OOPS Missed Again

Sin is quite an interesting subject. It seems that everyone's talking about it, both Christian and non-Christian alike. For the most part Christians want to make sure that they don't sin. Non-Christians seem much more interested in finding out just what sin might be. Unfortunately, asking many Christians is the wrong place to get a useful answer.

Many people think that sin is about breaking commandments. They think they can avoid sin by following the rules. It's easy to see where this comes from, after all we've got these Ten COmmandments and all. Just don't do any of the "Thou shalt nots" and everything will be just fine. Too bad it's neither that easy, nor that hard.

In both Hebrew and Greek, the word we translate as sin does not mean "breaking rules." Instead it means "miss the mark," and in non-religious contexts refers to an archer who does not hit his target. This presents an interesting perspective on sin; not breaking the rules, but missing the target. In a nutshell, to sin is to fall short of the ideal.

If sin meant to break the rules, then it would be easy because all we'd have to do is learn all the rules and then simply not break them. How simple is that?

However, if to sin is to break the rules, it would be almost impossible to not sin. Any honest person will admit to fudging on the rules at some point in time. Typically we rationalize it by saying that our intentions were good, or that there were special circumstances or whatever. The fact is, we cannot even keep to the rules we make for ourselves, how hard would it be to keep the rules that God sets?

Another problem with sin as breaking rules, is the fact that nobody can agree on just what those rules are. If we start with the Ten Commandments, we run into problems of definition, like just how badly do you have to want your neighbor's wife before it becomes coveting? Rules cloud the issue more than they clarify it. While rules are easy to follow, they're hard to follow.

Yet, when we see sin as missing the mark or falling short of the goal, things start to come into focus. If our goal, the reason we were created, is to reflect God in action and attitude, then whenever we are not reflecting God, we are sinning. When we fail to live up to our purpose, we sin.

If we see our life as a path, we can see how this idea of sin endorses many things we've been to taught. We all know from geometry, that if we are travelling along a line between two points and vary one degree every inch we will never connect with the other point. As a matter of fact, the further we go, the farther away we get from our destination.

This analogy can help us understand two things; 1) how we can be born sinners, and 2) why even the smallest sin is significant. First, we are born in sin because our ancestors have moved away from the goal of reflecting God, thus when our lives begin, they are on the wrong path. Not to worry though, we do plenty enough on our own to get on the wrong path just fine.

Second, if we take that one degree from our analogy and equate it to one sin a day, or a week, or even a year, we can see that our reflective ability is greatly diminished by the time we reach adulthood. As a result of this loss of reflection, we begin to understand that damnation is not God putting us in hell, but us going there by our own free will. We go to hell by choice. And the thing is, it only takes a small deviation to set us on the wrong course.

Now, understanding that sin is not breaking rules, but failing to reflect God, makes life a lot easier. We no longer have a list of do's and don'ts to remember and check everytime we do something. All we need to do now is get to know and understand God. However, that is a whole other discussion.