The story goes like this. Cain and Able each brought an offering to the Lord. Cain brought a bunch of random vegetables from his fields and Able brought the very best of what he had among his flock. God “looked with favor on Abel and his offering,” but not so much with Cain.
So Cain gets offended. Initially it was probably with God that he had the offense. After all it was God that he was expecting to get something from. He must have realized that God had done nothing wrong. They did have a talk about it, but Cain never dealt with the underlying anger and offense. He simply transferred it to the next closest target, his brother Abel, who had done absolutely nothing wrong.
Offense is when we get angry about a situation and we blame someone else for the thing we don’t like. In essence we judge them as being responsible for our anger.
I don’t believe that it is possible to walk with God and walk in offense at the same time.
To be offended means we have become angry and sinned by not taking responsibility for our anger. Furthermore we have begun to judge others out of our anger, not by looking at fruit. That sort of judging means that we are usually guilty of the very thing we are blaming on others (Matthew 7:1-2; Luke 6:32; James 4:11). So we can include hypocrisy in the mix. The offense itself actually becomes a barrier to prevent us from even dealing with the real issue. Because offended people feel justified they also often feel free to act on their offense even if those acts are obviously sinful. In our story, Cain killed Abel.
An offended person can’t be reasoned with until they are willing to see past their offense. When God confronted Cain, He did so with a question. “Where is your brother?” When God asks a question it is never because He is looking for information. Typically it is so that we can look at ourselves and learn about our true condition. Adam and Eve responded by evading God’s questions because they were afraid and ashamed, but once God made it clear that He already knew what had happened we find that they can be reasoned with. In subsequent chapters we find them still in relationship with the Lord (see Seth’s name Genesis 4:25). God asked David a question (about Bathsheba) through Nathan the prophet and again we find someone who when confronted with his sin was able to be reasoned with. Cain on the other hand responded to God’s question with more offense and a direct lie ( “I don’t know where he is.”).
Once God finally calls Cain on the carpet and begins to mention consequences, Cain responds with whining. “God, you’re being too hard on me.” (author’s paraphrase). In a sense he is almost saying, “my sin isn’t as bad as you make it out to be, so cut me some slack.” He never admits wrong doing or apologizes. And so a story that began badly, ends even worse. “So Cain went out from the Lord’s presence. . .” vs 16.
As followers of Jesus, we will be given many opportunities to take offense at others. We must jealously guard are hearts from this particular poison.
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