When Offenses Come

From Gospel Translations

How to Forgive and Move On

“Can I get your number?” a woman from church asks you. “It would be great to get together sometime. I’ll reach out!” She doesn’t.

“Hey, what’s your name again? Steven?” He’s already asked you two times. Your name is Colin.

I know of a recent church conversation where one woman said to another, “Wait, are you really 39? I would have thought 42, maybe 45. You have all those grays.”

If you have been part of a church for long, you probably have felt small stings like these. Little annoyances and minor grievances may sometimes feel like one more part of the liturgy. We pass the peace; we also pass the peeves.

You probably have also felt larger stings, maybe much larger. These are thorns you can’t pluck out so easily, jabs you can’t laugh off. A brother’s carelessness keeps replaying in your mind. A sister’s comment turns a sunny day dark and leaves you distracted and distressed. Try to throw the memory away from you, and it comes back like a boomerang.

The apostle Paul tells us what to do when such offenses come: “Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another” (Ephesians 4:32). Without regular forgiveness, the love of a local church dies. Eventually, the church dies too. But how do we move from offense to forgiveness, especially when the moment keeps coming to mind?

We might find help from a few prayerful, deliberate steps: Steady your heart before God. Consider whether to overlook or address. Then resolve to wipe the record clean.

Steady Your Heart

In his wonderful little book The Quest for Meekness and Quietness of Spirit, Matthew Henry describes the meek soul as “like a ship that rides at anchor . . . ‘moved, but not removed.’ The storm moves it (the meek man is not a stock or stone under provocation), but does not remove it from its port” (65).

A strong offense may make us feel, at first, like a ship driven across a wild sea. Our hearts ride waves of emotion as the moment storms through our mind. We may feel like taking some immediate action to address the offense: confront, strike back, vent, or at least fume and accuse inwardly. But amid such turbulence, our first priority is to regain our soul’s composure. Throw down an anchor. Steady your heart.

Consider your God

Just before Paul tells us to forgive, he lists some other responses to personal offense, responses more familiar to our flesh: “Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice” (Ephesians 4:31).

How do you naturally respond when someone sins against you? Some respond in loud and aggressive ways: “wrath,” “anger,” “clamor.” Blow up. Cause a ruckus. Send a text in all caps. Others respond in quiet and passive-aggressive ways: “bitterness,” “slander,” “malice.” Cherish the grievance. Whisper what happened. Fantasize revenge.

But how did God respond when we sinned against him? “Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you” (Ephesians 4:32). Dear brother or sister, God did not ridicule you for your sins against him. He did not slander you among the angels. Nor did he take his just wrath and pour it upon your head. In Christ, he carried your offense, buried your guilt, and crowned you with kindness instead.

And so he crowns us still. How patiently he bears with us, how kindly he forgives us, every single day. Meditate on his mercy long enough, and offense might just melt into tenderness; bitterness might give way to the love that bears and believes all things (1 Corinthians 13:7). We might say with Martyn Lloyd-Jones, “Whenever I see myself before God and realize even something of what my blessed Lord has done for me, I am ready to forgive anybody anything” (Ten Questions to Diagnose Your Spiritual Health, 119).

Consider your Brother

In the light of God’s kindness, our brothers and sisters begin to look different. The offense may have reduced them to a single dimension: He’s the thoughtless one who doesn’t even realize what he’s done. She’s the cruel one who caused me so much pain. But now another dimension appears: he or she is the fellow sinner in need of patient mercy.

“Every snub and jab and wound invites you into deeper fellowship and joy with your forgiving Lord.” We say something significant to our brothers and sisters by the way we respond to their offenses. Our actions evangelize; our practices preach. When we withhold mercy, we say, “There is no gospel for you — only law.” But when we return good words for evil, or when we wrap another’s wrongs in longsuffering love, or when we say, “I forgive you” (and mean it), we dare them to remember that Christ came among sinners like us preaching peace (Ephesians 2:17).

The air of our Father’s home is grace — grace from basement to attic and floor to ceiling, grace in every room. He crowns us with grace, clothes us with grace, sings over us with grace (Romans 5:2). Far be it from us, then, as the children of this God, to replace his grace with malice, gossip, passive-aggressive paybacks, or bitter distancing from a brother or sister whom God has forgiven.

Consider Yourself

Turn now to yourself. Moments of offense bring the soul to a crossroads: one way takes us toward misery, the other toward peace and joy.

Hear Matthew Henry’s warning: “We may certainly have, and do well to consider it, less inward disturbance, and more true ease and satisfaction in forgiving twenty injuries than in avenging one” (Quest for Meekness, 60). Far better to forgive twenty times over than to get even once — and not only for your brother but for yourself. In the moment, of course, forgiveness feels far more painful than getting revenge or holding a grudge. But only in the moment. Forgiveness is medicine whose bitterness heals; the grudge poisons with sweetness.

Accusations and unbridled anger, hostility and enmity, strife and division — these are devilish passions, and the devil is not a happy creature. But mercy draws us near to the Lord who lived and died with forgiveness on his lips and whose joy was brim-full (John 15:11). To be like him — to forgive like him — is fresh air and blue sky, rich food and good friendship, freedom from long bondage.

Offenses are gifts wrapped with dark ribbons. So don’t let the packaging deceive you. Every snub and jab and wound invites you into deeper fellowship and joy with your forgiving Lord.

Overlook or Address

For many, steadying the heart will prove the hardest part of responding to an offense. But once we have regained some composure — once we are “moved, but not removed” — a difficult task still lies ahead: we need to decide if this offense should be overlooked or addressed.

Most of the time, the path of love will lead us to overlook. So many irritations, provocations, annoyances, and offenses happen in local-church life. Were we to address all of them, we would exasperate both ourselves and our friends. We would also ignore the wisdom that says, “Good sense makes one slow to anger, and it is his glory to overlook an offense” (Proverbs 19:11).

But sometimes, the injury goes deep enough or another’s sin seems serious enough that love calls for a conversation. To discern whether an offense has reached that level, we might once again consider God, our brother, and ourselves.

• In relation to God, how severe is the offense? How much does it dishonor him?
• In relation to your brother, how aware (or not) does he seem to be of the offense? Does he already know he needs to grow in this area, or does he seem blind to it?
• In relation to yourself, how much has the offense hindered relationship, even if just in your heart?

The more a brother or sister has dishonored God, the more unaware he or she seems of the offense, or the more our own relationship with this person is hindered, the more we should lean toward addressing the issue. Do it with kindness and a tender heart. Do it “in a spirit of gentleness” (Galatians 6:1). But do it. The glory of God, the soul of our brother, and the unity of the church all call us to say, “Can we talk?”

Wipe the Record Clean

So then, we have overlooked the offense or addressed it. We have thrust another’s sin behind us, or we have done the hard, awkward, but beautiful work of talking and repairing the relationship. Now all that remains is forgiveness — or what Paul describes elsewhere as wiping the record clean.

“Love . . . is not irritable or resentful,” Paul says (1 Corinthians 13:4–5). More literally, love “keeps no record of wrongs” (NIV). No doubt, love sees wrongs, feels wrongs, and sometimes can’t help but remember wrongs on some level. But in the file cabinet of the mind, love has no folder labeled “Wrongs.” Love does not engrave offenses in its records or keep careful track of sins. And even when the memories of such moments return, love says, “I have no place for you here.”

When we forgive, we look at a brother or sister and say (usually just in our heart), “I’m not going to count that against you. I’m not going to hold on to it or remind you of it. I’m not going to make that offense the lens through which I see you from now on. I’m not going to treat you worse because of it. I refuse to indulge any passive or active ways of getting you back. I wipe the record clean.”

We may need to make such resolves more than once, especially when the wound runs deep. And of course, some sins rightly remove trust from a relationship (at least for a time). But our local churches depend on such kind, merciful, forgiving love — and even the healthiest of churches give ample opportunity for practicing it.

So, when your brother offends you, steady your heart. Discern whether to overlook or address. And then resolve before God to wipe the record clean. The Lord who wiped your own record clean is ready and so willing to help.