Earlier I posted an article about the forgotten word sin. It was part one of a series on the topic of sin. It can be found here. To get your thought process working again I wanted to start out by providing some synonyms for sin. Here are just a few:
Synonyms for sin: anger, covetousness, crime, damnation, debt, deficiency, demerit, disobedience, envy, error, evil, evil-doing, fault, gluttony, guilt, immorality, imperfection, iniquity, lust, misdeed, offense, peccability, peccadillo, peccancy, pride, shortcoming, sinfulness, sloth, tort, transgression, trespass, ungodliness, unrighteousness, veniality, vice, violation, wickedness, wrong, wrongdoing, wrongness.
Bouncing off of the first word anger provides for following synonyms: acrimony, animosity, annoyance, antagonism, blow up, cat fit, chagrin, choler, conniption, dander, disapprobation, displeasure, distemper, enmity, exasperation, fury, gall, hatred, hissy fit, huff, ill humor, ill temper, impatience, indignation, infuriation, irascibility, ire, irritability, irritation, mad, miff, outrage, passion, peevishness, petulance, pique, rage, rankling, resentment, slow burn, soreness, stew, storm, tantrum, temper, tiff, umbrage, vexation, violence.
And bouncing off of lust from synonyms for sin we get: animalism, aphrodisia, appetence, appetition, avidity, carnality, concupiscence, covetousness, craving, cupidity, desire, eroticism, excitement, fervor, greed, hunger, itch, lasciviousness, lechery, lewdness, libido, licentiousness, longing, prurience, pruriency, salaciousness, salacity, sensualism, sensuality, thirst, urge, wantonness, weakness, yen.
Do you see where this could go? I could go on and on filling up a page full of words related to or describing sin but there is a point to this. As you read through just three of these lists of words do you see any areas of struggle in your life? Are you impatient or ill humored? Proverbs 15:18, Proverbs 14:29 Do you struggle with lust, greed or desire? Proverbs 6:25, I Thessalonians 4:4-5 How about sloth? Are you lazy? Do you not work when you can? II Thessalonians 3:10 Do you covet? Exodus 20:17, Deuteronomy 5:21 Do you have fits of rage? Colossians 3:8, Ephesians 4:31. God considers all these sins and we’ve just scratched the surface.What about gossip, idle words that tear a person down, worry or speeding? I have a 20 mile drive to work and I drive the speed limit (or at least try to). I drive in the middle lane as cars zoom by on the right and on the left; speeding everyone of them. How about stopping at stop signs? I mean really stopping, not a rolling stop? Sin seems much more pervasive than at first glance.
The mantra of society today is not to judge someone. If a person wants to live a certain lifestyle or hold a particular belief we are told me must not judge them. (This is one of the reasons we don’t hear the word sin used anymore. To use the word sin denotes making a judgment upon someone for doing something wrong.) Who are we to question their choices? But let’s examine sin from this this angle but let’s do what the world tells us not to do, let’s make a judgment.
Let’s say you are considered a “good” person and as a “good” person you only sin 50 times a day. Maybe not too bad but that equates to 18,250 sins per year. Would you say he or she is a “good” person?
Picture this, after receiving a speeding ticket you stand before the judge and say, “Your honor, I know I was speeding. I was going 45 mph in a 30 mph zone but I only did that 18,250 times last year. Can’t you let me off? After all, I’m a good person.” I would have to think your chances of getting off are slim to none and slim just left town.
The bible tells us many times there is no one righteous, not one. Psalms 143:2, Romans 3:10 and Romans 3:20.
Next in the series, Why does God hate sin? Why can’t he just excuse my lapses? Isn’t just a little sin acceptable?
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