You gave me a traffic example in which you remembered getting angry at separate drivers for different offenses. You then said it was OK to bundle all of those separate sins into one, thus relieving you of full confession. That doesn't match what you say above.
If someone threatens your life with his carelessness, or causes great deal of damage, which may result in injury or even a death of a loved one, a missed appointment, flight, whatever, it is difficult not to get angry. The important thing is not to judge. We can hate the sin but not the sinner.
But let's face it, whenever someone harms us we do not make that distinction. In the moment we are angry with THAT person. That's what I thought you meant in your traffic example. Of course righteous anger at sin itself is Biblical and justified, such as how Jesus demonstrated.
FK: There are a hundred different ways of committing adultery. Are you telling me that the confession of a single person sleeping around should be the same as that of one who consistently lies to his wife about his whereabouts and pays to have unsafe sex with a brood of prostitutes?
I presume both of them are married. In which case the answer is Yes.
When I said "A single person" I meant to indicate one who was unmarried. I don't see how my comparison would make much sense otherwise.
Is one murder any less of a sin than three in the eyes of God? Are you any less of a murder if you commit one and not three?
Well, it depends on what sense of "any less of a sin" you mean. If you mean will three murders send you "more" to hell than one lie, then "no". However, it is obvious that within the theater a triple murderer is worse than a single murderer (it is irrelevant if the murderer is married :) Beyond the common sense principle that repeating a sin is worse than committing it one time, the Bible gives us clues about this. The OT is clear that there was proportionate punishment for sin. For example, in God's system then the punishment for kidnapping was death (Ex. 21:16), but the punishment for stealing livestock was its restoration (Ex. 22:1), etc. Proportionate punishment related to proportionate sin. That only makes sense. All sin merits eternal death, but beyond that some sin is worse.
FK: That is why I say content DOES matter.
I disagree. It makes no difference if one commits adultery with a blonde, brunette or both.
Hair color is not a relevant factor in determining content here. In this specific context, two teenagers mutually fooling around is not the same as a married man of 15 years cheating on his wife and three children with some bimbo with STDs. All are committing adultery and fatal sin to be sure, but they are not the same.
FK: The intention was to get away with adultery.
You don't know that.
Are you telling me that it is not clear that David had Uriah killed so that he could have his wife and conceal the child she had conceived with David??? Remember that when Uriah came to see David he never went to sleep with Bathsheba. The Bible makes a strong point of this showing that David couldn't possibly get away with sluffing it off as Uriah's child. I'd be happy to quote the passage if you like (2 Sam. 11:2-27). After reading the whole thing, there really can be no doubt as to what happened here.
It's amazing how different mindsets come to different conclusions. I guess we all have mental blocks to varying degrees. It's a sobering realization.
My point, and I believe this is clear from the context of what I wrote, was that judgmental anger itself was the sin to be confessed and not the day-in-and-day-out traffic details. Saying "I was angry with what appeared to be careless drivers" confesses the sin of anger based on a judgment.
I really don't know where your objections are coming from.
But let's face it, whenever someone harms us we do not make that distinction. In the moment we are angry with THAT person
That doesn't make it right. Have you ever made a mistake and gave someone inadvertently wrong information (i.e. a phone number with one number reversed)? The other person may have been cursing for days for something you didn't do with ill intention. Who committed a sin here?
When I said "A single person" I meant to indicate one who was unmarried. I don't see how my comparison would make much sense otherwise.
That's what I thought. I just can't see why a single person sleeping around is necessarily committing "adultery" and comparing him to another man who is cheating on his wife.
Well, it depends on what sense of "any less of a sin" you mean. If you mean will three murders send you "more" to hell than one lie, then "no".
Then we agree that any (unrepentant) sin leads to "death" in a sense that it will result in eternal separation from God? And that means, in the eyes of God, one sin is no different than another. I believe the New Testament reminds us that if you break one law, you have broken all of them.
The OT is clear that there was proportionate punishment for sin. For example, in God's system then the punishment for kidnapping was death (Ex. 21:16), but the punishment for stealing livestock was its restoration (Ex. 22:1), etc
Sin leads to eternal punishment of separation from God, FK. I think that is the point of the whole thing, not your temporal wordily offenses.
Who cares if you had to give back stolen cattle or if you were stoned for stealing it! You are concerned with this life and not your eternal life (I guess this is because the Reformed theology teaches that you are "saved" no matter what).
I would be more concerned with what happens to my soul in eternity because of unrepentant sin, than here on earth, or so it is what Christianity teaches us.
Proportionate punishment related to proportionate sin.
Why am I not surprised you would stick to the OT and ignore Jesus? Matthew 5:38 reinterprets the OT on this ("eye for an eye"). Jesus teaches us that it is evil to return evil for evil, FK. Christian God never returns evil for evil.
In this specific context, two teenagers mutually fooling around is not the same as a married man of 15 years cheating on his wife and three children with some bimbo with STDs
That is a cultural issue. In the eyes of God, the teenagers are also committing sin, knowingly. The OT also tells us that disrespect for the parents is punishable by death. How selectively we apply biblical laws and social standards when it suits us! Why, using the Bible one can "justify" just about anything! Slavery, murder, you name it, if it suits our agenda. But when it doesn't, then we dismiss it without saying it's wrong. What hypocrisy!
In fact, the OT (just like the Koran) prescribes unfathomable cruelty, something we would never apply to our own or even to our enemies, and something that our societies have long rejected. Yet, when it suits us, we quote the horrors of the OT as something pleasing to God and, get this, "morally" right! O tempra, o moris!
Are you telling me that it is not clear that David had Uriah killed so that he could have his wife and conceal the child she had conceived with David???
Yes, that's precisely what he did. In 6320 you wrote
The murder was an after thought, and a separate sin. If she did not conceive, he would probably not have murdered her husband, and still get away with adultery.