Forgiving One Another - Pastor Steve LaValley
Recently I had the privilege of returning for one week to the responsibility of opening up the book of Proverbs during morning worship. The next Scripture text in line was Proverbs 19:11, which states: “Good sense makes [a man] slow to anger, and it is his glory to overlook an offense.” This passage has stuck in my mind since I read it.
Other Scriptures have also offered further strengthening of the intriguing idea of overlooking offenses: “Whoever covers an offense seeks love, but he who repeats a matter separates close friends” (Proverbs 17:9); “Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassion, 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” (Colossians 3:12-13); “I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (Ephesians 4:1-3).
Taking all of these things together, a number of facts become clear. People offend one another, and become offended, often and easily. Some individuals excel at one or the other: without even thinking, offending in the ordinary and mundane conversations and interactions of life. Still others excel at taking offense at the slightest provocation, question or doubt, real or imagined. Even speaking with such a person can be compared to walking across a rope bridge with rotted cross-members only every third of which is safe to step on and you’re not sure which is whole and which is rotten!?
The texts repeated above also point to the reality that offending one another occurs frequently in the church. Paul is writing to churches in Colossae and Ephesus and Proverbs is recorded for the use of the body of the church of the Old Testament. We are not left to wonder about God’s perspective on offending one another and being offended. All too often, though (and this is what is striking about these passages), we affirm the right path for dealing with an offending brother while neglecting to discuss the equally-strong injunction to not take an offense to what might or might not be legitimately offensive!
There is an intrinsic selfishness which we often ignore when we are offended by others. Full of self-righteousness we affirm our rights(!) and insist upon recognition and restitution. To take an offense demands that in some way we imagine ourselves innocent or undeserving, while necessitating an immediate assumption of guilt in the offender and perhaps malevolent and devious meanness.
In truth we grant far too much credit to others: most likely they are completely blind to their having offended us and the reason we are offended at all is that we have to high a view of ourselves and what we feel we as individuals are entitled to.
We are helped by the previous passages by keeping a record of these motivations: 1) Having been called by grace we are to live worthily of this high privilege of divine love; 2) Unity is a mark of the church dwelling together as God’s elect children in the bond of peace; 3) While following the example of Jesus Christ we are to forgive as the Lord has forgiven us—while we were yet in opposition to Him, even while repeatedly offending Him as rebels, and for no other reason than simple grace.
It is our ‘glory to overlook an offense.’ Home