Nothing shall offend them...

Psalm 119:165 Great peace have they which love thy law: and nothing shall offend them.

I'd like to deviate today from my series of blogs on First Thessalonians and comment about this verse. I'm not sure if this is a symptom of the age we live in, or if it's an age-old problem (probably both)- but people love to get offended. The word translated as "offended" in the New Testament is most often the Greek word "Skandalizo" (from which our English word scandalize comes from). When we think of the word "offence", we typically think of one's feelings being hurt. Surely this is one sense of the meaning of the word. But a word study will reveal that it carries a much deeper meaning and implication. Let me post the definition from Strong's concordance:

1. to put a stumbling block or impediment in the way, upon which another may trip and fall,
metaph. to offend
a. to entice to sin
b. to cause a person to begin to distrust and desert one whom he ought to trust and obey
1. to cause to fall away
2. to be offended in one, i.e. to see in another what I disapprove of and what hinders
me from acknowledging his authority
3. to cause one to judge unfavourably or unjustly of another
c. since one who stumbles or whose foot gets entangled feels annoyed
1. to cause one displeasure at a thing
2. to make indignant
3. to be displeased, indignant

Now without unpacking all of those definitions, we still can see that the term has some serious implications. This post today is not about the problem of offence, but rather the remedy. The cure for offence is loving the Word of God. This is a liberating truth! The more we study, meditate, and apply the Word of God- the less apt we will be to be offended, or to cause offense.

Praise God for the Word!

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