Thursday, April 27, 2006
Looking At Sin
Rebecca Stark has been defining important faith concepts, starting with the Westminster Larger Catechism and expanding from there. Yesterday she looked at sin The WLC defines such as
The real problem comes because we are not always willfully defiant, or knowingly defiant - our defiance arise not out of disrespect, but out of simple ignorance. A child that grabs a hot pot handle when its mother told it not do, does so usually not just to spite the its mother, but because there is a huge difference between knownig it is hot becasue Mom said so, and actually feeling the burn. However, in so many matters concerning our relationship with God, the feedback for our defiance is not nearly so immediate as the the burn our child exemplar experiences - nor as seemingly painful.
This is why the Christian life is about genuine transformation and not simple conformity. Many children that do not seem to defy their mother in childhood will nonetheless end up burning themselves in adulthood because they just had to be sure. Simple conformity to the rules does not take us far enough. No, somehow we need to cross that chasm between the knowing because we are told, and the knowing that arises from experience. We need to not just listen to God, but to share His experiences and to think like Him.
A lot of people think I an nuts, but as I have lost weight these last years, I have not set foot on a scale. I know what I weighed pre-surgically becasue they had to weight me to calibrate anestesia, etc., but I don't know where I started. If you have every seriously dieted, you know there is nothing more frustrating that the ups and downs of the scale, and the incredibly slow process of serious weight loss. A pound or two a week is just painful when you have 100's to lose. No, I have sought to truly transform my life, to change every habit I have associated with food.
That is analogous to what God demands from us. He doesn't want us concentrated on how much less we lusted this week than last, He wants us to concentrate on changing who we are so the temptation no longer exists.
Related Tags: sin, tranformation, Christianity
Sin is any want of conformity unto, or transgression of, any law of God, given as a rule to the reasonable creature.Simply put, sin is defiance of God. That sin is measured by transgression of the law, but its root is simple defiance - "I know me and how to behave better than God."
The real problem comes because we are not always willfully defiant, or knowingly defiant - our defiance arise not out of disrespect, but out of simple ignorance. A child that grabs a hot pot handle when its mother told it not do, does so usually not just to spite the its mother, but because there is a huge difference between knownig it is hot becasue Mom said so, and actually feeling the burn. However, in so many matters concerning our relationship with God, the feedback for our defiance is not nearly so immediate as the the burn our child exemplar experiences - nor as seemingly painful.
This is why the Christian life is about genuine transformation and not simple conformity. Many children that do not seem to defy their mother in childhood will nonetheless end up burning themselves in adulthood because they just had to be sure. Simple conformity to the rules does not take us far enough. No, somehow we need to cross that chasm between the knowing because we are told, and the knowing that arises from experience. We need to not just listen to God, but to share His experiences and to think like Him.
Rom 12:2 - And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.Our mind is renewed such that it shares the thoughts and experiences of God - when He tells us, we don't just gain the knowledge of hearing, but we gain the knowledge of experience at the same time.
A lot of people think I an nuts, but as I have lost weight these last years, I have not set foot on a scale. I know what I weighed pre-surgically becasue they had to weight me to calibrate anestesia, etc., but I don't know where I started. If you have every seriously dieted, you know there is nothing more frustrating that the ups and downs of the scale, and the incredibly slow process of serious weight loss. A pound or two a week is just painful when you have 100's to lose. No, I have sought to truly transform my life, to change every habit I have associated with food.
That is analogous to what God demands from us. He doesn't want us concentrated on how much less we lusted this week than last, He wants us to concentrate on changing who we are so the temptation no longer exists.
Related Tags: sin, tranformation, Christianity
