sin, what is that about?

I realise that I haven’t blogged for a couple of weeks. It’s mostly because I’ve been trying to think of something profound and interesting to say. Except that as soon as I start trying to be clever and smart all that happens is I think up 100 more questions…

I have been thinking about sin though and Genesis 3, commonly referred to as the fall. I have to admit trouble relating to this passage. On the one hand I’m a good evangelical who has been taught that the Bible is literally all true, but the early part of Genesis makes me wonder. How come the knowledge of good and evil comes through eating an apple? Surely that’s asking for trouble and a little bit superstitious.

I guess the best way to express what I’m thinking is to ask some of the questions I’ve been asking, all answers on a postcard please!

1) Who committed the first sin? Was it Adam and Eve, or the serpent?

2) How were Adam and Eve to know how to decide between the serpent and God? That sounds like a daft question, but they don’t get the knowledge of good and evil until after they eat the apple…

3)All three get punished as a result. Who gets the first punishment? and what happens next?

Then things get worse, there’s a lie, disobedience and another lie (it wasn’t me, it was her- the command had been given to Adam before Eve had even existed, he might have suggested it was a bad idea) in chapter 3 which moves to jealousy and murder in chapter 4, by chapter 6:5 every inclination of the human heart is evil. Sin matters.

What I can’t work out, is how much and how to stop it! Any thoughts?







One Response to “sin, what is that about?”

I read this ages ago and keep thinking “I’ll read that again when I have more brain time and think and pray about it some more and then comment”. That hasn’t happened so far. But here’s some off the cuff stuff.

Sin matters a lot but if we focus on beating it too much we’ll end up with a very negative view of the world and of our faith. As well as NOT sinning we need to DO good things.

Example…I actually really like eating fruit - it’s nice and tasty and gives me a healthy, “yes, fruit is good” glow when I eat it. Yet I still snack on junk food a lot of the time. If I focus on how good fruit is and eating fruit all the time I’ll come to enjoy it more and more and eventually forget about the junk. If I keep thinking about how bad the junk is I’M STILL THINKING ABOUT THE JUNK!

(It’s not a great analogy but it kinda works)

Are we meant to stop it? I think we’re meant to try our best and with the holy spirit’s help we can get a long way but we will always have sinful natures. Then we hit more questions…Can we ever completely beat sin? Should we stop other people sinning? And if so how?

But just beating sin isn’t enough. Jesus wants us to be active in doing good and loving God and our neighbours. I think He wants more than a sin-free world, he wants a new world where Adam and Eve’s original sin is replaced by love and worship.

Sin will always be around but I think that love always overcomes it. With forgiveness in the world, sin matters less….gosh I’m tying myself in knots now.

Did that help move the thought on at all? Bible references are left as an exercise for the reader. I’d certainly like some.

R

ross added these pithy words on Apr 28 07 at 21:56

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