welcome to real Christianity weekly show designed to help Christians know their Bible defend their faith and truly understand what it means to follow Jesus the premise is simple the culture is getting louder the church is getting flash ear but few pastors are teaching on how to live a Biblical life my name is Dale Partridge along with my incredible wife Veronica join us as we start an important conversation about what it really means to be a Christian
 hello and welcome to real Christianity today we are talking about how the Bible calls Christians to handle offense offense we are I would say a very offended generation America's favorite pastime being offended offended and so we're going to discuss what the scriptures call Christians to do in terms of offense when they are offended what are we to do according to the scriptures and I think it would be a fun episode of pretty sure he's pretty sure but before we dive in and I think Veronica's opening up this episode
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 because of something that's been said on the show it's just mind-boggling to me in super humbling thing I wanted to mention is we are getting prepped to relaunch ultimate marriage the marriage Mentor program it was a 12 month program we are now converting that into a 6-week program that you can do with your small group that you can do an individual couples we are still working on it we're in the midst of recording it right now it should be done in I'm going to say this summer it should be done before the summer I want to say like a couple weeks but it's not to be that short cuz we always run into things but if you want to be a part of that program just go to Ultimate marriage.com forward slash notify and we'll have you in the listen to soon as we open it up and Roman you'll get an email and a text message letting you know that enrollments open if you want to
 look at the show notes of this episode or find out anything about our show you can just go to relearn Church. Org forward slash listen and you can find all the show notes the videos that YouTube video of this episode etc etc I'm going to stop talking Veronica can go ahead and jump in when we talking about how Christians are to handle a fence with one another I'm sure you guys kind of got that Andrew lucky or Dale he is incredibly blessed
 in our marriage to have me as a way I happened to be the one who is more easily offended in her marriage I'm just kidding I'm not kidding about me being easily offended I'm just trying to be offended until I'm actually the last one is the one that is hard to offend and he's really quick to forgive and my assumption is the Lord just made him that way because he needs to be able to handle the heat that he gets her standing up for truth I don't know how you'd be able to do preaching truth on a public scale if you are easily offended because man I get all types of things and stuff and throw it at me and you read all that stuff we're like if I know details putting something controversial out or when everything you put out it's pretty much my body the wrong way I generally just like we won't even go to your comment section cuz I'll just want to fight for you
 little me okay but in our journey of offense and just bitterness and anger the Lord has really humbled me first of all and he's taught me quite a bit on how he expects his children to respond to offensive situations for those of you that don't know we plant typical house churches are Ministries very close we're like in close proximity with lots of people in our church you know there's probably 8 to 15 to 20 families the most inside of a House Church but you're like intimately close with these people and work work work was relationally physically emotionally spiritually this creates frequent opportunities to
 really see if the doctrine that we talked about in the Bible is actually true in our own life and relationships here to Ted to talk about love it such as good philosophy to talk about patience is not just good philosophy to talk about compassion but when you get in a situation where someone's offended you can you actually make that doctor and reel in your life and we had lots of moments over the years that things get dicey in relationships especially if you're in long-term relationships like 10 minutes for the long haul you going to did I see what happens a lot of people is it they get Dyson in the relationship breaks and an acquaintance instead of going deeper it just kind of pulls back or I would say close to a hundred over the last five years conversations hard conversations like awkward and embarrassing corrective rebuking
 like not just us doing this other people but people doing it to us as well and we even walked out church discipline start to finish Matthew 18 church discipline and so we've we've been there in terms of the tears the Wilderness we know
 I've eaten lots of humble pie too and so there's just a lot that goes on to a fence if your clothes of people and you want long-term committed relationships
 yeah so in today's episode deal and I just want to share not only what the Bible instructs on how his children should handle moments were offended but also what we've learned over the years and Ministry and how to properly heal a fence and ultimately restore the relationship and on a side issue we didn't episode This One Direction was popular episodes on church discipline that's titled should Christians judge other Christians and out deals with the Judgment Correctional over there with y'all was talking about judgement correction public rebuke and even excommunication and they're not popular issues but they are the purification system I would say that God has put in place for the church and without it the church becomes toxic and begins really begins to look like the world in the culture if you guys have this up such a great pair with that in the title
 should Christians judge Christians if you just go to relearn church. Or can I just type that in the search bar you'll find it so let's talk about fence offense will never come from someone walking in the spirit okay I want to say that again a true offense will never come from someone walking in the spirit it will always come from someone walking in the flesh and so now people can choose to be offended about anything spiritual like from God the Bible itself is offensive to people who don't know God and so what I'm saying though is that a true offense can't come from the spirit comes from when we're walking in our flesh and so let's look at what the Bible defined as the works of the Flesh and I'm going to read that as Galatians 5:19 through 26 it starts off nicely by saying now the works of the flesh are evident which are so we're going to go through this adultery
 fornication uncleanness lewdness idolatry sorcery hatred contentions jealousies outbursts of Wrath selfish Ambitions dissensions heresies Envy murders drunkenness revelries and the like of which I tell you beforehand just as I also told you in the times past that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God
 sounds like Hollywood in terms of just think about any like popular movie in uncleanness lewdness jealousies outbursts of Wrath selfish Ambitions attention heresies Envy murders drunkenness and the revelries so you got these such things practice means you're continuing habitually you're actually getting better at it you're not going to hear the kingdom of heaven or the kingdom of God is what it says here this letter was written to Christians by the way just let you know soon as reminding Christians that if you practice these things you're not going to inherit the kingdom of God I don't think of it we're struggling with sorcery and murder and adultery over here yeah sure most people aren't
 turn on with those things in the church but let me remind you that this is a letter written to Christians that have very common issues and I think the church actually has struggled with a variety of these things on a grand scale and we're all capable of committing any sense that's the crazy thing right I am capable you are capable we are all capable of committing these types of things now I have narrow this down to what I call the five flashes of the church and these you like that it's pretty cool but there's five of them and I would say these are the most common fleshly
 experiences or no these are heated disagreement okay so that was listed in that that platform and the second thing is jealous of jealousy that are pretty common in the church number three is outbursts of Wrath anger is really what that means. Jacobson from faithful life he's the one that told me he always says that anger destroys everything it touches destroys everything attached itself Albert's of Wrath number for selfish ambitions
 guys I remember when I went to the church that like the institutional Church like maybe eight or nine years ago I remember thinking how do you know what I might go to that big church because there's a lot of people there that I can get some clients or my business like I remember thinking that and I think it's a pretty common thing to think about if you're a business person you like a networking rights and and that's selfish ambition there are lots of selfish Ambitions that are being walked out of the church and so I think it's one that says it's important be on this listing and number five is dissensions which our disagreements that lead to separations I think about Paul and Barnabas in the book of Acts where it says the contention became so sharp that they actually went their separate ways that's a detention
 and so now I want to remind people real quick just going to get your theology straight here what is God's desire for his church for his children Unity Unity if you read John 17:21 is his father is Jesus praying is called the high Priestly prayer remember that high Priestly prayer John 17 this is father I pray that they all may be one as you father are at me and I and you and that they may also be one in us that the world may believe that you sent me
 okay think about that for a second
 what most people miss about that versus that last piece that you mentioned that the world may know that you sent me Jesus is saying that our unity in the church is the vehicle by which the world will believe that God sent Jesus
 this is big again just that idea
 our unity in the church is the vehicle by which the world will believe that God sent Jesus so this means that our division is evidence and the testimony that will lead on lockers to Delta gospel and this is why this conversation on how to heal offense is so important all those five parts of the flesh the church what they do is they divide you know that they divide what you have to tension see it's the individualistic they divide the sentient The Divide and it makes people doubt that God sent it makes you filled out the gospel it certainly divides you going to put something a wedge between you and God in Christ Unity
 restores the evidence of the Gospel that God sent Jesus and so you cannot have an effective Church Without Unity John chapter 17 1st Corinthians chapter 10 are sorry for 1st Corinthians chapter 1 Ephesians chapter 4 these are all areas of scripture that talk about unity and you cannot have Unity without a clear path or understanding and how to deal with a fence and adversity in the church
 and luckily the Bible tells us exactly how to do that so we're going to talk about that today so what I'm saying is this you need Unity to have an effective Church you can't have Unity unless you know how to have unity in adversity and conflict and we're going to talk about what the Bible says about that first John chapter 13 3435 Jesus says a new command I give you love one another as I have loved you so you must love one another by this everyone will know that you are my disciples if you love one another so I'm going to preface
 that the world will know that we're his disciples by our love
 now biblical love K we don't get to kind of reinvent what love means real love biblical love 1st Corinthians 13:5 says about love love does not behave rudely does not seek its own is not provoked does not keep a record of wrongs
 okay what it means it is not provoked the other passages will or other translation so I can easily provoked it's you're not easily offended you don't keep a record of wrongs that bitterness right if you're easily offended what it means is that your love is likely shallow if you're easily offended in a relationship or all the time with many people it's that your love is likely shallow for those people
 that's just a general statement I'm not being specific but just general if you Harbor hurt like you you hold on to it and you keep a record of wrongs in your heart again which means you're not taking your thoughts captive yeah and you're not having biblical love love for people you're having whenever you've invented in your head but not biblical love
 if you're harboring her that means again you have shallow love for people that you can Harbor pain cuz you don't fully love those people and this is what Peter is saying when he writes in his epistle love covers a multitude of sins he's saying that when you love someone with Biblical love you can Overlook or forgive or disregard the pain caused by sin by the many sins and I think parenting has a good example little children sin against their parents many times per day and I can forgive and Overlook some of that stuff so easily because I love them with Biblical love
 I'm if I didn't love my children with Biblical love in the offense would be difficult to
 to push away in that situation I need to be corrected but it is our love that covers the pain of their sin and keeps us in a relationship with them and so working on loving one another is so important and if you're offensive Rises between you and another Christian the Bible offers three possible responses you want to show the first one this is really important for the podcast so these are your Solutions here process with love love Michael up 1st Corinthians chapter 13 do read it but never one on your options when you get offended number one Overlook the offense Proverbs 19:11 says good sense makes one slow to anger and it is and it is his glory to overlook an offense this means to not be troubled
 threatened by an offense to almost pity the offender and put Let It Go instead of despising the offender it's just just just overlooked it you just go on and and there's been so many times where I've been someone's written the most nasty thing to me and I just go there so hurt I feel so bad how broken they are you drive and all the sudden you accidentally cut someone off you don't realize that you're just do you cut in front of someone in and they look at you with red fire eyes both fingers flipping you off yelling and cussing at you
 do you choose to get offended and fight back now. I just got home and I feel so bad for them have to be so broken to be that angry about a traffic thing Jesus modeled overlooking offense perfectly when he's on the cross and he says father forgive them for they know not what they do
 so talk about overlooking offense if Jesus can pull that off arms open wide being murdered and Overlook the offense we have a pretty high threshold for overlooking the fence and mature Christians saying they don't have a chip on their shoulder but they just kind of makes me think of James chapter 119 says be swift to hear slow to speak and slow to anger and if you can pull that kind of stuff off then you can Overlook offenses now not every fence need to be overlooking that's why Veronica is going to hit number to hey Dale Partridge here I recently heard a disturbing statistic only eleven percent of Christians have read the entire Bible now we can't wonder why the church is being influenced by the culture more than the culture is being influenced by
 the church the vast majority of Christians don't know God's word because they've never read it we cannot live out what we do not understand so Veronica and I want to challenge you right now to read the Bible in one year we put together a basic 365-day reading plan that'll take you no longer than 20 minutes per day and you can download it for free at relearn church.org Bible again that's relearn Church. Org forward slash Bible
 number to confront the offender in Matthew 18 which is mentioned multiple times here for chapter 18 verses 15 through 17 it says moreover if your brother sins against you go and tell him his fault between you and him alone if he hears you you have gained your brother but if you will not hear you take with you to one or two more that by the mouth of two or three Witnesses every word may be established and if you refuses to hear them tell it to the church but if your butt if you refuses even to hear the church let him be to you like a heathen and a tax collector
 so when you're directly offended by somebody do you go and talk to other people about it no no you go to them alone why do not in it and if you are going to other people you're gossiping in that sending you need to do is go to that I've gotten myself and we have seen this in our own experience so many times this problem of going to somebody else before going to the person you're offended by it's so dangerous just don't do it if you're offended keep your mouth shut and go talk to alone and I'm going to say go let's just say that I was offended Abdallah defense it's a repeat offense I'm not going to Overlook at this point because it needs to be corrected and it just in that person's life let's just say that it's another man
 I'm not going to go to another man's wife and correct his wife what I am going to do is I'm going to bring Veronica and I'm going to bring the husband together and we're going to talk about it as couples because we are one and our marriages and we're going to go together as couples and so be careful about that as well Proverbs 17:9 says he who steals a transgression seeks love so you can seal it you hide it
 now that can be taken in a very negative way and yes I use discernment because the Catholic Church will use this passage reference of concealing illegal activity that's different that's different I'm talking to a personal one-on-one transgression that's not against the law but a personal matter
 but it says he concealed the transgression seeks love but he who repeats a matter meaning he speaks it to the public or speak to the others separates intimate friends were called to protect the reputation of others not spout off their failures to other people
 that's really hard this means if someone comes to you with a complaint about another person
 it's your job another person that you know like you're complaining about something in your church you're supposed to say.
 Stop talking to me about this go directly to that person and talk to them that's because you do so and your hope is for repentance it in when she returned with forgiveness and restoration is achieved in relationship with you and with Christ and what not walking sin anymore and get back into that relationship I've mentioned earlier that we've had to deal with the fence many many many times over the last six years and generally most of the time this is the outcome but if you work hard though in your humble you can get there I want to make one quick caveat
 is the difference between a personal correction and a public correction meaning that let's just say that someone in my church has a personal issue I go talk to them personally now let's just say that you here teacher
 teach publicly a pastor teaching false Doctrine publicly or a movie star or someone famous and teach something publicly if it's taught publicly and it can be corrected publicly
 it's an offense against you this is a different like Realm of rules Peter
 does something sinful in his ministry Paul correction publicly because it was done publicly and so this is different about calling out false teachers and things like that I don't want you to apply this one-on-one interpersonal Doctrine to the pain of false teachers Doctrine and vice-versa so I just want to clarify that for those that are even thinking about that which is probably a very small has a point but number three is get bitter and divisive and Hebrews 12:15 it says see to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God that no root of bitterness Springs up and cause us trouble and by it many become 25
 if you can Overlook the sin and you refuse to confront the offender in love straight to their face in person you will become bitter Johnson please don't ya bitterness will cause Division and division will bring doubt to the gospel
 it will and this is what happens
 if you don't confront it or if you don't overlook it you don't confront it you're just going to sit and stew on it
 and it makes people you got it is so divisive it's so bad for you it just ruins you know God is so just be careful that's a Fusions for 31 says let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you along with all malice and from the Apostle just put it away so if you if you're bitter right now you got to go and confront it or overlooked it
 because bitterness is another word for is called sin you're sinning being bitter doing the opposite of what scripture teaches you to do usually my experience people
 people struggle with forgiveness and bitterness because they forgotten how much they've been forgiven by Christ that's my experience and I would venture to say that if you haven't if you've already had a conversation you're still feeling better you haven't truly forgiven the person so sometimes people have actually been confronted or I thought I overlook that and they're still better you got to Search Your Heart make sure that a root of bitterness doesn't take root like it grows and 15 Jesus has but if you do not forgive others their trespasses neither will your father forgive your trespasses how many Unforgiven people are in heaven that's a scary scripture make sure that you're careful about forgiveness
 so to wrap this all up interview as a Christian you have three options during times of events one Overlook it because of your deep love for the person to confront it in love and with the hope for restoration and number three get better and divisive and put the gospel and her relationship with Christ in Jeopardy option 3 and sell the stuff is always hard I would say be prayerful be humble favorite quote from Matt Jacobsen you can argue with a humble person be soft be quick to listen as what the scriptures say the Lord can restore even the toughest
 relationships if we simply just do what is when you guys leave a review again just go to your podcast app and just tap the Stars we would love to have a review from you guys they do help the exposure the show again if you're interested in the ultimate program ultimate marriage.com notify and if you want to see the show notes the scriptures reference the YouTube video of this episode just go to relearn church.org listen on that note you guys next week
 hey Dale Partridge here you may not know but real Christianity is actually an audio ministry under our nonprofit organization relearn church.org bring the church back to the Bible and secondly to relearn what it means to be the church in the world now we do this in two ways the first is we offer a library of biblical articles and sermons as well as a variety of podcasts and videos completely free to the public secondly we offer Seminary grade curriculum and workshops to train Christians on how to plant biblical house churches and National communities as of now we need your help to meet the demands of our annual budget if our work or this podcast has been impactful in your life would you prepare fully consider supporting relearn Church financially from $10 per month and up every little bit helps if this interests you you can make a tax-deductible donation at relearn church.org
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