That Ye Should Not Be Offended

In His Olivet discourse the Savior said this to His disciples about what would happen in their day as they went out to preach the gospel: “And then shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another” (JSM 1:8). He was of course speaking of those who would reject the message of these apostles when they would take the gospel to the whole world, and yet within a matter of days He also said this to them, again on the Mount of Olives: “All ye shall be offended because of me this night: for it is written, I will smite the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered abroad.” In the first instance he was talking about the people of the world being offended by His word, but here He was telling the very apostles that even they would be offended by Him. Peter protested saying, “Though all men shall be offended because of thee, yet will I never be offended,” but the Savior confirmed that He would indeed be offended by the Savior and deny Him thrice (Matthew 26:31-33). The warning for us is that we are all liable to be offended, even by the Savior and His teachings. We must guard ourselves to not choose to be offended, especially by the words of the Savior and His prophets.  

                While specifically referring to their generation when speaking on the Mount of Olives, surely that prophecy by the Savior was meant to apply to our time as well: “And then shall many be offended.” So many are offended by so much in our day. Nephi described our day this way, quoting Isaiah, “And they that make a man an offender for a word, and lay a snare for him that reproveth in the gate, and turn aside the just for a thing of naught” (2 Nephi 27:32). In the Book of Mormon there was a time when “the hearts of the people began to wax hard, and that they began to be offended because of the strictness of the word” (Alma 35:15). That could easily be a description of our own day—many are offended because of the commandments of God and the teachings of the prophets. In our time of social shaming and cancel culture, we have become very good at making a man or an organization an offender for a single word. And in the Church so many have let offense drive them away, as Elder Bednar described in a general conference talk about being offended. He recounted some of the reasons people had chosen to no longer participate in the gospel this way: “Several years ago a man said something in Sunday School that offended me, and I have not been back since.” “No one in this branch greeted or reached out to me. I felt like an outsider. I was hurt by the unfriendliness of this branch.” “I did not agree with the counsel the bishop gave me. I will not step foot in that building again as long as he is serving in that position.” He continued, “Many other causes of offense were cited—from doctrinal differences among adults to taunting, teasing, and excluding by youth. But the recurring theme was: ‘I was offended by …’” There is much by which we could take offense, inside and outside the Church, and unfortunately in our generation so many have chosen to be offended by so much.

                Elder Bednar taught, though, that to take offense is in fact a choice: “It ultimately is impossible for another person to offend you or to offend me. Indeed, believing that another person offended us is fundamentally false. To be offended is a choice we make; it is not a condition inflicted or imposed upon us by someone or something else.” He invited us to choose not to take offense: “You and I cannot control the intentions or behavior of other people. However, we do determine how we will act. Please remember that you and I are agents endowed with moral agency, and we can choose not to be offended.” We can, like the Savior lived and taught, respond to evil and abuse and wickedness with love and patience: “Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you” (Matthew 5:44). As we focus on loving others instead of protecting ourselves, we can turn potential offense into love, we can respond to unkindness with generosity. We can “through the strengthening power of the Atonement of Jesus Christ… avoid and triumph over offense. ‘Great peace have they which love thy law: and nothing shall offend them’ (Psalm 119:165).” When others say or do something that irritates us or appears to be a slight against us, we can choose the higher road of forgiveness and love that taught us to take—there is indeed much more peace on that path than the low road of offense. As we truly seek to follow the Savior Jesus Christ and apply His teachings, we will see that His words have been spoken to strengthen us against all the deceptions and disappointments and discord of the world so that, no matter what others choose to do, we “should not be offended” (John 16:1).