“You can have as much offense as you want, as often as you want it; all you have to do is take it.”

This is the phrase that recurred to me throughout my fitful sleep last night. The thought was connected with this simple phrase from scripture:

“And they took offense at Him…” Mark 6:3, Matthew 13:57.

What do you think of it?

I am impressed with the action of the the words: “took”, “offense”, “at”.

The Greek word translated “took offense at” is skandalizo. You can probably guess the lovely English word we derive from this! That’s right: scandal!

skandalizo is a verb. An action taken.

It seems to me that offense is a choice to be made, an action to be taken. Here in scripture, they did this AT Jesus.

I usually think of offense in passive terms. It’s something that is done to me. I am a recipient, a subject, a victim. Yet, even in our sports culture, offense is a very intentional, active, aggressive posture.

I think the Holy Spirit is speaking to me about my choices regarding offense. It’s something i can choose to take up or leave alone.

By the way, as i read through Mark, i see that Jesus provides people with ample opportunity to take offense at Him! In my opinion, it doesn’t look like He tries very hard AT ALL to avoid offense. In fact, seems to me, that He might even try to provoke it. Now why would He do that?

Again, what do you think?