Sun Swing Studies Library

"Lest I Make My Brother to Offend"

Written by Brent Leavitt

The Premise

“I haven’t seen that movie before. What’s it rated?”
“It’s rated ‘R’.”
And that's the end of the discussion.

As children of God, one of the many blessings which accompany each human being is the ability to discern good from evil. In the infant stages of life, these rights and wrongs are very much black and white. However, the process does get more complicated as we progress spiritually, intellectually, emotionally, and even physically.

A profound benefit of increased Christian discipleship is a deepened understanding of the workings of the Holy Ghost. As we grow older, white and black swirl together into a gray, indiscernible to the natural eye. Hopefully, through the Spirit of God, we will always be able to discern black from white and right from wrong.

As we progress spiritually, from the letter of the law to the greater spirit of the law, we do things which we wouldn’t have done before. Things, which in our youth may have seemed harmless, are now viewed as debilitating. Things which appeared to be obvious violations of the law are now suddenly required when done in the spirit of love. Herein is where the Pharisees, almost comically, frequently missed the mark. Do we set pharisaic absolutes as our guidelines or do we teach Christian principles and let the people govern themselves? Obviously, the latter is the modern-day order.

Stepping beyond the conflicts with the Pharisees, we discover legitimate issues of discipleship. We want to be closer to our Heavenly Father. In our efforts to draw closer to Him, we learn that our behavior may affect others adversely while seeming harmless to us. So how do we avoid offending our brothers and sisters? Paul counselled, “Knowledge puffeth up, but charity edifieth,” (1 Cor. 8:1).