Tag: the law

What if I were to tell you that the Bible says the Church must defend a woman’s right to choose?

The state is not here to service the church and enforce her laws. The church is here to serve the state or, more accurately, the people therein.

We were never meant to fight issues like abortion through the courts and the halls of lawmaking. We were meant to weep on our knees before God over the loss of unborn lives. And, while weeping, hold the hand of the woman seeking an abortion and defend her right to choose. In doing so we can say with our actions “we are here for you and your choices; look at our lives – there is another way”.

If we cannot point to another way through our lives and actions, we have no business condemning others when they fail to follow a path that we ourselves have yet to demonstrate.

Is it not written in the book of Romans, “who are you to judge another man’s servant?” If we are not to even judge our fellow servants in Christ, how much less are we supposed to judge those that serve any other authority?

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The lesson of salt

Salt preserves by virtue of being salt. It does not need to make rules or force the food it is to change. It simply exists and in doing so preserves the food.

If we are the salt of the earth (Matthew 5:13-16) then our job is not to make rules but to let our good works speak for themselves. In so doing, we preserve the world. No laws, rules, or regulations can do that for us. Only our lives.

Forcing our morality via the rule of law can only lead to legalism while a life well lived can do things no law ever can. A life well lived can change many lives.

Be the salt.

What is sin?

I wanted to write about something else entirely but before I can, I feel I must clearly define what I mean by “sin”.

Etymology of sin

Sin is an English word used in translation for words from two distinct languages (Hebrew and Greek) with contributions from at least two more languages (Latin and Old English). As such, the meaning of the word “sin” is highly complex and deserves special attention.

Rather than struggle to cover the grounds others already have, this is a summary taken from Wikipedia:

The word derives from “Old English syn(n), for original *sunjō. The stem may be related to that of Latin ‘sons, sont-is’ guilty. In Old English there are examples of the original general sense, ‘offence, wrong-doing, misdeed'”. The English Biblical terms translated as “sin” or “syn” from the Biblical Greek and Jewish terms sometimes originate from words in the latter languages denoting the act or state of missing the mark; the original sense of New Testament Greek ἁμαρτία hamartia “sin”, is failure, being in error, missing the mark, especially in spear throwing; Hebrew hata “sin” originates in archery and literally refers to missing the “gold” at the centre of a target, but hitting the target, i.e. error. “To sin” has been defined from a Greek concordance as “to miss the mark”.

The takeaway point is that our word – sin – is not a perfect match to the source text. It is close but not exact. You might say, our understanding of sin itself suffers from sin (hamartia).

Sin: Crime vs Weakness

The etymology of sin brings up the first of many doctrinal questions. Is sin a guilty state (as, for example, a criminal) as the Latin suggests, an offence (again criminal) as the Old English offers, or a mistake or shortcoming as the Geek and Hebrew might lead us to believe? Continue reading →