Just came back from helping out with my church's youth group and we were going over the book of Hosea, and as we were going through this, I am reminded by how misunderstood the world is concerning sin. Even as Christians, we sometimes put too much emphasis on a particular aspect of sin, and not the other part of it.

This is the misunderstood thought: Sin is when someone did something that you were taught as morally wrong, or when one causes harm to another person or their rights. 


This thought is too basic. I've seen this type of thinking on Vizzed and IRL. Some arguments of saying that a certain thing is not sin reveals that misunderstanding of sin. So here are some quick points that I made that I feel need to clarify about sin.

1. Sin is not breaking your standard, but God's standard. When the Bible said "Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness; sin is lawlessness." (1 John 3:4) It is referring to God's standard. Even with our conscience, it is Man's sin affects our perception of right and wrong, whether knowingly or unknowingly. People who do evil deeds are like those who are "in darkness" and that everyone who "does evil hates the light." (John 3:20) This is why we need to see God's standard of goodness, and God's standard of goodness is high and the Law shows sin to be "sinful beyond measure" (Romans 7:13). To add what I will say below, even by knowing "the right thing to do and fail to do it" is considered sin (James 4:17) That's how high God's standard is.

2. Sin is not just your actions, but also your thought life. God is omniscient and "his understanding has no limits" (Psalm 147:5) Even before you speak a word, God "knows it altogether" (Psalm 139:4). God even knows the thoughts of Man (Psalm 94:11) and God's goodness reach out to even our thought life. You can be sinning in your thought life as well, which is no surprise when Jesus said that looking at a woman "with lustful intent" has already committed adultery at heart (Matt. 5:27-28) or when, along with Jesus' teachings, John wrote that a hater of a brother is a murderer (1 John 3:15, also Matt. 5:21-22: "angry without cause") or when it said that God "opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble" (James 4:6) You don't need to physically do an action to be sinning.

3. Sin is not just about breaking standards, but also harming the relationship between you and God. This, I believe, is missed by more people than the 1st point. Sin has many times been thought of as the happenings towards each other. We can see that in the very first sin in the Bible was Adam and Eve. Their sin was not specifically harming another human, but that it's disobeying God, breaking that relationship with God. Look at idolatry putting more reverence on something that is not God. By our interactions, it doesn't affect us directly, but it is sinful to God for giving reverence to something else that is not real and didn't give us life. And, back to books like Hosea, Israel's idolatry is described like being an adulterer. So if someone argues that "oh, I'm not causing harm to other people. I'm doing my own thing", they misunderstand what sin is.


Someone else might remind us more about sin that I might not have mentioned here, but these are just some ideas of sin that I feel many people misunderstand about sin.

And like all sin, the bad news is the wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23), but the great news is that Jesus came and died for our sins and through repentance and faith in Christ, our sins are wiped clean (Acts 3:19, Mark 1:15).

This article can explain it better than I can, but it tackles the question of: Is it a sin to be fat?


In short, it says it's not a sin to be overweight, but it is a sin to indulge the bad behaviors that make us that way. People also need to be careful of the 'fat' label. Just because someone is overweight, doesn't mean they are sinning. They don't know what's on that person's heart. Only God does. It also makes a point that calling someone fat, regardless of how they became overweight, is actually a sin, whether it is meant as a mean gesture or not. Calling someone fat hurts that person & Proverbs 6: 16 - 19 states a few things God hates, among those is "a person who spreads strife among brethren."


So it's not a sin to be fat but it is a sin to be gluttonous(greedy or excessive indulgence) & to sow hurtful things(technically name calling could be considered a sin) among your fellow human beings.

Surgiac :

Yeah, Jesus should have been more specific about this. Especially about this.

Besides, if it makes you feel any better,  gluttony is not a sin mentioned in the bible. Nor any of the "seven deadly sins".

But

Philippians 3:19

Their end is destruction, their god is their belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things.

Proverbs 23:2
and put a knife to your throat
if you are given to appetite

Brigand : Well technically gluttony is condemned in the Bible.

"And they shall say unto the elders of the city, This our son is stubborn and rebelious, he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton, and a drunkard" (Deuteronomy 21:20)

While several things were mentioned there, gluttony was lumped in with his sins for which his parents were supposed to have the men of the city "stone him with stones, that he die".

However, Surgiac's post is correct as well. I don't agree with the verse used to back it up, but I do wish to remind us that Jesus said "...it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh!" (Matthew 18:7) And we can also see that saying hurtful things is directly contradictory to how the New Testament tells us to live.


Play4fun - The only thing I could think to add in your definition of sin is sins of ommision: "Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin." (James 4:17)
So we can sin by failing to do something we should, just as much as we can by doing something we shouldn't.

You know I disagree with the salvation part, but all in all this is a good thread. Nice work, man.

I liked your post from just reading Sin is not breaking your standard, but God's standard.

Also.

We have to think here: are we talking about our sins or are we talking about how Jesus saved us from those sins?

Eirinn :

It is true and I know that verse.But the "seven deadly sins" as such are not mentioned in the bible was all I was saying, eh?

Brigand : Ohhh okay. I've heard of the "seven deadly sins" but I don't remember what they entailed. I think the idea is drawn from Proverbs 6:16-19: "These six things doth the LORD hate: yea, seven are an abomination unto him: A proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, An heart that deviseth wicked imaginations, feet that be swift in running to mischief, A false witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among brethren." The seven sins concept was probably derived from that, but for what I recall the listed sins in that passage and the "seven deadly sins" weren't anywhere near being the same.

I'm not sure where they came up with those, but you are correct that they aren't in the Bible. In fact the entire concept is odd since any sin seperates us from God just like any other sin, so why pick seven seemingly random sins and call them the deadly ones? Maybe someone else knows where they actually did come from or why? Regardless, you're right, they're not in the Bible.

Eirinn :

If I remember right, the seven deadly sins are a concept that was made up in medieval times. The point was that since there are so many sins but they could all be considered as part of the seven deadly sins, which are to say, kind of like primordial sins. All the sins in the world could be considered to be derived from one of them. Something like this. Please add or correct if somebody reading this knows better or more. And sorry if my English fails on this subject.