Navigating Offense: Christians' Response to the Olympics Controversy

Welcome back to another episode of "Feeding My Faith." I'm your host, Dave Jackson, from theschoolofpodcasting.com. Today, we're diving into a hot-button issue that has set social media ablaze—the controversial opening ceremonies of the 2024 Olympics in France.

Many Christians were outraged, claiming the performance mocked the Lord's Supper. But before we jump to conclusions and join the frenzy of recreational outrage, let's take a moment to dig deeper.

Is this really an attack on our faith, or are we missing a crucial perspective? Join me as we unpack the ceremonies, explore biblical guidance on dealing with offense, and challenge ourselves to respond with love, understanding, and above all, Christ-like compassion. Grab your headphones and let's get started!

Mentioned in This Episode

7 Habits of Highly Effective People

James 1:19

Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger.

In Exodus 14:14

The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still

Romans 12:19

Vengence is Mine

Proverbs 19:11

Good sense makes one slow to anger, and it is his glory to overlook an offense.

Leviticus 19:18

“You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.”

Colossians 3:13

Bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.

Romans 3:23

For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

Romans 12:2

Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

Luke 11:4

Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.

Luke 23:34

Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.

KellyK Ministtries

Recreational Outrage

The new national past time of yelling at every who and letting them know how wrong they are.

Jesus Sat at a Table

Thomas, the doubter

Peter, who would deny him multiple times

Judas, who would betray him.

Was Jesus offended by these people?

No, he washed their feet and shared a meal.

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Today on feeding my faith, should I be outraged over the

Olympics opening ceremonies? Kick the doors open. Let the party

begin.

Hey. Welcome to Feeding My Faith. I'm Dave

Jackson from the school of podcasting.com. This is

where we try to make God simple. I love Jesus,

hate religion. And, I don't know, did you see

the opening ceremonies of the Olympics here in France

2024. These people dancing around

in robes and all this stuff. And

the next day, look, I don't really watch the news because most of it is

just commercials for, you know, drugs, and

I I could not escape this story. People were

losing their minds because the opening ceremonies

mocked the Lord's supper.

And I looked at it was like, holy cow. There's that person in the

middle with like a little halo over their head and a bunch of people around

the table, and I was like, sure. It looks like they're holy cow. And then

I saw a picture of the da Vinci painting, and then I saw a

screenshot of the opening ceremony. I was like, holy cow. They're mocking the

Lord's Supper. I don't believe this. I can't this is blasphemy. This is

outrage. This is disrespect. I I hate

it when non believers act like,

non believers. Yeah.

I couldn't believe it. I mean, exactly how did they mock

it? Oh, they dressed up in costumes and they

went around the table and there was some big guy looked like Papa

Smurf, but he was naked. Wait. What? I

mean, at my church, we dressed up in old costumes and sat

around a table. Is that wait. Hold on. And

then I did a little research. Remember, there's that great book. No, not the

Bible. That's a great book. There's another book called

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, and one of those

habits is understand before being understood. So I

went to see, well, wait, did was that on purpose? Like, what's

going on here? And the director of the opening

ceremonies, he said that basically it was about,

the feast of Dionysus, not the Lord's Supper, where

Dionysus arrives at the table because he's the Greek god of

celebration and that sequence is called festivity

and the god of wine which is also a French jewel

and father of sequana the goddess linked to the river

sign. The idea was to create a big pagan party

in link with the God of Mount Olympus and I'm like is that really the

first impression you want of the opening ceremonies of the Olympics?

Okay. And he says and you will never find me or my work

or anyone really mocking anyone.

You know, my great first impression, viva la France. Okay. If that's what

you say. And I get it. I saw a lot of

people losing their minds. Christians.

Like, look, Dave. I'm I'm offended. I'm I'm just offended.

And when you're offended, what happens? You are

quick to anger and we head for the nearest

platform, your phone, your computer, whatever it is, and you take part

in America's number one activity, no not pickleball,

recreational outrage, and you just tell everyone,

you're wrong. You're wrong. This is wrong. You're all out of

order. Right? But wait. What

does the Bible say again? James 119.

Know this, my beloved brothers, let every person

be quick to hear slow to speak

and slow to anger.

So am I mad at these people? Let's let's go with they

were mocking the lord's supper. You make up your own mind on that, but

let's just for giggles. Let's say they were

doing that on purpose. Am I mad at these people?

I mean, I'm I'm not going to get mad at sinners for

sinning, right? I mean,

do we get mad if we get a puppy and it

pees on the floor? I mean, isn't that what

they do? Right? And

I know you might be saying, no,

Dave. You don't get it, though. I am seriously offended.

Like, how am I supposed to react? Well,

as Christians, I mean, Jesus said it's gonna get

worse before it gets better. So we really shouldn't be offended by

anything the world does. I mean,

if you think about it, we know better.

They don't.

And the truth is, as I researched this, look,

I could have gone either way on this particular topic because

I saw like God shall not be mocked and I was like,

But then I saw a lot of other scriptures

about not being offended.

And there's a guy on Facebook. I think his name is

Kenny k. I'll put a link to him. He had to make

great point. He said, offense is the bait

of Satan. Right? So just picture of Satan on a boat

throws out his reel. Ring. Right?

We take the bait on that. We get all outraged. And then

he says when you think about it, when you are outraged, you're what? You're

filled with hate, disgust, outrage. Are you really in the

best place to communicate with God?

Because you've got a whole different lens you're looking through

and Satan's pretty happy about that. The other thing I thought

was interesting as I did some research on this, there was

I saw many, many screenshots of here's the da Vinci

painting. Here's the opening ceremonies, and you'd see that. But then

I saw one. It was da Vinci opening ceremonies and

then this other picture where someone had altered

the da Vinci photo. So it wasn't like, hey, is that

the Lord's Supper? It's like, no, it's the Lord's Supper, and they had taken Jesus

out of the picture. And I was like, wait, hold

on. They're doing what to who the And

what did they put in place of Jesus? Yeah. Donald Trump

and not a peep. So if it's so wrong

to, you know, alter this picture and you're mocking God and

but your Jesus and disrespect, yeah, unless you put Donald Trump

in there? Wait. Hold on. Which then you go, wait. What's the difference

between this and that? Oh, those were trans people.

So Satan is like, yep. Gotcha again.

Because now you look like homophobes and transphobes and every other kind of

phobes there are. Probably got a pretty good laugh

out of that. Because I didn't hear anybody saying I'm

outraged that they altered this this picture

and so what we need to do and

sometimes for some people this is easier said than done.

We need to separate the sin from the people

because I realize you're like, Dave, that's evil. Okay. That's

what you believe, but I'm not

saying being tolerant of evil and going, ah, no big

deal. No. No. No. We gotta gotta keep our eye on that.

But we should hate the evil in the world,

but we should love the people.

Again, sometimes a little harder for some people to

do and then people are like wait a minute Dave

this outrage thing it's okay to be outraged

you're like really they're like yeah of course because, you know, Jesus

overturned the tables. And you're like, okay.

Yeah. Okay. Got it. Totally see that

but where was he again when he did that oh that's right he

was in the church And,

who was doing all this bad stuff? Oh, that's right. The the church.

And so it wasn't a bunch of non believers.

It was believers. It was the people in the church and there's a

that makes that a completely different situation.

1 is basically going

to believers and going, hey, knock it off. And the other

one is attempting to be the

light in what appears to be a very dark

world. Apples, oranges.

So I'm sorry if you're like, oh, I can't wait to play that card.

And have you ever, when you

were growing up played your parents, right? You

knew what pushed their buttons. I put on

Oscar award winning winning performances.

As a kid, I could throw a tantrum and within 5

to 10 minutes, I had my mom in the palm of my hand

and, you know,

what if they did this on purpose

to offend us, and what if they went out and they

said, hey, look. Look. We're mocking your God.

See? We're mocking God. Hey. It's your

God. Isn't this your number one guy, your Lord savior? Look. We're mocking him.

What if we instead of going, how dare you?

What if we replied, you know, aren't you? Look look

aren't you offended aren't you offended? No no I'm I'm not offended

actually because, I love you

and you could be doing so much more with your life right

now. God has a plan for you

and I don't think this is it. What if

we said that? That would be different,

right? And I always

go back to the one of the best

marketing strategies for Christians is when they were thrown to

the lions. Right? Have a bunch of people in a stadium,

throw the Christians out there. They're sitting in the middle of the ring.

Lions come out. What do they do? Do they run and scream? Do they

cry? No, they prayed. They prayed and people

went wait, this isn't any good. This isn't any fun.

These people were weird. Big big, must have

been a sale on the word weird this week. It's been

used a lot. But nonetheless,

it looked weird because everybody else was screaming and running fighting for

their lives. Nah. And so

when we react in a way that's different from the world, we are gonna look

a little strange. Like well that's different. And

that difference is what draws people. They're like I got

to check into what's going on. This seems weird

and I get it. They're like Dave, but I'm I'm really upset.

Come on. I want a onward Christian soldiers. I want to stand up stand up

for Jesus. Okay. I get that. I really do.

But does God really need us to fight his battles?

In Exodus 14 it said the Lord will

fight for you. You need only to be

still. And I get it. You want to

stand up for Jesus. Well, okay, stand in love

because God has been defending his name

for quite some time. He's pretty good at it, and

our job is to trust in his promises

and be that light that he's called us to be.

After all. What's that verse? You've probably heard this one.

Vengeance is what Right? Romans

12/19. Vengeance is mine, not

yours. Not, hey, can you take care of this for me? No. God

said no vengeance is mine. I got it. I got it.

Don't worry about it. And the other thing

you have to keep in mind sometimes when we want to do protests, we grab

our torches and our pitchforks and our signs.

We're all set. They don't always work.

Sometimes all we're doing is putting a flashlight

on behavior that shouldn't be rewarded.

In 1985, 19 record labels started

using the parental guidance explicit lyrics

sticker. That's when it was invented. It took 5 years

for an album to come out that had the song f the

police on it. But in 1990, 0% of the

songs of like the top 20 or the top charts or whatever,

0% were marked explicit. Fast forward to

2021, 40% were marked

explicit. So a little over 10 years.

Now why were 40% marked explicit?

Oh, it's simple. They sold more. You put a

sticker on an album and tell a kid you can't listen to it. That's all

they want to do and it worked. Have you ever

told a teenage girl not to date a specific boy?

You're like, yeah, Dave. I did. He's my son-in-law.

He's still a loser. Turned into Hank Hill all of a sudden.

Bobby, propane and propane accessories.

Alright. Anyway, here's another one. Joe Rogan

in 2020, got a

deal, 200 $1,000,000 to

do his podcast and to do it only on

Spotify. Now, Joe brought

up the drug. Again, remember the times here,

2020. So the pandemic's going on,

and Joe brings up the Nobel committee

back in 2015. They nominated

ivermectin for an

award and if you don't remember ivermectin

it's a multifaceted drug and in 2021, it

was found notable, it helped to reduce

COVID fatalities. And what was interesting

about that is, you know, big

pharma owns the media and ivermectin is

really cheap. Well, you can't have that. So they

got the media together and they're like, hey, this guy, that's it we're all gonna

get on Joe Rogan he's a horrible human being he's he's putting

out misinformation and you know,

it's horse dewormer. He's telling people to eat horse dewormer.

Right. Regardless of the awards, I believe it was

ivermectin. It might have been the other one that actually helped World

War 1 veterans, but you know this guy is crazy

and the musicians Neil Young and then the next day

Joni Mitchell and then the next day Crosby Stills and Nash they

all pulled their music from Spotify

which would have been a brilliant idea if it

was 1970. But alas it was

not and it didn't really have much effect.

Fast forward to 2024. First of

all, all those musicians have since brought their music

back because, you know, they need to eat. But in 2024,

Joe got a new contract

for $250,000,000 and, oh, that whole

exclusive thing, you can only get me on Spotify? Yeah. He can be

anywhere. So

that's one example. I got another one here real quick. Colin

Kaepernick was a quarterback for the

San Francisco 49ers and he really hated

injustice. He kept noticing there were a lot of,

innocent black males getting killed, and that

seemed to kind of upset him a bit, upset me a bit.

And the media got a hold of that, and we were

told that somehow he didn't like the troops.

He didn't like the troops. America. Okay.

And it went on and on. Did anybody try to understand before being

understood and go, hey, Colin. What's your deal? Why you kneeling during the, during

the national anthem? Because he would have said, I need people to look at

the injustice that's going on. Nobody's talking about the fact that all these

innocent black males are getting killed, and nobody seems to care.

No. They just America. He hates the troops. And it

was this whole big thing. Are you gonna kneel or not? And or

the team. It was a whole big deal. And so what happened?

Well, Nike gave him an advertisement deal.

And people were like, oh, how can you he's got a pair of shoes. You

can't do that, America. Troops. Nobody's talking

about hey. Does this guy have a point about the people getting killed? Nope. Nope.

Just America. True. Shoes. Burn the shoes. Everybody burn your

shoes. Right. Well, it turns out all that

that extra America, burn your shoes kind of thing. Yeah. The shoes took

right off. I think people bought them to burn them, but, nonetheless,

that campaign didn't really work. In the end,

Colin got paid, and Nike sold some shoes. America.

Good job. So when I

say there are plenty of

passages in the Bible,

Proverbs 19, good sense

makes one slow to anger, and it is his glory. So when

you think about his glory, think about God's maturity to

overlook an offense. In

Leviticus 1918, you shall not take vengeance or bear a

grudge, yet the sons of your own people, but you

shall love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord.

13, bearing with one another and,

if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each

other. As the Lord has forgiven you,

so you also must

forgive. Romans 3 23,

for all have sinned and

fall short of the glory of God.

And I get it. Sometimes somebody says something

and it just goes right through your heart, and it

hurts. Been there, done that, got the t

shirt, but being offended, that's a

choice made by us. Now, often, it's a

knee jerk reaction to being hurt. Hurt is

very much an emotion and offense

is very much a logical thing, but it doesn't seem that way

because it was triggered by hurt. But

hurt requires healing and offense requires an

objective opinion and it requires a dose

of just letting it go. It's a choice. You can

choose to hold on to it, and I think that's what the media wants us

to do. The media wants us all mad at each other.

How can you even think that? Right? Because we're too

busy getting mad at each other to notice what they're doing behind the

scenes. And so what do we do? Well, we end up

screaming at each other and we end up screaming what we're against

And as Christians, we shouldn't be responding

the way the world does. I feel bad for any

middle aged white woman named Karen. But if you go to

YouTube and type in Karen losing her cool,

there are plenty of videos of recreational

outrage, and I realize that that's given Karen's a bad

name. I have a cousin Karen who's absolutely amazing.

So but there are some people out there

and they're just losing it and so we shouldn't be

responding the way the world does because we have something the

world doesn't have. You see, if we truly

wanna make a change in this world for Jesus, we

need to stop talking so much about what we're against and

start telling people what we're for and what we're

for is Jesus changing lives. What

we're for is the love of Jesus being all that we need

and forgiveness forgiveness

forgiveness. Romans 12:2,

do not be overcome by evil, but overcome

evil with good.

And I get it. You're like, Dave, I understand. I still feel

hurt, and they're getting away with it. We

can't let them get away with it. Well, that sounds like a

competition, but are we

really letting them get away with it? Do you do you not

think God is taking notes? Right?

It's better instead of holding on to them,

fighting God's fight that we don't need to fight. He's got it handled.

God is always in control. We could be giving them

to the Lord. Just offer them up in prayer.

Plant that seed

because you know who wasn't offended?

Jesus. I mean, think about it.

If you go to the Lord's prayer, what does it say? Forgive us

our sins as we forgive those

who sin against us.

And what about as they're putting

nails in his hands and his feet?

Forgive them for, you know, father forgive them for

they know not what they do. Didn't seem

too offended. And

I'm gonna get a little loosey goosey here with the scripture, so bear with

me. But I just wanna I just wanna put a scene out

there in your head, right? A little theater of the mind.

We know the picture of the last supper. We've seen da

Vinci's picture. But

what if Jesus just bear with me. Stay with me here. What

if Jesus was fashionably late? Alright. All the boys

are already lined up. They got a seat for him in the middle.

He walks in, looks at Thomas.

In his head, he's probably thinking, yep. That guy's gonna doubt me in about a

couple hours. He looks at Peter.

Yep. That guy's gonna deny me pretty soon.

So he walks in, sees Thomas.

Yeah. That guy's gonna doubt me. What's

up, Tommy? Little fist bump. Pete.

What's up, Pete? Good to see you, buddy. Jesus

knows. Yeah. That's the guy that's gonna deny me. Not once, not twice, but three

times. Matthew,

you know, back in the day, dirty, dirty tax collector. There's

nobody worse than a tax collector, and there he is at Jesus

table and, of course, Judas.

Jesus knew all these guys.

Well, Matthew didn't, but, you know, they they were all

going to betray him in one way or another here,

and, he wasn't offended. In

fact, what did he do?

He washed their feet. He

washed their feet knowing that that guy was

gonna doubt me. That was guy was gonna deny me, and that guy is gonna

betray me. He washed

their feet. I mean even later

when they went out in the garden and Jesus got arrested

in Luke 22:49 when Jesus followers saw

what was gonna happen, uh-uh Not gonna

take my Jesus. Can't arrest him. They said,

Lord, should we strike with our swords? And one of them, that

was Peter, struck the servant of the high priest

cutting off his right ear. But Jesus

answered, no more of this. And he

touched the man's ear and healed him.

It doesn't sound too offended. Recreational

outrage. It doesn't seem to be working as

a strategy. Do you think? Is anybody are we

changing anybody's mind screaming at them?

We're falling into Satan's trap. We are

known more for our hate.

Jesus overturned the tables. How many times?

And then how many times did he show love and compassion?

Well, maybe we should try love,

compassion, and forgiveness.

I hope you found this episode helpful.

I hope you think twice maybe the next time you see some

bait out there put out there by Satan.

If you know somebody who likes to play in the American

pastime that is recreational outrage and they're a believer,

remember Jesus turned over the tables because it was the

believers that were acting like, well,

nonbelievers in a way. Could you do me a

favor and and share it with them? That would be awesome.

The website feeding my faith dot com, if you feel

so moved, and we got a donate button out there somewhere. I'm Dave

Jackson from the school of podcasting.com. I

help podcasters. It's what I do, and I'm

hoping I'm helping you realize

that, there's a big difference between religion

and God. Take care.