Episode Details

Matt. 5:29 (KJV) And if your right eye OFFENDS you, pluck it out, and cast it from you: for it is profitable for you that one of your members should perish, and not that your whole body should be cast into hell.

Matt. 5:29 (AMP) If your right eye serves as a TRAP TO ENSNARE YOU or is an occasion for you to stumble and sin, pluck it out and throw it away. It is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be cast into hell. 

Offense / Offend – 

skan´-dal-on — “scandal” a stick trap (bent sapling), i.e. snare—a thing that offends, a stumbling block.

Satan’s Trap works through the part of you that reaches for the bait.  If it’s an eye or hand, Jesus said cut it off before it drags you to Hell. But what if it’s your attitude or thought that’s reaching to engage with something you don’t like or disagree with, that offends you?  In today’s culture of Victimization, Fault-finding, and Strife masquerading as Advocacy, people with Offended Attitudes are considered social heroes.  But Jesus says they’re just prisoners of offense.  And Jesus said, when it’s your Attitude that becomes stuck in The Trap of Offense, (just like the eye or hand) drop the issue before it enslaves you.  In fact, an offended attitude is the most damaging to your life because it enslaves Your Heart, which is the part of you through which faith and love must flow.  

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Matt. 5:29 (KJV) And if your right eye OFFENDS (TRAPS) you, pluck it out,… 

Jesus isn’t condemning the Bait, He’s condemning the TRAP!! He’s not giving a social rebuke against all the things in the world that can BAIT your attitude.  He’s warning YOU not to become Trapped by their Offense.  In short, no matter of how valid your Claim is about the Offense that Baits you, if you become trapped by strife, your enslavement is much worse for you than the issue that baited you.   

The Trap Of Offense Belongs to Satan

2Tim. 2:24-26 And the servant of the Lord must not strive; but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient, in meekness instructing those that oppose themselves; if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth; and that they may recover themselves out of the SNARE (TRAP) OF THE DEVIL, who are taken captive by him at his will.

In the 1860s an illegitimate Irish boy named Joel Chandler Harris worked on a plantation in Georgia, and spent all his spare time with the slaves. He later went on to compiled the life lessons and stories he learned from his older slave mentors, into a series called The Uncle Remus Stories.  One of the most classic stories, dealt with avoiding offense, and has been traced back to Africa, with variations of the story circulated around the world.  It’s called, THE TAR-BABY. 

The 2 main characters are a clever Rabbit, named Br’er Rabbit, and an conniving fox named, Br’er Fox.  Br’er Fox is always trying to capture Br’er Rabbit, and devises a surefire secret weapon especially designed to work against Br'er Rabbit's greatest weakness: his pride. He fashions a doll from tar and turpentine, called The Tar Baby, dresses him in clothes and sets him up at the side of the road where Br’er Rabbit’s certain to pass by and try to greet the Tar-Baby. Knowing that the Tar-Baby won’t respond to Br’er Rabbit, and Br’er Rabbit's ego won't let him overlook "offenses", Br’er Fox simply slides undercover beside the road and waits for the magic to work. 

Sure enough, Br’er Rabbit comes along, greets the Tar Baby, who rudely ignores him.  With his ego offended, Br’er Rabbit can’t leave it alone, starts brawling with the Tar-Baby and is immediately trapped and helpless to escape Br’er Fox, who’s waiting.  Whatever African wisemen devised the Tar-Baby proverb they nailed the schematic of Satan's