Walk With Me
Christian discussion of biblical topics, and a dose of daily application. Yes the Bible is still relevant, and we find out more and more each day how relevant it has always been.
Walk With Me
Why Are Christians so Offensive?
Why is Christianity frequently seen as offensive? Today on Walk With Me, we unravel this complex question by contrasting genuine Christianity with mere superficial religiosity, drawing inspiration from Revelation 2. We uncover how the pursuit of truth in real Christianity can often be unsettling but is essential for our spiritual development. Additionally, 2 Corinthians 6:3 guides our exploration of the biblical concept of offense, helping us understand it as causing someone to stumble. This nuanced look allows us to better grasp the intentions behind Christian teachings and their profound impact.
We'll also discuss the significant difference between truly living for God and just going through the motions of church life. Reflecting on 2 Corinthians 6, we delve into what it means to be "unequally yoked" and the importance of separating ourselves spiritually from sinful behaviors. Highlighting the necessity of maintaining a Christ-like demeanor and avoiding hypocrisy, we emphasize the ongoing relevance of embodying God's teachings in daily life. We conclude with a heartfelt message of gratitude for your unwavering support and a call to continue spreading God's love in your own lives.
Hello everybody, welcome to today's episode of Walk With Me. I'm your host, jj, and it's so good to have each and every one of you here with me. It's so good to be up and about this morning, and if my voice sounds a little different, it's because I had this thing that some humans call sleep, and it's such a great thing to have. But it's also a great thing to have each and every one of you here at this podcast. You guys can listen to any other podcast if you're choosing to listen to this one, and I am so, so thankful for each and every one of you. Uh, if you. Oh, also, thank you for our new subscribers on youtube. Thank you so much for those who are listening and sharing those videos. Thank you for the listeners on iHeartRadio and Apple Podcasts. We are on so many platforms now I have no clue about the amount of platforms, but thank you all so much. Thank you for those, even outside of the United States, who are listening. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank God for each and every one of you, and thank God for bringing you here. It's got nothing to do with me. It's about the Bible and it's about him, the Lord, jesus Christ. Thank you all so much. Get a couple housekeeping things out of the way. Thank you for our sponsors. Drew Bars, the lyricist with the intro and outro music, I'm pretty sure he's on Spotify and other places you can download music and exquisite creations with the tumblers and other swag things of that nature. She is doing well. Thank you for those who are asking. She is doing well. She will be getting the website back up and running, but she is doing well. God is healing her as we speak. Thank you all so much. If you have any questions or anything or comments about the episode today, any episode you're talking about, or any questions at all, make sure you send that feedback or those questions to walkwithmebiblestudy at gmailcom. Walkwithmebiblestudy at gmailcom or if you are on a platform that supports it, like YouTube or Rumble, you can go ahead and comment down at the bottom. I will admit I've been very busy. I haven't been able to get to some of the comments, but I will, trust me, I will at some point do that. Thank you all very much. Thank you all very much for your interactions.
Speaker 1:As a matter of fact, one of today's episodes is actually going to be born out of a question that was sent to me, and so we've come to a point in our life where being offended is actually a thing. And the question came at me in sort of an antagonistic way and I determined this as I was having the conversation with the person, that this was a sort of an antagonistic question. But, however, it still can work out for the glory of God. And what was that question? Why is Christianity so offensive? Why is Christianity so offensive? Well, I started to think about that, and it wasn't that Christianity was being offensive, it was that Christianity was telling the truth, and by that I mean real Christianity. We're not talking about churchianity or religiosity. Religiosity, and that is to say that inside what we call the Christian, so-called faith umbrella, there are and I hate to say it to you because it sort of causes a division but there are true Christians and then people who are saying they're Christians and they're not. Revelation talks about it. Revelation 2 talks about it, where you've tried to find them to be Christians or said they were Christians and you found them to be liars. This is not something that JJ made up, but we're not going to be in Revelation today. We're going to be in 2 Corinthians, chapter 6. And please understand, christianity is not meant to be offensive, it's not.
Speaker 1:And I started to wonder about what was this meaning of the word offense? And I'll read the verse, because this is where the person was coming at me, kind of sideways, because we're not supposed to speak against certain things. Please understand y'all. The Bible is still relevant today. It is still relevant and we should still be living by it. So this is the verse that God gave me 2 Corinthians, 6 and 3.
Speaker 1:Giving no offense in anything, that the ministry not be blamed. And the question really was why is it that Christianity or Christians, real Christians say things that are offensive to other people and causes them to be lost? So that question in itself is actually framed incorrectly, incorrectly. And we have to assume that when you're talking about when people are saying things that are offensive, we're assuming that they have to come from the truth, because if they're coming from a lie, then the ministry can't be blamed. The ministry can't be blamed because God's ministry is not going to tell you a lie, right? So once you consider the fact and assume the fact and establish the fact that if the ministry is saying something that is truthful and biblical and correct, then you have to kind of figure out what the word offense means.
Speaker 1:So I went and I picked up my great lexicon. It's a book called A Critical Lexiconic. According to the English and Greek New Testament, it's a boring looking book. It is the most boring looking book that you will ever see in your entire life. However, it has almost every word that you have in the Bible in there, and or every term, and it will define the term for you.
Speaker 1:So I started looking at the word offense. Now, this offense is spelled with the letter C, not the letter S. That's the first thing to know. What does that mean? This is a different sort of this is a different meaning. So what does that word mean? Basically? And it's like four or five different. Four or five different definitions, like four or five different definitions, which basically means causing someone to stumble. And this is where the question came from. Why would you do that? Why would you offend somebody and cause them to be lost? The truth cannot make you stumble. And if you read the entire chapter this is why we have this rule on this podcast to read a verse or two above, a verse or two below, preferably the whole chapter.
Speaker 1:Now let's go ahead and practice that Now we're talking about 2 Corinthians, 6 and 3. So let's read two verses up and two verses down. It starts off with we, then as workers, together with him, and by him they mean by with Jesus Christ. He sees you, that you also, you receive the great, not the grace of God in vain. So, in other words, we're talking about, right off the bat, not, um, not using the grace of God, or saying, uh, that having the grace of God is in vain and not doing anything with it. Or he says, reading along now I have heard the end of time accepted and in the day of salvation I have security. Behold, now is the accepted time. Behold, now is the day of salvation. Now is the accepted time. Behold, now is the day of salvation. So again, now we're talking about being ministers each one of us, you, me, anybody and as relaying the grace of God, because, hey, we're all grace of God.
Speaker 1:And then it talks about giving no offense to anything. Remember, word of offense has nothing to do with telling someone the truth. It has to do with allowing our flesh to dictate the situation. In other words, if I walk up to you and I say, oh, my God, you are fat, you are overweight, you are going to die of horrible disease. Is that expressing this idea that you need to get healthier? Or if I walk up to you and say hey, listen, you know you might want to push back a little bit. Hey, tell you what, why don't you go to the gym with me and maybe you'll feel better? You're basically saying the same thing. You're wording it a little bit differently and you're still telling the truth, but you're wording it a little bit differently.
Speaker 1:Now there are some truths that you just can't get around, such as if you don't have the Holy Ghost, you're not going to heaven, and or if you are a sinner, you are not going to heaven. I know we have this sort of doctrine that are floating around in some churchianity folks that you can sin a little bit every day and everything's cool. The bible speaks against this and we'll talk more about that as we go down through the chapter six here. But the word offense is not about always having to sugarcoat your word. It's about what you are saying and what your words do. It doesn't matter how you are perceived. Is that making any sense? Well, let's make it a little bit clearer.
Speaker 1:I can be offended by anything that you have to say. But if you set out to cause me offense, if it's in your mind and if it's in your will to cause me offense, if it's in your mind and if it's in your will to Cause me to be offended, that's where you're wrong. You can tell me the sweetest day. Listen. The Bible says Except a man be born of the water and the spirit, he cannot enter the theme of heaven. And I can walk away offended Because I choose to. At the end of the day, I choose either way. But you make it easier for me to do that if you say you just as lost as hitler or um, I'm trying to figure out a way how to say it. Um, oh, you, so stupid. You should know. You should be able to read the Bible for yourself and you know, like you heard the difference here. I actually put an insult in front of it because you should know better. A lot of people just don't know because a lot of people just haven't been taught.
Speaker 1:When I first got the Holy Ghost back in 1990, or 94, 94 this, oh wait, I'm kind of getting ahead of myself when I got the Holy Ghost back in 1994, it wasn't because some preacher beat me over the head and said you're a stupid idiot and you're lost. He did say. He did say some things that made me mad, but it made me mad because I was being convicted of the things I was doing and finding out that the Bible was completely against it. There's a completely different mindset and understanding that when you are lost and you've accepted a few things and some sin has become ingrained in your life, you can either choose once you receive the truth of God and the truth of what you are doing and how the Bible views it, how God views it, you can either choose to accept it or you can make the change.
Speaker 1:And going on down in verse 4, it sort of talks about it but in all things, approving ourselves as ministers of God in much patience. There we are in patience and affliction. Now, just because you talk to somebody about God the first time doesn't mean they're going. There we are In patience and affliction. Now, just because you talk to somebody about God the first time doesn't mean they're going to suddenly become a member. You have to talk to them for a while Because there's a lot of things that the world has built up, the devil has built up sort of defenses and you have to be patient with people In affliction when you're going through something.
Speaker 1:People are watching you, people are watching me and, as far as how I handle things, if I go off and I call you everything but a child of God and I'm not just saying like, using curse words, we're not just talking about that I call you everything but a child of God and 12 seconds later I'm a minister, how does that make you feel? How does that edify your walk with God? Maybe it doesn't. I'm telling you. The fact that it doesn't actually turns people off. This is what offense is. It's not about someone choosing to be offended at the truth thing that you say. It's about being a stumbling block keeping them away from the word of God. That's what some of these verses in this concordance is basically telling.
Speaker 1:Now, even if you're going on in necessities, when you are needing something, are you still praising God for it? Are you still having? Are you still cheerful when you're in distress? Are you a completely different person when the sun is shining than when it's raining? When you get beaten down by the world, how are you handling, how is your Holy Ghost handling this trial? And we're talking about Paul here. Paul was in prison, paul was beaten. Everything that could happen to Paul happened to Paul, and he's sitting there talking now to the Corinthian church.
Speaker 1:By the way and let's be realistic here the Corinthian church is one of the most worldliest churches that they had in the New Testament, because half of the people thought they were too smart to be Christian. So we're talking about now trying to explain what, exactly. What are the qualities of a minister and also what are the qualities of a Christian? Let me explain. Sometimes we kind of put minister, especially in church theology Right, church theology and religious theology, and I'm we'll get that word right, I made it up, I'm going to get it right, but let's just stay right now with church, churchianity, stay with churchianity for now. So, churchianity we sort of put our, our ministers, on a higher plane, as if they're more saved than the regular people in the pew. Ministers on a higher plane, as if they're more saved than us, than the regular people in the pew, when in reality, ministers, we are just workers, we are just worker beings. We are, we're not special, we're not just because God called us to do something. I mean, don't get me wrong, we're thankful for the calling and some of us, like yours truly, struggle with the calling for a long time before actually accepting it because of all the things in our hearts my heart and you know, included that Made me feel like I wasn't good enough to perform the calling. But sometimes in churchianity we elevate people up to an entirely different platform than the person on the field, when all of us have to stand before the same God and all of us have to be judged out of the same book. And, yes, we will be judged. So it makes sense now if I would rather be judged while I have an opportunity to change it than when I don't have an opportunity to change it, and that's for a different podcast or a different episode.
Speaker 1:We'll talk about this. So we're talking about now. How are you as a person, as a person who is living for God, worshiping God, praising God? How are you handling these adversities that come to you? Are you an offensive person? When you're going through a trial, does everybody seem to not be around you because you're such an evil, nasty person all of a sudden, but on Sunday morning you're a hallelujah, thank you, jesus, praise God. But Monday through Saturday, because of your financial situation, no one can stand to be around you. Because of this temptation that you're dealing with, no one can stand to be around. Because of this temptation that you're dealing with, no one can stand to be around. These things not ought to be.
Speaker 1:And I'm going to jump down a little bit and wrap it all up, because verse 14 sort of starts to talk about why this is the case, when he starts talking about be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers. Now I'm going to splice that and take this out of context for the next part of the book, for what fellowship has righteousness with unrighteousness? Now let's go back up to what we're talking about in verse 4 and 5 and 6. If you are an unrighteous person, these things will cause you to be exposed. These things will cause you to behave just like the world that you're supposed to have come out of. And yes, it will be the last chapter, last verses, couple verses of this chapter.
Speaker 1:You know, just to wrap everything up, are you really living for God or are you living for church? It's something for you to ask yourself. Are you giving no offense to anything? In other words, you know, just because you happen to be hungry that day, you're a minister and then you walk into the fridge at your job and then you take somebody's sandwich, you say, well, god bless me.
Speaker 1:That's an offense, because that's a breaking of the law. That's causing somebody to say, oh, I thought he was a minister. That's what the offense is. It's not because you said, hey, fornication is a sin and people who sin are going to hell. You can be offended of that. That's the truth, and that's not a truth that you created or I created. That's not a situation that you created or I created. But if I went into that refrigerator and stole your sandwich, I created that situation, giving the offense I gave you I caused you to question my walk with God, or I just really just angered you. I caused you to question my walk with God, or I just really just angered you and now you just turned off. So you, as a Christian, as a minister, you will not have an offense-free life. That's just how it is. People will be offended at you because we've taken that word and we've personalized it instead of making it general, as the way it was supposed to be.
Speaker 1:Offense is also something that transgresses a law A traffic offense, a statutorial offense. You are offending the word of God, you are offending the Holy Spirit. You are transgressing a law, not someone hurting your feelings. I'm not sure when we changed it to that, but this is what that word means in this context. Now, I promised you we were going to read the last verse here. Well, actually, verse 17.
Speaker 1:And we're going to talk more about 2 Corinthians 6. It's a very impactful chapter. It's important to understand what we are trying to accomplish here. Wherefore, come out from among them and be ye separate. Saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean things, and I will receive you Now, be a father unto you and you shall be my sons and daughters. Saith the Lord Almighty. Now let's stop right there At the end of the chapter. We will stop right there, though, by touching the unclean things. Well, let's go back, come out from among them.
Speaker 1:Being separate. It's not saying go live in a commune. This is a spiritual separation from the things of the world. This is not to say you can't have a house. This isn't saying you can't wear clothes. This is not saying you can't have modern comforts. I'm not sure where we get this in churchianity. This is not to say that you are better than anyone out there.
Speaker 1:You are the same church person or anyone listening to this podcast. You are just. You are the same church person or anyone listening to this podcast. You are the same as someone who is still struggling with the practices. The only difference between you and that person is that God has delivered you from that. You are the same as the womanizer. The only thing different is that God has delivered you from that and you don't do that anymore. You are the same person that God delivered from a kleptomania. The same person that God delivered from depression. The same person that God delivered from. You can fill in the blank whatever it is God delivered you from, and you know that better than I do. That does not make you better than the person who is still dealing with you. The only thing is that you found the door first. God guided you to that door first.
Speaker 1:So this come from out among them, be ye, separate does not mean that you are somehow better than them. It only means that it doesn't make sense, when you come out of the thing, to still be engaged in it. You come out of the world. Don't be engaged with the world. Don't be engaged with things the world deals with. That is against the word of God you come out from.
Speaker 1:God delivered you from fornication. Don't go back and do it. Be separate from it. God delivered you from drug abuse. Don't go to the places where they sell drugs. Don't worry, that person you want to reach, that person that God is directing you to reach. You'll find that person somewhere else. God will guide that person to you in another place. It doesn't make sense for you to still be engaged in the same things that you're saying now.
Speaker 1:God delivered you. God delivered you from habitual stealing. Don't go back and do it again. Be separate from it. Come out from among them. Be separate and touch not. Come out from among them, be separate and touch not the unclean things. And now by that unclean thing it doesn't mean don't touch pork I'm not sure we got that either but don't touch pork. That's not what they're saying.
Speaker 1:By touch not the unclean thing, you know that that thing that you want to do or that thing that you used to do was a sin. Say it that way that thing that you used to do was a sin. Don't touch it, don't deal with it. Just like you know, just like Eve back in the Garden of Eden Don't look at it, don't touch it. You will die. And you will not die. You know, if you pick up a porno magazine You're not going to fall down and die. I don't know. I mean, god is God. I can't determine that. But that doesn't mean every time you do it there's a little bit of spiritual death. But if you touch not this thing, god said I will receive you.
Speaker 1:Whatever that unclean thing is, any unclean, anything that's sinful you're supposed to stay away from, and God will guide you as far as you. And there's no manual there's not really a manual to all the things you touch. The Bible is very extensive in what the things you're supposed to touch. The Bible is very intensive in what it is you're supposed to avoid. But there may be things that God tells you not to touch because it can lead you to sin. And Paul talks about it being things being lawful but not expedient. That means to say, sure, you can go to a liquor store and buy orange juice, but it's not expedient and I hope I'm making myself clear here, because you can just go to Walmart and buy orange juice. So just come out among them and be separate and I will be a father unto you, son to daughter. We're going to stay in this. 2 Corinthians, chapter 16, chapter 6. 2 Corinthians, chapter 6, for quite a while.
Speaker 1:Thank you all for the questions. Thank you all for the comments. Thank Thank you all for the comments. Thank you all so much. Thank you all. We're going to wrap it up with a day. Love you all.
Speaker 1:I just wish you did not talk about it, and it's more than just talking about it. Don't just talk about it. You, fellow walkers, don't just talk about it. Be about it, live it. You, fellow walkers, don't just talk about, be about live it. Live it because we can still apply these things, even though and this is how you know the word of god's true because you can apply these things now and you don't have to piecemeal. You can apply them all today as you are right, all right and uh, so much to talk about. I can't believe we're up like 140 now. I think I'm not. I'm not sure, I don't even keep track, but I love you all. See you all on the next one. Tell somebody you love them. Tell someone that god loves them. Thank you for liking and sharing, subscribing to the podcast. Uh, telling other people about it. Love you all. God bless you.