Changing our thinking on Sin

What is sin? Is sin a cultural phenomenon? Does our understanding of what is sinful shift as popular culture changes its definitions of morality and right and wrong? Galatians 5 has some arresting and though provoking things the say. It starts of by calling believers not to live by your appetites

(19-21) Paul lists the acts of the sinful nature. And as you look at the list you notice a number of things, the first is the breadth of things covered in the list; there are sexual sins (sexual immorality), there is wrong worship (idolatry and witchcraft) which is worshipping anything other than God, and there are wrong relationships and attitudes towards others(rage, envy, jealousy, dissensions...). And how does he end this list? “and the like” It is not exhaustive, it is an exemplar list. These are not all the acts of the sinful nature but just a selection of them.

There is also, to our way of thinking, a range to these sins, we automatically put them on a sliding scale, with some at the more serious end others at the less serious end. I guess we’d say idolatry was serious, but what about sexual immorality? It covers any sexual impurity from pornography to adultery, is looking at a picture as bad as idolatry? In our day and age even adultery is not viewed as a particularly serious sin. And then there’s jealousy, envy, causing conflict, drunkenness, which I guess we put at the less serious end of the scale, in fact we may even be surprised to see them there.

But Paul says they are acts of the sinful nature, there is no sliding scale. Each one is contrary to living by the Spirit, contrary to loving and serving others. There is no such thing as a less serious sin, there are just the acts of the sinful nature.

But notice something else the sins on this list are all about me and my appetites. Worship how I want, sexual fulfilment how I want, relating how I want when I want and raging against it when the world isn’t how I want.

Your letter about Swine Flu tells you all about the symptoms, what to look out for and what to do if you have them. But actually the symptoms aren’t the problem; the problem is the virus that causes them. The actions Paul describes aren’t the problem our nature is. Jesus in Mark says it’s our hearts. You may have mild symptoms, you may even treat the symptoms, just as you can do with a cold or flu, but you still have the virus. And those symptoms show that we have a sinful nature.

The person who has trusted Jesus Christ has been transformed; they are freed from living in slavery to the law and the sinful nature. But we still have to do battle with it. We are in a war!
And we need to begin by changing our thinking. The world does not define these things as wrong. Getting drunk is just what you do, in fact for many it is what the weekend is for; sex is just another pass time another advertiser’s tool, and so on. Pornography is viewed as being harmless because it doesn't injure another person. But we need to change our thinking on what sin is so that we conform to the Bible’s definition not ours. How is your thinking on sin, it is never trivial.