the message. Telling the truth is not a directive to unabashedly share all your feelings and opinions with the world.

If you read this post and you come away ready to shout from your rooftop about all the people going to hell, you’ve missed the message. Jesus talked about hell more than anyone else- we shouldn’t avoid it. It’s real and it matters. But we should tell the truth with wisdom and love and out of a genuine desire to see someone be saved, not out of vindication for being ‘right’ or a way to shutdown the people who disagree with us.

Scripture tells us of those opposed to the gospel:

“For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” (1 Cor. 1:18)

“And you will be hated by all for my name's sake. But the one who endures to the end will be saved.” (Matt. 10:22)

“So the honor is for you who believe, but for those who do not believe, ‘The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone,’ and ‘A stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense.’” (1 Peter 2:7)

Look at what happened to Jesus when he told the truth.

In Luke 4 he stands in church and reads a scroll from Isaiah— prophesies about himself— and says, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” And what did the people do? They were “filled with wrath” and tried to push him off a cliff. That’s big-time offended! Cancel culture in Jesus’ day was straight-up stone-throwing and murder.

The continued offense by Jesus drove his own people to turn him over to endure the worst form of death invented at the time. And that was Jesus in the flesh proclaiming truth.

We need to tell the truth, even if it offends. And not just part of the truth. The whole truth.

Satan thrives on half-truths. Look at his first act recorded in Scripture in Genesis when he challenges Eve- ‘Did God really say?’ He twists God’s words. A half-truth is a corruption of truth. It’s a lie.

We are most susceptible to half-truths because they sound right and they usually feel better to us. ‘If we leave off the part that hurts or offends we’re still ‘technically’ telling the truth. Just with less feelings hurt!’ Who wins here?

“You are enough.”
”Follow your heart.”
”God just wants you to be happy.”
”God will never give you more than you can handle.”
”Let go and let God.”
”Jesus loves me just the way I am.”

I could go on. Even more, a lot of half-truths aren’t kitschy one sentence phrases but entire ideologies. Beliefs that, if held, defy and denigrate the character of God. Unfortunately, the church is not immune from them, whether intentional or not.

Therefore, as believers, we have a responsibility to know what is True. To know how to know what is true. A Christian label does not indicate truth. Sincerity does not denote truth. The amount of voices saying something is not a qualifier for truth.

The postmodern culture claims either we cannot know truth or there is no absolute truth. While many good books have been written about this that I would encourage you to read (listed below) the main point here is that there IS truth and we CAN know it.

God has graciously equipped us to fight these battles with the sword of truth (Eph 6:17). His Word. We know what is true, not based on our feelings, by the loudest or majority voice, by whatever our pastor says, by the most retweeted quote. No. We know truth because we hold up every argument and every statement up to the Bible and we see what the unchanging Creator God says about it.

There are a lot of cultural beliefs about our bodies— how we view them, how we use them— that do not align with Scripture. But because Satan has cleverly convinced people to attach these wrong beliefs to feelings of ‘core identity’ with lying adjectives like ‘authentic’ and ‘true’ we now feel unable to speak against them lest we speak against who people are. Or rather, who people think or are told that they are.

But that is not loving.

When we tell the truth, we will offend, and that’s okay, because it’s loving and right to tell the truth.

“For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes” (Rm 1:16)

“We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ…” (2 Cor 10:5)

Notice this verse says we destroy arguments, not people. Our goal in telling the truth is not to bring people down, it’s to correct false doctrine and eliminate wrong arguments.

“So then, brothers, stand firm and hold to the traditions that you were taught by us, either by our spoken word or by our letter.” (2 Thess 2:15)

“These are the things which you should do: speak the truth to one another; judge with truth and judgment for peace in your gates.” (Zech. 8:16)

“Truthful lips will be established forever,
But a lying tongue is only for a moment.” (Prov 12:19)

“If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth…” (1 Jn 1:6)

The greatest commandments are to love God and love others. It is not ‘Do not offend.’ Sometimes love doesn’t feel like love.

I love my kids more than words can describe. But I offend them every day.

My dinners offend them. My bedtime rules offend them. When I push them away from something sharp or hot, they are hurt by me. My outdoor boundary rules offend them.

But in actuality my vegetables or my boundaries or my rules ARE my love for them. God has set boundaries for us in love. To help people into those boundaries is to love them. The shepherd brings the sheep into the fold, away from wolves intending to destroy.

When we tell the gospel truth, we are calling them into life and freedom under the protection of the Good Shepherd. We shouldn’t be afraid to do that.

Who wins when we don’t tell the truth?

I am saying all of this to myself as much as I am exhorting you, because I need to hear it. I don’t necessarily avoid confrontation, but I do care what people think about me. I want to be liked and respected. I want people to see me as kind. I often fear if I stumble in my words that I will misrepresent Christ and turn people from him. And these things feed into my timidity in sharing the gospel.

I am not the poster child for sharing the gospel by any stretch of the imagination.

My prayer for you and for me is that we would drench ourselves in Scripture, pray regularly, and that by being filled with Truth and the Spirit it would result in the outpouring of boldly proclaiming that truth in our lives.

We are called to protect and uphold the Truth in our churches. To root out any falsehoods or half-truths that are paraded as truth.

We are also called to proclaim the Truth outside our churches. Yes, to a world that doesn’t want it. A world that tells us our words are violence or hateful. A world that is offended by it.

But that doesn’t mean we stop sharing it. God’s Word is powerful. It transforms. It brings life. It shows love.

And it is okay to offend when we tell the world the Truth.

More resources on ‘What is Truth?’ or ‘Can We Know Truth?’:

The Truth Project YouTube Videos

Taking God At His Word by Kevin DeYoung

Surviving Religion 101 by Michael J. Kruger

Another Gospel? by Alisa Childers

Also other good relevant books:

Live Your Truth (And Other Lies) by Alisa Childers

Five Lies of Our Anti-Christian Age by Rosaria Butterfield (I’m currently reading this)

Do Not Be True to Yourself by Kevin DeYoung

Mama Bear Apologetics by Hillary Morgan Ferrer