“Then He said to the disciples, “It is impossible that no offenses should come, but woe to him through whom they do come! It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were thrown into the sea, than that he should offend one of these little ones. Take heed to yourselves. If your brother sins against you, rebuke him; and if he repents, forgive him. And if he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times in a day returns to you, saying, ‘I repent,’ you shall forgive him.”
Every so often, everyone has an opportunity to get offended. Jesus said, “…It is impossible but that offenses will come...” (Luke 17:1). The word “impossible” is the word “anendektos”, meaning something that is impossible, inadmissible, unallowable, or unthinkable. One scholar notes that it could be translated, “It is simply unthinkable that you would allow yourself to dream that you could live this life without an opportunity to become offended…
But what is an offense? The word “offense” comes from the Greek word “skandalon”, from which we get the word scandal. This is a powerful picture that you must understand! The word skandalon originally described the small piece of wood that was used to keep the door of an animal trap propped open. A piece of food was placed inside the trap to lure the animal inside. When the animal entered the trap and accidentally bumped the skandalon, or the small piece of wood, the skandalon collapsed, causing the trap door to slam shut and the animal to be caught inside with no way to escape.
However, the New Testament also uses the word skandalon to refer to a stone or an obstacle that caused one to trip, to stumble, to lose his footing, to waver, to falter, and to fall down. In 1 Peter 2:8, the word skandalon is used to describe how unbelievers react to the Gospel when they don’t want to hear it or believe it. Peter said, “And a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense, even to them which stumble at the word….” Rather than accept the message and be saved, these people stumble when they hear the truth, tripping over the message that could set them free.
But in Luke 17:1, Jesus used the word skandalon to warn us about events that happen in life with the potential to trip us up. Sometimes Satan baits us with something, looking to draw us into a trap in which he knows we’ll become offended. When we bump into a moment of offense, the trap slams down shut, and like an animal that is trapped in a cage and can’t get out, we suddenly find ourselves caught in a miserable situation, trapped in detrimental and negative emotions!
This means Luke 17:1 could be translated:
“It is simply unthinkable that you would allow yourself to dream that you could live this life without an opportunity to be lured into a situation that could potentially snare you in the feelings of offense.”
If this is really what Jesus meant, we need to know the nature of the bait Satan uses to get to us. What is the “offense” the devil uses to trap most people?
An offense usually occurs when you see, hear, or experience a behavior that is so different from what you expected that it causes you to falter, totter, and wobble in your soul. In fact, you are so stunned by what you have observed or by a failed expectation that you lose your footing emotionally. Before you know it, you are dumbfounded and flabbergasted about something. Then your shock turns into disbelief; your disbelief into disappointment; and your disappointment into offense.
We’ve all experienced this kind of disappointment at some point in our lives. According to Jesus’ words in Luke 17:1, the opportunity to be offended comes to every one of us. As long as we live and breathe, we must combat this nuisance and refuse to allow it to have a place in our hearts and minds. Even worse, we’ve all been the source of offense at some point or another. It may not have been intentional on our part; in fact, we may not have even known we offended anyone until the person later came and informed us of what we did.
In light of all this, please consider these questions:
- Have you ever offended someone?
- When you found out about the cause of offense, were you shocked?
- When the news finally reached you that you had offended that person, were you surprised to hear how he or she perceived what you did or said?
The best thing is to avoid being a source of offense to anyone. At the same time, do not be too shocked if you find out that someone, somewhere, has gotten offended. Because people come from different backgrounds, wake up in bad moods, have a bad day at work, don’t physically feel well, and go through a whole host of other negative experiences in their lives, their interpretation of our actions and words may be very different from our original intention.
We can be almost 99-percent sure that someone along the way will misunderstand what we do or misinterpret something we say. Therefore, as Christians, we must: 1) do everything in our power to communicate correct messages to one another; and 2) do everything in our power to bring healing and restoration whenever misunderstanding and offense occurs between ourselves and someone else.
If you discover that you have been a source of offense to someone else, take the mature path and go ask that person to forgive you. And don’t get defensive, for that will only make the problem worse. It may even lead to a deeper conflict, so just say you are sorry and move on!
Do everything you can to bury that offense and destroy what the devil is trying to do between you. Make it your personal aim to help that other person overcome what he thinks you did or said. Sometimes it is more important to help the other person attain a position of peace than it is to prove who is right or wrong!