Dennis the Menace, all dressed in coat and tie, leaving church with his mom and dad, looks up at the preacher who is greeting them and says, “For a preacher…you sure know a lot about sin!”
Somewhere along the way I heard of a small “Christian” College in Arkansas that advertised it was located “sixteen miles from any known sin.
Preachers and colleges (whether “Christian” or not) should know a lot about sin.
The great majority of theologians talk about original sin as the root of all human problems. The truth is, there is nothing original about sin. It is a center piece in the Genesis story of the creation of human kind. Adam and Eve are not alive in the Garden long before they eat the “fruit” which was the one thing God told them not to eat.
Think about it. There’s nothing original about sin. What is the worst thing you have ever done in your life? Or, what have you done in the last month that you would label sinful? What about your thought life? Has it been “pure”? What led you to act and think the way you are labeling sinful? Do you think you are the only person that has acted and felt about these issues much the same way you do?
Be honest. Can’t we join Paul in expressing our feelings?
For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. … Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it… (Romans 7:19-20) As he continues his confession, Paul screams, What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body doomed to death? He then, with a deep breath of relief, concludes in confidence, Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord. (vs. 25 and 25)
There’s nothing original about sin. We are all infected by it. And there is nothing exclusive or limiting about the answer. All have sinned; all can be saved from sin; and all can know they are saved.