Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered outside the gate. Therefore, let us go forth to him outside the camp, bearing his reproach. For we have no continuing city here, but we seek one to come.
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The meaning of words often changes, so when we are reading Bibles produced in previous generations, we must be careful to know what certain words meant to the people who translated those Bibles before we can understand what they were trying to tell us. The word "offend", for one example, is very often used today to mean "to hurt the feelings of", but in the Bible, the word "offend" only rarely meant that. When Jesus or one of the apostles used the word "offend", they most often meant "to cause to sin", or "to lead astray".
In Matthew 18:6, Jesus warned that there will be dire consequences for anyone who led one of God's children astray, or "offended" them. In fact, the Lord said it would be better for such a man to have a stone tied around his neck and be thrown into the sea than to suffer what God will do to him if he offended, or misled, one of God's little children. The "little ones" who belong to Jesus are they who have just recently been born again. If a person is new to the faith, he can be eighty years old and yet be a "little one" to Jesus, and his heavenly Father loves him dearly.
It is extremely important that we say and do nothing that causes one of God's children to go the wrong way. The man who does so makes himself a target of God's fiery indignation. Paul, filled with the fear of God, said that if eating meat offended one of God's children, he would never eat meat again as long as the world stood (1Cor. 8:13). He told the saints at Rome, "It is good neither to eat flesh, nor drink wine, nor any thing whereby thy brother stumbleth, or is offended, or is made weak" (14:21). Jesus promised that before he returns for his bride, he will cleanse God's earthly family of every person and of every thing that causes the children of God to go astray. He said, "The Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend and them that do iniquity, and shall cast them into a furnace of fire. There shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth" (Mt. 13:41-42). This purging of the congregation of the saints from ungodly influences will result in them at last being perfected and prepared for the return of Jesus. The Lord pointed this out by saying, "Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father."
We who believe in Jesus are not now prepared for the return of the Lord. We are divided from each other by Christian sects and confused by Christian teachers; our garments have been spotted by participation in Christian worship; we have been intimidated by Christian tradition; we have been submissive to Christianity's claim of spiritual authority over us. But God loves, and will rescue His children. We have been "offended" by Christian ministers, being led into ways of worship and faith that are foreign to God's will, but God has promised to raise up pastors after His own heart to feed His family with knowledge of the truth, and all who truly desire the truth shall be set free. The truth is God's cure for lies that offend, or lead astray, His children. False doctrines and vain traditions lead people astray, but the truth edifies, nurtures, and guides. May you never be led astray by men who are trained to look righteous but who have not heard from Jesus.
The word "offend", then, basically means to turn someone away out of the path of righteousness, but there is an odd twist to this story.
There is something other than ungodly doctrine and tradition that can "offend" people. That something else is the Truth. Not only can false doctrine turn people away from God but the truth can do so, too. A hypocrite has secret sin, and he will refuse to confess that the truth is the truth so that he can continue to appear to be righteous. When God sends a man to preach His truth, some of God's own children, seeking to hide their sin, will reject it as false in order to maintain their own ways.
When Jesus came, he himself was an offence to some of God's people, and we know that he never sinned. Moved by the Spirit, Isaiah prophesied, "He shall be for a sanctuary, but for a stone of stumbling, and for a rock of offence . . . " (8:14). The light Jesus brought into this world was so great that God's people who inwardly loved unrighteousness rejected his message and turned even farther away from God. Jesus knew this, and at one point, he said to his followers, "Blessed are they who are not offended in me" (Mt. 11:6).
Nothing can offend the man who loves God's Law (Ps. 119:165). But any righteous thing has the potential of "offending" a stubborn child of God, sending him deeper into the dark if they condemn the light. "This is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be manifest that they are wrought in God" (Jn. 3:19-21).
Paul prophesied of a time when many among the saints would not tolerate a man who told the truth, hiring ministers to teach them what they wanted to hear instead (2Tim. 4:3). The truth "offends" these children of God because it calls them to repentance and obedience to the will of God. But when they "turn away their ears from the truth", they are cursed by God to sink deeper into the abyss of religious fables (2Tim. 4:4).
May God give us salt within ourselves so that we can rejoice when God speaks. It is a fearful thought, to think of hearing a word from the Lord and rejecting it. May you never be "offended" by what you hear from the Lord.
It also happens that some will quench the Spirit and drift away from holiness in order to avoid persecution for the name of Christ (Mt. 13:21). The word "offended" applies to these less courageous children of God, too. For fear of men, all of Jesus' disciples were "offended" the night of his arrest (Mk. 14:27), "and they all forsook him and fled" (Mk. 14:50). But no such failure in faith need to be unforgivable or permanent, and after the disciples were baptized with the holy Ghost in Acts 2, all of them stood fast in the faith even though they faced enormous opposition. God will give us courage to shine in this dark world, as they did, if we ask Him.
Nothing can by any means "offend" those whose minds are stayed on God.