forgiveness

November 13, 2025 –  Stephen, Stoning, and Getting What You Deserve— Acts # 20

David Chupp Acts , , , , ,

November 13, 2025 –  Stephen, Stoning, and Getting What You Deserve— Acts # 20
Acts 7:54 – 8;1

Acts 7:54-60   Now when they heard these things they were enraged, and they ground their teeth at him. But he, full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. And he said, “Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.” But they cried out with a loud voice and stopped their ears and rushed together at him. Then they cast him out of the city and stoned him. And the witnesses laid down their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul. And as they were stoning Stephen, he called out, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” And falling to his knees he cried out with a loud voice, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” And when he had said this, he fell asleep.

Imagine if you were one of the over 5000 Jewish followers of Jesus on this day.   One of your leaders has just been stoned to death by the people in charge of the Jewish Religion, your religion.  All Jesus-followers at this time were Jewish, and they did not think they had stopped being Jewish when they followed the apostles and Jesus.  You see, all their life they had been raised by their Jewish parents, their Jewish community at synagogue, and the leaders of the Jewish religion, the priests, scribes, and Pharisees, to pray every day for the Messiah that would one day come.  So if you are a Jesus follower on this day, you have no reason to believe you have stopped being Jewish.  In fact, that Jewish prayer you prayed every day, for the Jewish Messiah to come, has come true, just as the Jewish prophets foretold.   You are a Jew who believes your Messiah has come.

And the people in charge of your religion, the ones in charge of the temple where you worship, and the ones who hold the power to excommunicate you from the religion or even kill you, these people just killed one of the most helpful, kind, Spirit-filled men you have ever known.  And the charge against him, blasphemy, was for saying the same things you were speaking to a friend yesterday.  How would you feel?  Would you be wondering if they were coming for you next?  

Acts 7:58   Then they cast him out of the city and stoned him.

You have heard Bible stories about stoning and have probably at one time read the rules about stoning in Leviticus and Deuteronomy, but since many people fall asleep reading Leviticus and since we don’t know the culture well, let’s review a little about stoning.

Stoning was a common form of punishment in ancient times.  It is found in the law codes of several cultures.  In the Old Testament, sins punishable by stoning are in two categories:

  1. Those that deal with man’s relationship to God.   This includes those who tempt others to engage in idolatry (Deuteronomy 13:7,11), those who participate in idolatry themselves (Deuteronomy 17:5), those who use God’s name in a curse (Leviticus 24:16), those who offer their children to Molech (Leviticus 20:2), people who serve as mediums or necromancers (Leviticus 20:27) and a special case of a man who gathered wood on a Sabbath (Numbers 15:32-36).
  2. Social Crimes.   It is the fate prescribed for the wayward and defiant son (Deut 21:18-21), whose actions are accounted a capital offence to emphasise the gravity of disrespect for parents.   This sounds incredibly harsh to us, but understand the context.  First, it was not uncommon at all in these times for a father to kill his son for disobedience. Many cultures saw this as a fitting punishment, either death or being sold into slavery. But Biblical law is more restrictive and deprives the father of his authority to exert capital punishment on his own.  It is for the community elders to decide.  Secondly, in Jewish history, this was never done.  The Talmud states, “It never happened and it never will happen.”  Like many of our law codes today, there are specific maximum punishments on the books that are never used.  In Old Testament times, extreme cases of rebellious sons usually resulted in disinheritance.  The punishment of stoning was carried out in some cases of adultery, and there are several cases discussed in the Old Testament (and one in the New Testament).   Again, this maximum punishment was not always carried out, and apparently, the spouse had the right to insist on a lesser sentence.

Stoning took place outside the camp or city.  

Leviticus 24:13-14   Then Yehovah spoke to Moses, saying, “Bring out of the camp the one who cursed, and let all who heard him lay their hands on his head, and let all the congregation stone him.”

This was to ensure that the blood of the guilty would not contaminate the camp or city.  Remember that contact with a dead body made a person ritually unclean for seven days. 

Numbers 19:14-16   This is the law when someone dies in a tent: everyone who comes into the tent and everyone who is in the tent shall be unclean seven days. And every open vessel that has no cover fastened on it is unclean. Whoever in the open field touches someone who was killed with a sword or who died naturally, or touches a human bone or a grave, shall be unclean seven days.

Remember that Jesus was crucified and Stephen was stoned just outside the city walls.  (The exception to this was adultery.  If a woman was convicted of the crime of not being a virgin when she married, she was to be stoned at the door of her father’s house, implying parental responsibility for their child’s sexual behavior.)

Initially, stoning was done by throwing stones at the guilty person until they were dead.  By New Testament times, stoning was frequently done by pushing the guilty off a roof or a cliff.   If they did not die from the fall, a large rock was placed on their chest to make breathing difficult.  If they survived that, then they would cast stones.  Note this quote from the Mishna, the first written collection of the Jewish oral law that had been passed down for centuries.

“The elevation of the stoning grounds was twice the height of a man. One of the witnesses to the crime pushes him by his hips [so that he falls on his side]. If he falls onto his chest, he is turned onto his hips. If he dies [from the fall], the court has fulfilled its obligation. If he is still alive, the second witness takes a stone and places it on his chest. If the condemned man dies, the court has fulfilled its obligation.  If he is not dead, he is stoned by all of Israel…”

This quote from the Mishna (Sanhedrin 45) was written after 200 AD, but was considered the practice in the first century as well. The rabbis noted that the change in method was to fulfil Leviticus 19:18 (“Love your neighbor as yourself”) as seen in this quotation from Sanhedrin 45a: “Love your fellow as yourself, by choosing for him a better way to die.”  

This method of stoning is seen when the leaders of the synagogue in Nazareth decided that Jesus had committed blasphemy and needed to be killed. 

Luke 4:29   And they rose up and drove him out of the town and brought him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they could throw him down the cliff.

They intended to stone Jesus in the usual manner of the day, by pushing him off the cliff.  But God did not allow it that day.

Stoning was a form of public execution, not just observed by the public but carried out by it.  

Leviticus 20:2   The people of the land shall stone him with stones.

The community was responsible for carrying out the punishment.  Again, this may seem odd to us because our culture does not operate under the same assumption of community guilt as the culture of the Bible (though it should).   According to scripture, the community bears some of the guilt of any member who sins.  If a family member sinned, it brought guilt and shame on the family.  If a member of their community or nation sinned, this too brought guilt and shame on every member.   By participating in the stoning, they removed the guilt the lawbreaker had brought on the community.

And when the stoning was the sentence of a court hearing, the witnesses in the hearing were to throw the first stone.

Deuteronomy 17:7   The hand of the witnesses shall be first against him to put him to death, and afterward the hand of all the people. So you shall purge the evil from your midst.

The Scripture is clear that there must be two or three witnesses, and that God takes the idea of false witness very seriously.  It is one of the ten commandments.

Exodus 20:16.  You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.

By requiring the witnesses to throw the first stone, the witnesses are directly responsible for the execution, so if their testimony was false, then they are guilty of murder.   

Knowing this information about stoning gives us some insight into the story in John 8 of Jesus and the adulterous woman. 

John 8:2-7   Early in the morning, Jesus came again to the temple. All the people came to him, and he sat down and taught them. The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery, and placing her in the midst, they said to him, “Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery. Now in the Law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say?” This they said to test him, that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. And as they continued to ask him, he stood up and said to them, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.”

If you pictured the crowd of accusers picking up stones and then dropping them as they walked away, then know it didn’t happen that way.  They would not have stoned her there in the city, much less in the most holy place, the Temple.  We are told that this woman was caught in the act.  It is somewhat odd that she was caught in the act, but only the woman was brought to Jesus as the guilty party.  And they misquote the Scripture specifying the woman should be stoned when both of the scriptures that mention this (Leviticus 20:10 and Deuteronomy 22:22)  refer to both the man and the woman (and do not specify stoning). 

Then Jesus said, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.” 

 First, understand that the Greek word for ‘throw a stone at her’ (“ballo”) can also be translated as ‘put or place a stone on her.’  Any of those 3 English words can be used.  The translator has to choose which English word to use based on the context.  This is the same Greek word, translated as “put” in this verse in James:

James 3:3   If we put bits into the mouths of horses so that they obey us, we guide their whole bodies as well.

I am glad our translators chose ‘put’ in this verse in James instead of ‘throw’.  It would take perfect aim and timing to throw a bit into a horse’s mouth, and I do not recommend trying this.  But the original English translators of the Bible were unaware of the change in method for stoning when they translated, so they chose to use “throw” instead of “put” or “place”.  But knowing what we know now, we see that what Jesus said is indeed consistent with the practice of the day, placing stones on the guilty party if the guilty party did not die from the fall. 

Secondly, when Jesus said, “Let him who is without sin place the first stone,” he is not asking who in the crowd is perfect and without sin (as I have usually heard it interpreted).  He is referring to the specific command in Deuteronomy 17 that the witnesses are to be the first to throw (or place) stones.  He is reminding these people who have come forward as ‘witnesses’ to this woman’s sin that it is a sin to be a false witness, and they had better be willing to fulfill their responsibility to begin the sentence if, indeed, they are without the sin of false testimony.   

Suddenly, no one is willing to be a ‘witness’ to this adultery, as apparently, no one is willing to commit the sin of false witness and murder.  There is no one left to condemn her.

But the false witnesses in our story of Stephen in Acts 7 were indeed willing to take on that sin.  How would you feel if this were your friend that people had lied about in court to have him killed?  What if you were Stephen’s mother or father?  How would you respond?  And these convicting him are members of their synagogues, and church leaders and priests.  How could God allow this?  They all deserve death.

Would you be angry?  Would you want to take revenge on the person who did this to your friend?  Would you pray and ask God to punish them severely for this horrible sin?  Would you want God to open up a hole in the earth and swallow them right away?  There may have been people in Stephen’s day who prayed that very prayer, who wanted to take vengeance into their own hands.  But how did Stephen respond?

Acts 7:59-60  And as they were stoning Stephen, he called out, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” And falling to his knees, he cried out with a loud voice, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” And when he had said this, he fell asleep.”

His dying words were, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.”  What a Jesus-like attitude to have.  Jesus said the same thing from the cross.  He, too, was condemned by false witnesses and the court of the priests.  Those who were responsible for maintaining the integrity of religious practice, but committed the worst possible evil.  

We know the names of some who were in the court that convicted Stephen.  Annas and Ciaphas were there for sure.  But there is one other person who had a part in deciding Stephen’s fate, who you know very well.  Later on in this person’s life, he confesses to this sin.  He admits that he voted to put them to death.  And we know without a doubt that he was there for Stephen’s trial. He says this:

Acts 26:9-10   I myself was convinced that I ought to do many things in opposing the name of Jesus of Nazareth. And I did so in Jerusalem. I not only locked up many of the saints in prison after receiving authority from the chief priests, but when they were put to death, I cast my vote against them.

“I cast my vote against them.”  There is no other place to cast a vote like this except in the Sanhedrin, the court that tried and convicted Stephen.  The person speaking here is the apostle Paul.  He admits he voted in the court to have Stephen and others killed.  He admits the sins he committed.

And the Scripture specifically records his presence there.  

Acts 7:58-60  Then they cast Stephen out of the city and stoned him. And the witnesses laid down their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul. And as they were stoning Stephen, he called out, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” And falling to his knees he cried out with a loud voice, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” And when he had said this, he fell asleep.

Though oddly, when chapter divisions were added to the Bible in the 13th century, Mr Langton separated the last sentence of this story of Stephen into a different chapter. (I leave it to you to contemplate his motive.)  So the final sentence of this story is in chapter 8:

Acts 8:1   And Saul approved of his execution.

And Saul approved of his execution.  In Greek, “approved” or “agreed to.”  This young rabbi, trained by the most respected rabbi of his day, was in the council voting to have this innocent man stoned to death.  Now, what is the penalty for condemning an innocent man?  What should God do with these men?  What do they deserve?  What does Saul deserve?

But God did not give them what they deserved.  There are plenty of times when God does give people what they deserve throughout the Old Testament, and we discussed the story of Ananias and Sapphira just a few weeks ago, who received their punishment immediately.  How about these people who sent Jesus to the Romans for crucifixion and those who sent this innocent man, Stephen, to his death?  I can’t help but wonder whether the reason they didn’t get what they deserved is that one of God’s dear children prayed that they wouldn’t.  

Jesus:  “Father, forgive them for they really don’t understand what they are doing”
Stephen: “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.”  

I can’t speak for the outcome of all of these men who voted to kill Jesus or Stephen.  But I can talk about one of them.  God did not hold the young man Saul’s sin that day against him.  God did not give Saul what he deserved.  In fact, Jesus makes a very dramatic effort to reveal himself to this very man, appearing to him on the Damascus road.  Do you think the prayer of Stephen asking God to forgive those who condemned him (including Saul) had anything to do with God’s miraculous intervention with Saul?

There is an interesting comment Jesus makes to the disciples on the day of his resurrection.  They are gathered together.

John 20:22-23.  And when Jesus had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld.”

We don’t have time now to discuss these verses thoroughly.  Perhaps another day.  But know that different denominations interpret this differently.  The Catholic Church uses this passage as Biblical evidence for the rite of confession.  They maintain that Jesus is giving his apostles the ability to choose which sins are forgiven and which are not, and that this is passed on through apostolic succession to priests.  (The priests don’t forgive the sin, but they say he has the power to convey or confer the forgiveness of God.)   Some Protestant denominations explain that these verses do not give church leaders this power, but are saying that we can pass on the knowledge of the path to salvation so that men can become saved through Jesus and thus receive forgiveness of sins.  

Let me add my interpretation. I believe in prayer. I believe prayer matters.  I see examples in the Bible of people praying and God listening and responding to their prayers.  And I think one way God answered that prayer that Stephen prays to forgive his accusers was to meet Saul on the Damascus Road.   I believe an answer to Stephen’s prayer is the apostle Paul.  Because God sought out Saul, who deserved to die right then and there, the gospel spread throughout much of the world, and we have much of the New Testament.  And this knowledge demands that I pray earnestly for God to forgive others, especially those who have harmed me.

Regardless of how you interpret these verses, know that we have a responsibility to forgive sin, even the sins of those who are our enemies, those who persecute us. 

Matthew 5:44:  But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.
Luke 6:28   Bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.
Matthew 6:14-15  For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.  But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.

Do you have an enemy?  Has someone done you wrong?  Has someone treated you so poorly that you want God to punish them?  Then pray for his forgiveness.  Pray that he will seek the forgiveness of Jesus.  In Paul’s second letter to Timothy, he says this:

2 Timothy 2:25-26   Opponents must be gently instructed, in the hope that God will grant them repentance leading them to a knowledge of the truth, and that they will come to their senses and escape from the trap of the devil, who has taken them captive to do his will.

What if Stephen had not prayed for Saul’s forgiveness?   What if, instead, he prayed for Saul to be given what he deserved?   Would it have changed the outcome?

I can’t pray for people to get what they deserve, because God certainly didn’t give me what I deserved.  I was a sinner, lost and without hope.  I deserved death and eternal separation from God.  I deserved hell.  But grace.  God’s grace did not give me what I deserved, but what I needed.  Love and mercy and grace.  Forgiveness of sins and God’s Holy Spirit were placed within me.   I thank God every day that Saul didn’t get what he deserved.  Then we wouldn’t have these rich letters of scripture he wrote.  I thank god every day that I didn’t get what I deserved.   And I then have no choice but to pray to God that, even for those who have treated me harshly, God will grant them repentance. 

27 A.D.  –  Don’t Be Offendable —   The Year of the Lord’s Favor #59

David Chupp The 70 Weeks with Jesus Blog , , , , ,

Week 40 ———  Don’t Be Offendable
Matthew 5:21-26

Last week, we talked about murder and anger and how, in God’s view, they are very much alike because both come from the same place in the heart. We looked at these verses:   

Matthew 5:21-26  “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’  But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire.

My men’s Bible study group discussed this, and some very interesting questions were raised. My friend Ken suggested a book that opened my eyes to this subject: Unoffendable by Brant Hansen. So, I want to dive deeper into this discussion.

If you read the footnote in the previous entry (TAY #58), you would know that a few versions of the Bible include the phrase “everyone who is angry with his brother without cause…”.  “Without cause”  was added over 200 years after the gospel was originally written.  The earliest manuscripts do not have that phrase, so most modern versions of Matthew do not contain it (other than the King James or New King James Version.)  It is easy to understand why someone hand-copying the Bible decided to add this phrase. 

‘Of course, some anger is good,’ someone thought.  So, someone around 200 AD decided to help us by telling us what he thought Jesus meant to say.  So he added “without cause,” perhaps in the margin of the text.  Then, the next guy copying the Bible assumes the previous copyist accidentally left it out, so he writes it in the verse just like it was always there.   (You can prove several instances of similar additions to the text from just such a process.)

After all, it is okay to be angry when you have a good cause, right?  And righteous anger is not bad, in fact, it is essential that we get angry at some things, isn’t it?  Christians are supposed to have righteous indignation, aren’t they?  I have heard these statements all my life.  But are they true?

What do you think? We could vote on it.  Who says righteous anger is a good thing?  All for, all opposed.   Wait a minute!  That is serpent thinking.  We don’t get to vote on right and wrong.  It is not our job to discern good and evil. That kind of thinking will get you kicked out of the garden.  God is the only judge.  Only God can decide.

In our scripture passage, Jesus took murder and said what’s behind the murder — it is anger. What is behind the anger?    Why do we get angry?  Because we were offended.  Someone did something or said something that offended us.  Aren’t Christians supposed to be offended by some things?

So look through the Bible — Do you see ‘righteous indignation’ or ‘righteous anger’?  Is there a command to be offended?

Well, you say, we have an excellent example of righteous anger by Jesus when he threw the money changers out of the temple.  Was Jesus right to be angry then?   If so, then righteous anger is a good thing.  Or is it?  Yes, Jesus was right to be angry, but there is a big difference.  Jesus has the right to judge because he is God.  Let me let you in on a little secret.  You are not God, and you have no right to judge anyone.  You aren’t supposed to eat the fruit of that tree.

Looking closely in the Bible, you will find many examples of righteous anger.   But all of them are God getting angry.  Because God is the only one who can express righteous anger because he is the only righteous judge.   That’s why we like righteous anger so much — we enjoy being right and pretending we are righteous, taking the moral high ground.

There are plenty of examples of Bible characters acting out of anger in the Bible, but they are examples of what not to do.  Samson often acted out of anger, but Samson’s whole story is an example of how not to act and how God can use people who are moral failures.1   David got furious with Nabal because he didn’t pay David what was due.  David was ready to send 400 men with swords to kill him.  But that story is not in the Bible as an example of how to act.  God doesn’t want you to imitate David in his anger, nor does he want you to imitate David when he committed adultery or when he killed Uriah.  Righteous anger is only for God.   The Bible is clear that for everyone who is not God, all anger is sin.  That is why you will find anger in the various lists of sins in the Bible.

Let’s look at Paul’s what not to do list:

Colossians 3:5,8,9    Put to death, therefore, what is earthly in you:  sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry….now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth.  Do not lie to one another…

In case you have wondered, there is also no such thing as ‘righteous slander,’ ‘righteous sexual immorality,’ or ‘righteous idolatry.’  But we have created this category of ‘righteous indignation’ or ‘righteous anger’ because we want it to exist despite it not being in the Bible.

So, how do you respond when someone offends you, and you feel the urge to become angry?

First, how does the world tell you to respond?  How does the world tell you to handle your anger?  “Count to 10”, that’s what I was told.  I’m not sure it handled my anger, but it’s more like I delayed it.  Perhaps for some people, taking the time to count to ten helps deal with their anger, but for others, it is like the last 10 seconds on the countdown timer on a bomb.  It is undoubtedly going to explode when the ten count is up.  Other suggestions are to “meditate,” “center yourself,” go scream somewhere, or hit a pillow or punching bag.  Of course, in our capitalistic country, someone has figured out how to profit from anger reactions.  I was not aware of “Rage Rooms.”  These businesses are springing up everywhere.  The closest one to me is about an hour away.  (I could count to ten many times driving that far.)   You pay to enter a room with multiple glass objects or electronics and a baseball bat to break them.  The one near me is called “Smash and Dash.”  They supply windshields to break, and you can do “Group Rages.”  They also offer ax throwing (hopefully not in the group rage.)  They do birthday parties and there is currently a post-election special going on if you are angry about that.  

So what does the Bible say to do when someone offends you?  How do you respond to evil acts against you?  Right after Paul’s “what-not-to-do-list” in Colossians, he has a to-do list.

Colossians 3:12-17   Put on then, as god’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, 

Paul says, “Put on then…”  The Greek uses the word for getting dressed. Paul tells us to wear these clothes.  This is the way you get dressed in the morning if you are God’s people: with compassionate hearts (looking for the needs of others above your own), kindness (goodness, treating others well), humility (modesty, not thinking you are the most important), meekness  (willingness to submit to God’s rule over your life), and patience (the ability to endure difficult people and situations without giving into anger or giving up hope.  If you are starting the day like this, and these are the characteristics you wear, then it will be hard for someone to offend you.

Back to Paul’s discussion:

Colossians 3:12-17   Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience,   bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another…

Okay, here we go. Paul says if you have an honest complaint against someone, they did you wrong, insulted you, cheated you, cut you off in traffic, or lied to you. These are all things that could result in you taking offense and becoming angry.

So what do you do, Paul?

“…bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.”

Paul’s answer to the question of how to respond when someone does something that might offend you is to forgive them—forgiving each other.  You have probably recently prayed that prayer Jesus taught us to pray.  “Forgive us as we forgive those who trespass against us.”  We pray, “God, please forgive me the same way you see me forgive others.”  Jesus didn’t tell us to pray: “Father, get angry with us as we get angry with those who trespass against us.”  

Here is the concept we see through the Bible that I somehow missed applying to my life because I had heard all my life that anger can be good.  When you are wronged, when people are rude or careless –  you have two choices.  You can be offended, or you can forgive.    But Paul doesn’t hedge at all.  You must forgive.  Not if they apologize, or if they make it right, or if you feel like it.  You must.  When I mess up, I know how I want God to react to me.  I want forgiveness from God.  But I have not always held myself to that same standard.  I thought it was ok to be offended.  It is not.  

Now, the whole passage, because it is so good:

Colossians 3:12-17   Put on then, as god’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience,   bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.   And above all these, put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.   And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful.   Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.   And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

This is abundant life.  This is the way of love.  This is how God wants us to live.  And look, if you choose to respond with forgiveness rather than be offended, you get peace.  Being offended is not peaceful.  Being offended is stressful.  That is not how God wants us to live.  

We live in a fallen world.  People are going to do you wrong.  Jesus said don’t murder them; don’t even get angry with them.  And Paul is saying, if the Holy Spirit abides in you, don’t even be offended by them.  You choose to be offended.  You don’t have to be offended.  Put on those clothes of compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience.  Then, when someone acts against you, don’t choose to be offended; don’t choose to be angry; choose to forgive them.

Hansen points out in Unoffendable we live in a world today where being offended has almost become a national pastime.  We have invented new and easy ways to be constantly offended.  We have 24-hour news.  They will give you a constant running flow of things to offend you.   How about social media?  It won’t take more than a few seconds of scrolling on Facebook to be offended by something.  Christians should be the least offendable people in the world.  Instead, I am afraid we have become known as the easiest people to find offense.   

But instead of going through the day finding things to be offended about, try deciding at the beginning of the day not to be offendable.  Decide today you are going to put on those Colossians 3 clothes.  Then, no matter what someone does, I will react with forgiveness.  But what if someone really deserves it?  What if someone mistreats us or wants to harm us?  Isn’t anger right then?  Amazingly, Jesus says no!  Those are the very people and situations that Jesus specifically tells us to forgive.  Forgiving means surrendering your claim to be offended, angry, or resentful.

Forgiveness is hard,  but the Bible says to forgive.  So the question people asked in Jesus day was, “Well, how many times do I have to forgive someone?    The rabbis debated this and mostly agreed on the following (found in the Mishna).

“If a man commits an offense once they forgive him, a second time they forgive him, a third time they forgive him, the fourth time they do not forgive him.”2 

“He who begs forgiveness from his neighbor must not do so more than three times.”3

In Jesus’ day, this was the accepted norm: You should forgive someone three times. The disciples grew up learning this rule. But Peter heard Jesus talk over and over about forgiveness that seemed to be above the three-strike rule he learned as a child. So Peter asked Jesus how many times he should forgive someone. And Peter (likely trying to impress Jesus) suggested way more than three… seven times! 

Matthew 18:21-22   Then Peter came up and said to him, “Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him?  As many as seven times?”  Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy-seven times.

Jesus answers 77.  And this is not a math exercise.  75…76… almost there…  (That would be like me counting to 10 – not dealing with it but postponing it.)   Jesus didn’t choose that number randomly.  He wants you to recall something in Scripture.  “Seventy-seven” is only in the Scripture one other time.  And Jesus wants you to remember the other story….

In Genesis, five generations down from Cain (the murderer) is a man named Lamech.

Genesis 4:23-24   Lamech said to his wives: 
“Adah and Zillah, hear my voice;  you wives of Lamech, listen to what I say:  I have killed a man for wounding me, a young man for striking me.  If Cain’s revenge is sevenfold,  then Lamech’s is seventy-sevenfold.”

Lamech is the biblical poster child for revenge and retaliation.   He certainly did not abide by the “eye for eye” idea.  You hit me, I’ll kill you.   I revenge to the extreme.  Jesus’ point is to forgive to the extreme, like Lamech revenged to the extreme.  Jesus said our forgiveness should be way our of proportion to someone’s actions against us.  Jesus’ followers should be known for their extravagant forgiveness.

Follow Jesus’ example.  Everyone wants to follow Jesus’ example of throwing out the moneychangers in the temple.  Sorry, you can’t follow that one.  You aren’t God.  You don’t have the role of judge.  That is way above all of our pay grades.

Follow Jesus’ response to the offensive people of the day.  Jesus surrounded himself with people that the world considered offensive, but Jesus was not offended by anyone.  The Pharisees were all offended by the woman caught in the act of adultery; Jesus was not offended.  He said, “I don’t condemn you.” The man possessed by a demon starts shouting out in synagogue.  Jesus is not offended by him, and he heals him of his possession.

The most offensive people in the Jewish world in Jesus’ day were Roman soldiers.  Jesus shows him compassion and heals his son.  The lepers that everyone found ultimately offensive – Jesus touched and healed them. 

One day, a pharisee named Simon asked Jesus to dinner.  A woman comes in, a known prostitute, and anoints Jesus’ feet.  The Pharisees were shocked and offended.  

Luke 7:39  Now, when the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what sort of woman this is who is touching him, for she is a sinner.”

Jesus knew, but he did not take offense. Because Simon jumped straight to offense rather than forgiveness, Jesus needed to teach him something—something Simon may not want to hear. And we know that when Jesus wants to teach something to someone who doesn’t want to hear it, he tells a parable.

Luke 7:41-47  “A certain moneylender had two debtors. One owed five hundred denarii and the other fifty. When they could not pay, he canceled the debt of both. Now, which of them will love him more?”   Simon answered, “The one, I suppose, for whom he canceled the larger debt.” And he said to him, “You have judged rightly.”   Then, turning toward the woman, he said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave me no water for my feet, but she has wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair.   You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not ceased to kiss my feet.  You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment.   Therefore I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven—for she loved much. But he who is forgiven little, loves little.”

Let me follow Jesus’ example and end in a story that Hansen tells in Unoffendable. 

Tony Campolo writes about her in his book The Kingdom of God Is a Party. He was in a diner in Honolulu, very late one night—three thirty in the morning, actually—when he couldn’t sleep from jet lag. It was just him, his donut and coffee, and the guy behind the counter, when suddenly, a group of prostitutes came in. They sat down on either side of Tony, and they were very crude and very loud. He was about to leave. But then he overheard one of them saying tomorrow was her birthday, her thirty-ninth. Another woman made fun of her for bringing it up. “What do you want, Agnes, a party? You want a cake? You want us to sing ‘Happy Birthday’?” Agnes said no, she didn’t. She’d never had a party, or a birthday cake, so why start now? When I heard that, I made a decision. I sat and waited until the women had left. Then I called over the fat guy behind the counter, and I asked him, “Do they come in here every night?” “Yeah!” he answered. “The one right next to me, does she come here every night?” “Yeah!” he said. “That’s Agnes. Yeah, she comes in here every night. Why d’ya wanta know?” “Because I heard her say that tomorrow is her birthday,” I told him. “What do you say you and I do something about that? What do you think about us throwing a birthday party for her—right here—tomorrow night?”1 The guy behind the counter—his name was Harry—loved the idea, and so did his wife, who did the cooking in back. In fact, he wanted to make the birthday cake.

Tony told him he’d be there earlier the next morning, in time to decorate. And he decorated, complete with crepe paper streamers and a sign that read, “Happy Birthday, Agnes!” Apparently, word of the party got out, because the place was filled with prostitutes before Agnes’s arrival. When she came in at three thirty with a friend, the whole place erupted, “Happy birthday!” She was stunned. Mouth agape. “Flabbergasted,” Tony writes. Her friend had to steady her. And when they began to sing, she began to cry. Harry lit the candles, and as she blew out the cake, she was in tears. She didn’t want to cut it. Instead, she asked if she could keep it a little while. She wondered if that would be okay. Harry said she could. Then she said, “I want to take the cake home, okay? I’ll be right back, honest!” She left. Everyone was stunned silent. Tony said he didn’t know what else to do, so he broke the silence with, “What do you say we pray?” Looking back on it now, it seems more than strange for a sociologist to be leading a prayer meeting with a bunch of prostitutes in a diner in Honolulu at 3:30 in the morning. But then it just felt like the right thing to do. I prayed for Agnes. I prayed for her salvation. I prayed that her life would be changed and that God would be good to her. When I finished, Harry leaned over the counter and with a trace of hostility in his voice, he said, “Hey! You never told me you were a preacher. What kind of church do you belong to?” In one of those moments when just the right words came, I answered, “I belong to a church that throws birthday parties for whores at 3:30 in the morning.” Harry waited a moment and then almost sneered as he answered, “No you don’t. There’s no church like that. If there was, I’d join it. I’d join a church like that!” You know what? I have a new rule: I won’t join a church that doesn’t do that. Because that’s the Jesus I recognize, the One who mends the brokenhearted and is never, ever scandalized by sinners  

  1.   A great book on how Sampson is a Bible example of how not to act is Brad Grey’s Make Your Mark.
  2. Second-Century Rabbi Jose ben Jehuda.
  3. Third-Century Rabbi Jose ben Hanina.