Quote:
Originally Posted by HopePreacher
I think we have bandied about this poor, abused word "offend" entirely too carelessly.
I was once wearing a simple tie pen to keep my tie from getting in the way and a pastor came up to me and said, "Brother, why don't you take that thing off, it offends me." That same man some time later ran off with a woman in the church. I hope it wasn't my tie pen that caused that.
The word translated offend is "skandalizo" and, you guessed, it, that is the word we get "scandal" from. It literally means to put a snare or stumblingblock in the way.
When it is used in the case of one who has taken offense it means that one has actually stumbled or fallen.
To put in context, if a person stumbled, or fell, because of my beard I would wonder about their foundation.
Now, if they didn't like it and if it made them angry to see me with a beard, but they didn't stumble over it, then I would have no obligation to them.
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Offense has two meanings - skandalon and skandalizo. In our terms it would be defined as scandal and scandalize.
Skandializo is used primarily as something we often come against - just being annoyed or slighted by someone.
Skandalon means a trigger of a trap that has bait placed on it. The animal will touch the bait and the trap springs. In the moral sense it is referring to an enticement to some conduct that will ruin a person. In
Matthew 18:7 Jesus is concerned with the temptation or the enticement that will cause others to sin.
The Bible speaks in all of these verses of NOT being instrumental or having been instrumental in causing another to stumble and thereby fall into temptation and sin.