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Sin

             For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. (Romans 3:23)

 Sin: violation of divine law, offense against God; moral wrongdoing," also "injury, mischief; enmity, feud; guilt, crime, misdeed," (Sin - Etymology, Origin & Meaning)


In your own words, what is sin? For some people, sinning is breaking the rules, either the Ten Commandments or the seven deadly sins: wrath, greed, pride, envy, sloth, lust, and gluttony. Sins are stuff some powerful but arbitrary individual decided he/she didn’t like. When I was in college, someone explained that the Greek term comes from archery, in which “sin” was the failure to hit the bullseye and/or the distance by which one missed. For most of us, that would seem a little silly. I mean, if you miss a bullseye by 0.01 inches, while that does convey the idea of sin as imperfection, it’s still likely to kill the animal, and it’s still so much better than the person who missed by three feet.

A similar way to look at it that might make it clearer is jumping from one building to another. It doesn’t matter whether you miss the other building by an inch or by ten feet; you’re still effectively Humpty Dumpty. Once you splat on the ground, it’s over. Another way is to take “sin” to mean “death.” If you sin, you are dead. But even these seem a little circumstantial. Sinning almost sounds like an accident.

If we understand sin to mean treason, I think we’re getting closer. The definition of treason is “the offense of attempting by overt acts to overthrow the government of the state to which the offender owes allegiance or to kill or personally injure the sovereign or the sovereign's family.” (TREASON Definition & Meaning - Merriam-Webster). If the sovereign declares “Do not steal” and you decide you’re going to say that stealing gum is not and should not be illegal, you’re attempting to overthrow the government. Rejecting the law is treason.  Rejecting the sovereign (“He’s not my king!” “My god would never…”) is treason.  The whole idea of being “like the Most High” is treason. And trying to brush off our sins based on how insignificant we think they are is also treason.

We would do well to take our sin much more seriously than we tend to.

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