Posted on 11/23/2014 5:12:09 AM PST by BwanaNdege
Hello Freepers! I need help with research for a paper. Your ideas are needed and welcomed. I especially would appreciate comments from Libertarians and any lurking Liberals/Progressives and Atheists/"Brights".
Wow, fifty plus answers and no one quotes the Westminster Catechism!
“Q. 14. What is sin?
A. Sin is any want of conformity unto, or transgression of, the law of God.”
1 John 3:4. Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law: for sin is the transgression of the law.
James 2:10-11 For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it. For he who said, “Do not commit adultery,” also said, “Do not murder.” If you do not commit adultery but do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law.
All sin results in death. Disobeying God is disobeying God, no matter how it’s done.
Amen!
And Christ’s death is “efficacious” (Romans 3:25)
And the GIFT (it is free) of God is eternal life so that we (who believe unto salvation) are free from the penalty.
Some will complicate this simple truth. Not you, Metmom. I know you agree here. But some - right on this thread - are busy offering their opinions. If God doesn’t SAY it, then those opinions lead to eternal spiritual death.
That’s the price for sin.
Sin is worse if you do something wrong when you know it is wrong.
Our souls are born pure.
Not based on Romans 3:23...all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
Certain acts such as taking a human life are always wrong.
Again, not correct. The taking of innocent life in murder is wrong. There is a concept of justified war however.
Therein lays the problem with Christian churches today. Nothing in the New Testament scriptures supports such nonsense. Jesus dealt with the sin problem over 2,000 years ago.
Regarding the first two questions, “Absolutely”, “Of course” or “Duh?!?” would be the first responses that come to mind, sorta like in that one scene in the first Terminator movie of possible responses to the knock at the door, but I'll go with the first one and say "Absolutely."
To answer your questions, especially the topic question, perhaps the place to start is with a definition, and for that it’s best to go back to the original.
See, our bloodline started out pure and in a perfect place, but both were tainted. All of the Seven Deadly Sins on that list flow from that original sin/sins of Adam's and Eve’s rebellion. As a guy, I point my finger and say "She started it" by not just listening to, but following the Serpent and turning from, and disobeying, God.
And then, she ends up getting Adam to go along with it and do the same thing! (I want to say in modern man’s defense, “See? Look what side of the family we get it from” but then I remember where Eve came from...hmmm...)
Anyway, it’s all there in the Garden. All the answers to all your questions can be found in that original sin, and in the tempter's purpose and methods.
It’s the scene played, altered as necessary, and replayed over and over again since that first time in the Garden: the temptation (the promises of the serpent) and then giving in to temptation (turning away from God to listen to, and then acting on, temptation). Both are easily justified as good and proper by the wants and desires of our rational mind, and all in defiance of God.
The Deadly Seven on your list are like branches from that original, potential rich root. All flows from that original sin and subset.
No matter how bad things can get, one need only look at the Deadly Seven to see how it starts. To understand them, just note how they each flow from the original sin AND how and why they each benefit the original tempter.
It’ll be obvious then how, just like with the mustard seed or an oak tree from an acorn, our problems grow huge. Small seeds of sin get planted in fertile soil when they’re offered up to our worldly-fertilized, rational/irrational/emotional mind with every opportunity and temptation.
You can also tell from the results. From what should have produced children of the original parents enjoying our plentiful Garden of Eden under God’s tender loving care, a different sort of garden has grown in that now sin polluted, tainted ground. From that original sin damaged root comes many bitter fruits, all of which are moving us away from God’s Garden of love and care and into the cosmic compost pile instead. Just like with dust to dust, from the dirt we were and back to the dirt we will be.
Which is what the original tempter had/has in mind. That was his plan all along and it works better with each new revision and upgrade, generation by generation. And after all of this time since that last cleansing flush, think about the garden “soil” we’re living in today.
Sin attracts sin, evil attracts evil. Things evolve, becoming more and more polluted unless you stop and clean things up. We’re at a level now where our “garden” is becoming sin saturated at a logarithmic progression.
In much of our world, it’s not a garden at all, but more like a cesspool worse than any EPA Supersite. If things get too bad, we cross a threshold of saturation to a point of no return and there’s only so many ways to clean up such a mess. Flood, for example. “Been there, done that” what’s the next one? The Book says real, Honest to God, Biblical Global Warming on a Cosmic Scale.
So, back to the list, “Pride”? The serpent, himself, fell (figuratively and literally) for and to that one and passed that Fail along, getting Eve to fall for it, too. She, not God, knew what was best for her, don'cha know, and acted on it. Boom!
And then, poor, confused, lonely-guy Adam went along with it, too. Boom! Boom!
Lots of marriages I’ve seen are like that and they all suffer from the next one: Envy.
God gives everyone gifts, talents, etc. To envy others’ gifts as being better than what God gave you is just bad form, bad manners, in bad taste, bad, bad, bad.
Yikes! That’s way too many “bads” for anyone, so "Envy" has been reclassified as “Covet” and raised to a Commandment level “Thou shalt not…”. And there you go. What more needs to be said?
Well, lots more, actually. Because screwing up with those first two generally means then becoming sad, depressed, angry, etc. and acting on it with any one of or combination of the last five on the list.
The last five are what happens when you stay on any of those seven wrong paths long enough to get to where they go. And then, of course, getting all that goes along with getting there.
What are the Deadly Seven sins? Ultimately, they’re just the highway(s) to Hell via the hell you like best, your own personal fork(s) in that road most taken.
Exactly!
My project will attempt to contrast the root cause of "Sin" with those words, thoughts and deeds we characterize as "sins".
SIN is missing the Target.
"sins" are where we 'hit' when we do miss the Target with our words, thoughts and deeds.
The Target we miss?
Matthew 22:34-40 New International Version (NIV)
The Greatest Commandment
Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”
Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
Perhaps I should have phrased my question this way:
In today's culture, which thoughts, words & deeds would be called "sins"?
Thanks for all the input, folks!
Good question!
How about the one mentioned in Genesis 13:13...
I am referencing the ten commandments.
“Our souls are born pure.”
“Not based on Romans 3:23...all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”
Matthew 18:3 (NIV)
3 And he said: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.
When the soul is conceived, it is usually pure. The newly conceived soul radiates so much Love that it feels as though you are approaching God. However, it quickly acquires sin, often through no action of its own. Even a child in the womb often acquires sin from the mother as the child cannot differentiate between their own experiences and those of their mother.
No one is born pure.
People are born not having sinned, but all have the corruption and sin nature that results in them sinning.
That's why you don't have to teach a two year old to do wrong. That's why one of a one year old's first 6 words is *NO!*
If someone was born pure, then if they had managed to live their lives without sin, they could see God, probing that it was possible and that Christ died for nothing.
Our theology needs to be based in the inerrant, God breathed word of God, not our experience.
If our experiences are the basis for our theology, then we WILL go off the rails.
Build your theology on the Rock, not on sand.
Where did you ever find such rubbish?
It is NOT found in Scripture, that's for sure.
The problem with someone basing their theology on experience is that there is simply no talking to someone who knows what they've experienced no one can tell them different, even when there's Scripture to back it up. They know what they know.
It's not that anyone is denying the experience, as much as challenging the SOURCE of the experience and the conclusions drawn from it since it's not based on the Word.
It’s a matter of building our house on the Rock.
SIN - that which offends God.
that was regarding having the faith of a child.
little children are by no means without sin.
In your opinion...
That's mentioned in one of the 613 I referenced...
“Where did you ever find such rubbish?”
When the Holy Spirit moves into a person they gain the ability of discernment. Along with this comes the ability to read souls. Jesus did this throughout His ministry. So can you do it when the Holy Spirit is working within you.
I see and feel the purity of the child immediately after it is conceived. The Love radiating from the newly conceived child is the closest thing to the radiance of God I experienced in Heaven when I died. It’s feeling is unmistakable. Often I will know when a woman is pregnant before they do.
When I return later to the same child, I often find they have absorbed the sins of the mother. These are in the form of anger at the husband, not wanting the child they are carrying, or the feeling of abandonment by the father. One of the cruelest wounds to a child’s soul is when the mother cannot love the child due to any number of circumstances. These wounds usually carry with a person until their death.
In addition, the Holy Spirit working through a person can forgive the sins of others, heal, cast out spirits and work many other wonders. This is as Jesus said it would many times in the scripture, especially when He sent out His disciples and told them that the things that He did and more, they too shall do in His name.
Open up to the Holy Spirit and then reread the scripture. You will find that judgementalism disappears and one no longer resembles the Pharisees in their legalistic nature.
They were afraid that if Jesus were correct, they had to be wrong. They interpreted scripture narrowly while Jesus interpreted in broadly.
As I always say, if you disagree with me, please pray for me that the Holy Spirit working through Jesus enter me and guide me to the truth in the scriptures. If you have difficulty doing this, then your heart is not filled with Love and you could not know God. I in turn will say the same prayer for you.
Knowing God Through Love
7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. 8 He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. 9 In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. 10 In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
Seeing God Through Love
12 No one has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God abides in us, and His love has been perfected in us. 13 By this we know that we abide in Him, and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit.
Just yesterday I worked with two young boys who were adopted shortly after birth from foreign countries. They were ages seven and nine. They were acting out and becoming violent to the point where the parents, teachers, and baby sitters were at their wits end. The nine year old was threatening to kill the baby sitter with a knife..... The wound to this young child’s soul was so great during pregnancy that it reversed his reward/punishment system to the point where he was positively stimulated by criticism or punishment and negatively stimulated by praise or reward. This was all prior to the feeling of being rejected when he was put up for adoption.
All it took was the Holy Spirit to remove the wound to his soul and his personality changed instantly. Never touched him physically and no drugs were involved. Instantly God’s Love that had been hidden beneath the wound revealed itself within him and shown outward. All things are possible through the Holy Spirit.
“By itself, that is moral anarchy,”
Well of course, if I were a cave man. However, I was raised with
morals, principals and respect of other people and their
property pounded into me by my parents and older siblings.
I was being sarcastic anyway.
WHEN did the 613 come into effect?
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