Should the Bible Be Offensive?

Should the Bible be offensive? In a world that prioritizes comfort and self-gratification, the truth of God’s Word can feel uncomfortable—because it confronts our sin. In this episode, we dive into why the Bible should offend us, not to condemn, but to call us into righteousness. Scripture was never meant to cater to our desires; it was meant to transform us, leading us away from what pleases the flesh and toward what pleases the Lord. Are we willing to let the Word challenge us, convict us, and change us? Let’s talk about it.

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Transcript

Erika-Michelle Best (00:00)
What up, what up, what up? It's your girl, Erica Michelle, coming at you hot with this topic. We were having Bible study at my local church here and a great question came about and I want to bring this to you guys and let's talk about it. Let's dive in. Okay. I'm going to ask you a question and I want you to think to yourself what your answer is at the beginning of listening to this. And as you make your way through listening I want you to ask yourself the exact same question.

once you get to the end of this and let's see if your answer is the same. So the question is, should the Bible offend you? Really think on that. Okay. Should the Bible offend you? Now we've got to start with some basic understanding. So we're all making sure we're on the same playing field with what our expectations are. So we're going to set some expectations. Okay. So what does it mean to be offensive? Offensive is causing someone to feel deeply hurt, upset,

or angry. That is what the definition of offensive is. Okay, that's what the question is based on. So based on that, ask yourself, should the Bible offend you? Okay. What does the Bible intend to do?

So now the next question is, what does the Bible intend to do? What's the purpose of the Bible? Can anybody answer that question? We should be able to. The Bible has been around for centuries, centuries. It's not a new book. It's the only book though that has withstood time.

It is the longest living book in history. Okay? So it's been around a while. So we all should be able to answer the question of what does the Bible intend to do? what is its purpose in our lives and for our lives? Now I understand that society is trying to distort and pervert what the Bible is, right?

But this is what society does. It distorts and perverts everything.

There's not anything that society doesn't work to distort or pervert from the purpose of a man and woman, from the purpose of marriage, the purpose of parenting, the role of a woman in a household, the role of a man in a household. the world has tried to pervert and distort every single thing. So it is no surprise at all that it also does the same thing with the Bible.

But again, back to the question, what is the Bible's purpose? What is its intention for us in our lives? It is intended to inspire you with the truth. is how I word that, in its simplest form, to inspire you with the truth. And I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that the Holy Bible is the only last living truth that we have in this world today.

Whatever you see on social media, whatever you're seeing on mainstream media, whatever your feelings are, whatever your thoughts are, whatever your opinions are, all of those things are not necessarily true. Most of those things are not even rooted in truth. People show you their highlight reels across social media, implying that their lives are perfect or that they're living some high society, high profile life with their videos and reels clips and

aesthetics with these perfect looking homes and the Pinterest worthy parties and all of these things, right? But what none of that shows you in the background is the work that went into that, the blood, sweat, the tears, the team, the family, all those things that went into that and the mess that was created after that that had to be cleaned up, right? They just show you the perfectly poised and polished, right? Creating this.

this level of comparitis and comparison that we all have to live up to and the standard that our homes have to be perfect looking and clean and aesthetic lines and neutrals and golds and blacks and all this like beautiful entryways with these massive trees and 20 trees in your homes and ornaments all over the place and these parties that are just so extravagant for your children and all of these color-schemed paper towels and cleaning solutions and all the things, right?

They're highlight reels. The world tries to imply to you that everything is perfect and wonderful and that's not truth. I don't care how perfect your life is. It is not 100 % perfect. I don't care how perfect your marriage is. It is not 100 % perfect. And I don't care what gets presented on social media. It's not 100 % perfect. So it's not truth.

The Bible, however, is 100 % perfect truth. And again, I know society is trying to convince a generation that the Bible is flawed. was written by man. It is offensive. We don't need this because it offends the class of people. And how dare the Bible say this? So we're just gonna tear this page out of the Bible because we don't need that in today's time. And let me tell you one thing the scripture says is do not take away from it and do not

add to it. And so when you have pastors behind the pulpit tearing out pages because something in the Bible has offended someone, the question shouldn't be, is the Bible the problem? The question, however, should be how we are perceiving and interpreting the Bible. Why are we offended by the Bible? And again, should we be offended?

by the Bible. Now you may have asked yourself that question at the beginning of this and said yes or no. Depending upon where you are in your spiritual walk, you're going to know what the answer should be. If you're new to this, you may say an answer that you think it should be, right? Because we're living in a world where nobody should be offended, right? So your answer might be, no, of course not. The Bible shouldn't offend us.

If you are a little further along or seasoned in your spiritual walk, you may have the understanding that the Bible might offend you. And it doesn't make the Bible wrong. It doesn't make it not truth. It makes it where it's doing what its job is, which is to inspire you with the truth. Inspire you to what, Erica Michele, you might be asking yourself. Inspire you to live a life for Jesus Christ.

Inspire you to be in the world, not of the world. Inspire you to be a disciple of Christ and to bring people and to help make heaven crowded. To inspire you to share the good news of the gospel. To inspire you to help somebody with your testimony. That is the Bible's intention. It is to share the truth, be the truth,

stand against the world and remain the truth and inspire you with that truth. Inspire you to live a life that is pleasing to the Lord, not pleasing to your flesh, not pleasing to your neighbor, not pleasing to your boss, your spouse, your children, not pleasing to anything other than God, because that is what we should be living.

That is what we should be following. That should be our moral compass. Not what we see before us on this earth. Not what feels good to the flesh. Because I'm here to tell you what feels good to the flesh is not always in alignment with what is pleasing to God. And if the Bible is sharing something with you that is pricking your heart, that is encouraging you to turn away from that, that wickedness, that hatefulness, that anger, that frustration,

If it's pricking your heart to turn away from those things, it's our job to move away from those things, even though it feels good to the flesh. Sin feels wonderful to the flesh. And we can all tell ourselves, well, I'm just living my truth. I'm just living how I want. I'm in my me era.

whatever you want to say, whatever little cliche thing, trend, whatever is going on for right now. But that is self-sabotage and it's self-sabotage in the worst way. Because the moment we start identifying with those types of slogans in life, we give the enemy a foothold. We give the enemy a foothold into our hearts and we start allowing the enemy to distort and pervert our purpose here in life. We start allowing the enemy to distort and

pervert the Lord's destiny for our lives. And the enemy then gets in there and

starts empowering you to feel like this is what I should be doing because this feels good to my flesh. We are not here to do what feels good to the flesh. I know that is a huge shocker for some people, massive. And some people, guess what? Some people are going to be offended by this message and that's 100 % okay. You have every right to feel about anything how you want to.

It does not, however, make your feelings fact. It, however, does not make your feelings true. It does not negate how you feel about something, okay? It doesn't at all. You have every right to feel about something the way that you want to, and it is okay. I will not be offended if you're offended by this message. I promise I won't. We are not here to live for the flesh. We are not here to live for what feels good. And if you wanna know,

How, what I'm saying is accurate. Look at the world before us. We are a society driven by a bunch of people doing 90 % of what feels good to their flesh versus 90 % to 100 % of what is pleasing to the Lord. And this is the world that we get. This is the society that we get. where a fetus is not a baby, but a man can call himself a woman.

We can't even decide and answer the question of what is a woman. We're living in a world where people are recording and videotaping these atrocities, people getting beat up and pummeled on, and people just standing by and watching. We're living in a society where someone jumps on a train and says, I'm going to kill this person and someone subdues him and they're on trial for murder.

We're living in a society where we are the most sick mentally, physically, and emotionally. Do you know why? Because we are a society 90 % driven by what feels good instead of what is pleasing to the Lord. And this is why, because what is pleasing to the Lord does not always match up with what we want to do. What is pleasing to the Lord does not always line up with how we want to go about our lives.

What is pleasing to the Lord does not always line up with how we see our future.

And that's okay, because here's the deal. living a life that is pleasing to the Lord will not fail you. The way living for the world will absolutely fail you. It will have you walking around offended by anything and everything, triggered, gaslit.

frustrated. How dare they? I would never. That's what you get when you have a society that is predominantly focused on itself and their eyes have shifted from keeping their eyes on the Lord and what he has in store.

Now, how do you know the Bible is working in your life?

It's simple. It's uncomfortable. The Bible is the only book that will read you, write you, and tell you all about you. It's only book. And how you know it's working is when you start feeling those pricks is when you start getting offended. And I want to encourage you to replace the word offended with convicted because we have convictions.

We have things that the Holy Spirit is trying to impress upon us and convict in us that we should not be engaging in. it may be personal convictions may be different for you than they are for me. In the Bible, Samson was convicted in that there was three things Samson couldn't do in the Bible. He was not to cut his hair. He was not to drink wine and he was not to eat any unclean meats. That may not be a conviction for you. That, however, was a conviction for Samson. Conviction for me personally,

The Lord convicted me in my tongue with the way that I spoke. used to curse like a sailor. The Holy Spirit said, give me control of your tongue and I'll change your life. So for me personally, that is a conviction. That was one of the areas in my life that the Lord worked with me on. For you, it may be drinking. For someone else, it may be hanging out somewhere that they shouldn't be. For someone else, it may be looking at certain magazines. For somebody else, it may be social media.

we all have different struggles and battles that become idols in our life. And so then the spirit has to convict upon us like, hey, hey, this is a problem here. And that might feel offensive because remember offensive is to call someone to feel deeply hurt, upset or angry. Sometimes it's frustrating to have to let go of some of those things that you enjoy. Right? I tell you what, if the Holy Spirit was like, Erica Michelle, you can't eat carbs no more.

gonna be upset. I love me some carbs. I love bread. I love all bread. love croissants and waffles and pancakes and French toast and biscuits and rolls and y'all I love potatoes and french fries. I love all of the carbs. And I'm here to tell you right now if for some reason the Lord said Erica Michelle you can't have carbs anymore. I'm gonna be upset. Will I follow it 100 %? Absolutely. Without a shadow of a doubt. Would it be hard?

Absolutely, I'd probably dream about carbs for six months before I let it go I'd have to have some real long conversations with the Lord about it before I let it go But would I do it? Yes, you know why because there's nothing on the face of this earth nothing and I mean Nothing, there's nothing on the face of this earth that is worth doing that is displeasing to the Lord and once you get to a place where you understand how deeply Jesus loves you how

deeply the Lord loves you. Your goal in life is to do what is pleasing to Him. That's what you want to encourage your children to do, even above pleasing us as parents. We want our children to do what is pleasing to the Lord, because guess what? If they're doing what is pleasing to the Lord, they're going to please you, because the Lord's not going to ask them to do anything that does not make them honor their mother and their father.

The Lord is not going to ask them to do anything that is going to go against any principles or morals you have in your family for your children. So you pray for your children to do what is pleasing to the Lord and it will fall in alignment with what you want them to do in life. So even above what is pleasing to us as parents, wanting our children to do what is pleasing to the Lord, it's unmatched. It's absolutely unmatched. Now, convicted.

Some people may not know what that is. Conviction, according to the Bible, to be deeply aware of one's sin and the need for repentance. society may tell you that what you're doing is okay. And by society's rules, what you're doing very well may be okay. But you need to take that to the Lord.

And it doesn't matter what it is. You need to take everything and present it before the Lord. And once the Holy Spirit convicts you in that, you need to make the decision. If the Holy Spirit convicts you and lets you know, yes, this is a sin. Yes, this is a problem. You need to turn away from it. That's what repentance means to turn away from, to walk away from, to back away and not slowly neither. Very quickly. It takes time in human years. It just does because we are human, we are flesh, we are flawed.

all of us. It takes time. It takes time to reconcile what your flesh wants to do compared to what the Lord is asking you to do. It does. It takes time. But the faster you get to it and the faster you accept it and the faster you're less offended by it, more convicted by it, and then begin to allow it to cause you to repent for it, the better your life is going to be. I can promise you that. And you know how I can promise you that? Because I've lived it. I've lived it. I continue to live it. Am I perfect? Nope. Make mistakes.

every single day of my life, which is why I repent every single day of my life. Sometimes I repent more than once in the day because I make more than one mistake, y'all. Some sins are bigger than the other according to society. Society has levels of sin, just like society has levels of laws, right? Has levels of sentences and punishments. But in God's eyes, sin is sin. And I know this is a hard concept for some people to understand from lying

to the worst kind of sin out there that you could think of,

Sin is sin when it comes to the Lord. So you can think you're all holy and high and mighty because your sin is not quote unquote that bad. Your sin is not that big. Your sin is little. But when it comes to the Lord, all of us are sinning. So a lot of people when it comes to sinning, they want to talk about the big ticket items, homosexuality, fornication, pornography,

Everybody wants to talk about the big ones, right? That's always on everybody's mind. But what's in your heart? It's easy to sit back from a stage and a platform or whatever and say, pornography is a sin. Homosexuality is a sin. Fornication is a sin. It's easy to sit back and say that and not examine in your own heart and say, okay, well, I've got this issue with my brother and my sister because the Bible talks about that too.

It says when you've got a problem with your brother or sister, you need to lay down at the altar and go work that out before you even try to present anything to the Lord.

So there are some things that aren't these big major things that are also sin as well. We are all living in sin because we are all flesh, human and flawed. And we need to daily be asking the Lord to reveal these things to us. Our prayer needs to be, Lord, convict me, offend me Lord. Because when he does, it's going to change your life and it's going to change your life for the better. Now, will you have to let go of some fleshly things that are hard and maybe will upset you and offend you? Absolutely.

but it will make your life better. Living a life that is pleasing to the Lord is always better than the alternative. Always. It is always going to be better than living for the world. Because when you're living for the world, you know who you're living for? You're living for the devil. Is that a life you want to live? It's not one I want to live. So, remember, offensive is to call someone to feel deeply hurt, upset, or angry. Yes, sometimes when you read things in the Bible, it's going to offend you. Does it make it?

Not true. Does it make it false? Does it make it where, this offends me, so I'm going to tear this page out of the Bible because it doesn't apply to my life and I'm going to keep going on and doing whatever it is I want to do. That's not the way it works, y'all. I know that's how some people want it to work, but that's not the way it works, y'all. Bottom line is, should the Bible offend you? Yes, it should. It should.

absolutely offend you. It should convict you. It should inspire and encourage you to walk away from fleshly desires and live a life that is pleasing to God.

I want to encourage you to read the Bible with the intention of allowing the Bible to prick your heart, to reveal the error in your ways and to change anything not pleasing to the Lord. Listen, Matthew 15 10 says, so Jesus was talking to a crowd and he said, listen, try to understand. It's not what goes into your mouth that defiles you. You are defiled by the words that come out of your mouth.

Then the disciples came to him and asked, do you realize you offended the Pharisees by what you just said? Y'all, Jesus was the definition of unbothered. Do you hear me? Jesus replied, every plant not planted by my heavenly father will be uprooted. So ignore them. They are blind guides leading the blind. And if one blind person guides another, they will both fall into a ditch. I know y'all have heard that before, the blind leading the blind, you both fall into a ditch.

Right, we've all heard that. That's been around for ages. That's biblical. It's Matthew 15, 10 through 14, and that is the New Living Translation. Luke 7, 23, And blessed is he soever shall not be offended in me. That's Luke 7, 23. That's the King James Version.

The Bible is supposed to offend you and I know you don't want it to and you want to take to social media so the world will validate you and it's going to validate you because the world lives for itself. The world is flesh and selfish and self gratifying. So yes, the world is going to validate you and whatever that is. The people who truly love you though, your brothers and sisters in Christ.

whose job and role is to disciple and to encourage you with the truth, the only truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, which is the living word of God, the Holy Bible.

There's going to be some offense. They love you enough to tell you the truth because our goal is not for you to have some extravagant, massive, wonderful, amazing, enriched life on earth. It's to help you get to heaven. That's our goal. That's what we are supposed to be doing. We are here recruiting to make heaven crowded. That is the goal.

And if you have someone in your life that loves you enough to offend you with the truth, I don't mean Bible beat you. I don't mean judge you. And I don't mean condemn you. Those are different things entirely. And yes, those are not how you go about anything. I'm in agreement with you on that. But if you have someone in your life, even just one person, some of us are lucky enough to have multiple. But even if you only have one that loves you enough to tell you the truth,

And I'm talking the biblical truth, not their truth, not their thinking, not their opinions, not their thoughts, but the biblical truth. You hang on to that person because that person loves you. That person loves you enough that they want to see you saved. They care about your salvation. They don't care necessarily about how you feed your flesh. They care about your eternity. And if you have a person like that in your life, hold on to them. Don't let them go.

Father God, I come to you in Jesus name and I lift up every single person that is listening to this right now, Lord God, in your mighty, mighty name, Lord God. And I'm thanking you that they do an about face, that they come to you with repentance, Lord, in Jesus name. I thank you that your word continue to move in their life or start to move in their life, Lord God, in a way that it has never done. I thank you for revealing to them the purpose of your precious, precious living word, Lord God. I thank you that they are able to.

ask you to reveal to them the error in their ways, Lord I'm thanking you that they allow you to reveal to them what is not pleasing to you, God. I'm thanking you and challenging them today, Lord, that they come to you and ask you to remove what is not pleasing to you, Lord God. And I thank you that you give them the strength to accept and endure that will that you have over their lives, Lord God. I'm thanking you for a move across

this nation, where we begin to set our eyes on you and stop living for the world and start living for what is pleasing to you, Lord. I thank you that we become okay with the Bible offending us and knowing and understanding that the purpose of the Bible is to create in us a work for you, to glorify you, to please you, to magnify you, Lord God. And I thank you that they have a heart that is hungry, that is hungry for you, Lord, and that is hungry for what you have for them in Jesus' name.

amen. Now ask yourself, should the Bible be offensive? I would like to encourage you today to pick up the word and start allowing it to move in your life, to inspire you, to love you, to convict you and to help you do an about face and live a life that is pleasing for the Lord and not.

what is pleasing to the world. That's all I've got for you.