The Rock of Offence

Then said he unto the disciples, It is impossible but that offences will come: but woe unto him, through whom they come! LUKE 17:1

If unity is God’s priority, Evans reasons, it must also be the enemy’s target. In The Key in My Hand he describes the devices Satan uses against believers: the roar of the lion that plays on our emotions, the fiery darts of lies aimed at our minds, and the hook of the angler cast into old wounds. But the device he writes about most, and preaches about most often, is offence. It is, he believes, the cause of more church splits, more departures of missionaries from the field and more pastors leaving the ministry than any other.

Offence is not sin

Evans begins with a distinction that surprises many readers. Offence and sin are not the same. Jesus Himself was a rock of offence, as both Paul and Peter say, and He was without sin.

And a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offence, even to them which stumble at the word, being disobedient. 1 PETER 2:8

The Pharisees were offended at Him, His own townspeople were offended at Him, and even His family took offence. Sometimes, Evans suggests, Jesus seems to have caused offence deliberately. At other times, as with the temple tax, He took care to avoid it. Being offended is not in itself sinful. What we do with offence is another matter.

He finds this in the story of Cain. God did not reject Cain’s offering because Cain had sinned; there is nothing in the text to say his gift was wicked. But Cain was angry and his countenance fell, and God warned him that sin was crouching at the door. The offence came first; the sin followed only when Cain refused to master it.

If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him. GENESIS 4:7

What offence costs

In The Key in My Hand and again in He Holds My Tomorrows, Evans traces five Gospel examples of people who were offended, and what it cost them. The hearer on stony ground receives the word with joy but is offended when trouble comes, and bears no fruit. The people of Nazareth are offended at the carpenter’s son, and He does few mighty works there. Judas is offended at the waste of costly ointment, and goes out to betray his Master, having lost all confidence in Him. Peter is offended on the night of the arrest and denies Christ before a servant girl, losing his testimony. And many disciples, offended at Jesus’ hard sayings about eating His flesh, go back and walk no more with Him.

From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him. JOHN 6:66

No fruit, no miracles, no confidence, no testimony, no fellowship: that, for Evans, is the harvest of offence nursed rather than dealt with.

Offended at Jesus

Two of his examples are especially personal. John the Baptist, in prison, waited for the cousin he had proclaimed as the Lamb of God to come and set him free. Jesus did not come. John sent to ask whether He was really the Coming One, and Jesus answered with a list of His works and a gentle warning.

And blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended in me. MATTHEW 11:6

The second is Mary of Bethany. When Lazarus died, Martha went out to meet Jesus, but Mary stayed in the house. When she finally came, she said the same words as her sister, but Jesus answered her differently; He wept. Evans suggests that Mary had taken offence because He had not come in time, and that Jesus wept, not for Lazarus, whom He was about to raise, but because His friend was offended at Him.

This is an arresting reading, and it has helped many to see their own hurt at God’s timing in a new light. It should be said plainly, though, that it goes beyond what the text states. John tells us that Jesus wept when He saw Mary and the mourners weeping, and many readers understand His tears as compassion and grief at the ravages of death. Evans’s interpretation is best held as a possible application rather than as the meaning of the passage.

Why God allows it

Why does God allow offences to come? Evans answers that they reveal to us something about ourselves. John the Baptist had said that Christ must increase and he must decrease, but he still needed to learn that the timetable was God’s and not his. Believers are easily tempted to try to steer God into doing things their way, and to be offended when He will not. Offences are one of the ways God tests and refines us, exposing pride, false expectations and a desire for prominence.

He lists common causes: personality clashes, unspoken and unmet expectations, misunderstandings, envy of others’ gifts, wounded pride and simple rebellion.

What to do with it

Evans’s counsel, in The Key in My Hand, is simple and practical, and he frames it as a sequence. First, take responsibility for the offence: it is yours, for the other person may not have sinned at all; you are the one who picked it up. Next, learn from it: ask what God is showing you about yourself. Then let it go: choose to lay it down, pray about it, bless the one who offended you, and ask the Spirit for grace if it feels too heavy. Last, leave it behind: do not let it take up residence in your heart. And finally, take care not to be the cause of offence to others.

Looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled. HEBREWS 12:15

He adds a point from Matthew 18 that many find liberating. Jesus tells us to go to a brother who has sinned against us. He does not tell us to go to everyone by whom we have been offended. Many conflicts would be avoided if believers simply laid down their offences instead of confronting others over them, and many more if those who wished to leave a church did so graciously, telling their pastor rather than simply drifting away.

Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath: neither give place to the devil. EPHESIANS 4:26–27

Anger and hurt are feelings, and feelings are not in themselves sinful. But unresolved, they give the devil a foothold. Evans’s counsel is to deal with them the same day.

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. Ask the Lord to show you any offence you are carrying, against a person, a church or even Him. Write it down.

2. Take that offence through Evans’s sequence: take responsibility for it, learn from it, let it go and leave it behind. Do not skip the learning.

3. Is there a place where you have been offended at God’s timing? Bring it honestly to Him, as Mary eventually came to Jesus.

4. Distinguish, in one current conflict, between being offended and being sinned against. If you have been sinned against, consider going privately, as Matthew 18:15 directs.

5. Ask whether you are causing offence to someone. If so, go and put it right.

A PRAYER

Lord Jesus, You were a rock of offence to many, and I too have stumbled when You did not act as I expected. Forgive me.

Show me the offences I have picked up and carried. Give me grace to take responsibility for them, to learn from them, to lay them down and to leave them with You.

Guard my heart from bitterness, and do not let the sun go down on my anger.

Blessed is the one who is not offended in You. Make me such a one. Amen.