I am writing tonight from the beautiful Tampa Bay area.
A brother offended is harder to win than a strong city, And contentions are like the bars of a castle. Proverbs 18:19 NKJ
In my personal time with God, I am reading through the New Testament and this morning came to this verse,
And then many will be offended, will betray one another, and will hate one another. Matthew 24:10 NKJV
other versions say, “Will turn away from the truth” while the NKJV says, “will be offended.”
This has me wondering,
Are more people leaving the truth because sound theology offends them?
Is our society becoming more easily offended?
Are offended people telling us they are offended as a way to manipulate us, and make us cater to their every whim?
I heard somebody say the other day, “John Doe has not been called me back. I need to find out if he is mad at me so I can apologize.” Seriously? He was ready to apologize regardless if he actually had anything to apologize for. Is that healthy? If someone is mad at us, the politically correct thing to do now is just automatically say you are sorry? Even if you did not do anything wrong or offensive? This has me concerned because I fear we are becoming a society where we assume the offended person is always right.
So if someone is offended because of the music in our church do we automatically apologize and change it? Same for every other issue? By some of the blog posts I have been reading about “Why people no longer go to church” that is kind of the idea I have been getting. I am not saying the church is always right, or there are not some valid points in these type blog posts that we need to carefully consider. That is why I read them.
A while back my parents came to Florida to visit. I took them to the Columbia restaurant, which is a very nice historic Tampa landmark. My mother complained she was cold and asked if they could turn the a/c down. Instead they brought her out a nice blanket and put it around her. She was satisfied and comfortable. The waiter took care of the issue without apologizing for the cold air and then making everyone else endure hotter temperatures, just because one person was “offended” by the cold.
Having worked in the restaurant business I know the “customer is always right.” However, you can’t run a business successfully just catering to the most offended customer. The waiter did his best to accommodate my mother, and my mother was a good sport and easy to get along with instead of acting offended when they did not jump up and change the air just for her.
Are we letting “offended” people manipulate theological as well are political correctness? How far should we go as a church to reaching out to “offended” people? How far should the church go in letting “offended” people manipulate how the church defines and accomplishes its mission?
You can study more proverbs here.
In Light of The Cross 
Hi William, nice thoughts. I can think of a justified offence as Christ became truly offended when the money changers defiled the church and he turned over their tables. So, I would think that in a church setting a person being offended would need for the offense to rise to a fairly high level of a problem for one to get too bent out of shape and offend the offender and cause real problems. It seems to me that people in USA are very easily offended, not just in theological matters, but also in many other areas of life. It’s like a sport and very time consuming (tweeting and instagram-ing) to continually voice being offended. If you watch, the truly successful people have the ability to brush off most offenses and move on in step with their own self image and ability to rise above small things. Likewise, the church should continue to be stable and not easily thwarted from its mission by manipulators. Of course, that’s easier said than done in today’s polarized society, sort of like how the whoopie-rosie offend and re-offend has gotten out of hand and resulted in Rosie leaving her job. Please keep up your good work helping people not be offended too easily by life’s circumstances and difficulties!