Wednesday, December 01, 2004

• The Sin Trilogy:#1: Sin and the World

  So something that bothers me is a misunderstanding about sin. Most people will say, "Sure, sin's a bad thing, and I don't want to do it (much)." But what is sin? Naturally, I'm presenting the Christian/Biblical perspective (yeah, I don't manage that pantheist perspective well, had to give it up...). I do believe the Bible is authoritative, and thus I cite Bible references much the same as I would cite a proof or a book reference in a school report.

  First, I have a big complaint about Christians. Christians talk about non-Christian sin too much and Christian sin too little. Biblically, we have a responsibility to keep one another on the straight and narrow. We have NO responsibility to hold the world to Christian standards. See I Corinthians 5-6 for the background, esp. vs. 13. We naturally pray and seek to live in a world where we can practice a holy life without fear of persecution or threats. But otherwise, as I understand the Bible, we let the world do whatever they want. Perhaps I'm forgetting a Bible passage or two; call me on it, and whatever else I may say that's wrong. And if I had, say, a neighbor addicted to heroin, I would be scum not to say anything to him to convince him to give up his life-threatening habit. Life-threatening for him and me; one day he might decide to rob me if he was low on money.

  But I like something I was once told; “It’s the world. What do you expect?!” Seriously. I’m living among millions of people who believe that the last breath they draw on earth is their last for ever. Thankfully, they’re half-hearted about their faith; wimps! :-p  If I believed that, it’d be my responsibility to do EVERYTHING I could get away with to maximize my pleasure, and I’d be an only child by now! (I am the eldest, you know, heh-heh).  OK, so now that we’ve left the world alone, let’s talk about Christians. But some of you don’t know what sin is, so here’s a fast primer on it. I assume some of you are Christians, and that my non-Christian readers have activated the “Zealot Alert” and fled the premises :-p Seriously, if you’re a non-Christian, you probably won’t get much out of this; this post is about how Christians should live, not non-Christians. I’ll resume my regularly scheduled randomness soon enough.

  • 11:08 PM
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