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Today, the best communication is conversational. The challenge is to combine
straightforward, simple language with a high level of content.
"You're a sinner!" How does it feel to hear that? Now, put a smugly self-righteous face on that accusation, like a preacher or a televangelist. The nerve! The arrogance! Worse yet, think of one of your friends saying this about you! Now do you understand why the Christian message can cause so much offense? No matter how we say it, the message of Christianity tells people they are sinners. So I begin with the topic of sin because it seems like a hard concept to accept.
At the same time, it is the most basic issue in life. We see evidence of human sin everywhere--violence, hate stealing, lying, abuse--all are graphic demonstrations of the human capacity for personal evil or sin.
We hate to talk about sin, at least in direct terms. Unfortunately, our dread of the topic can lead to ignorance. There are several reasons we don't like to talk about it. For one, nobody likes to discuss their failures. Talking about sin is like talking about our most embarrassing moment, but worse because there are so many sins. We feel uneasy about a topic that might be even darker than we might think.
On the other hand, it's foolish to avoid a topic because it's scary. Imagine a doctor who tests you for cancer and then says, "I hate the whole topic of cancer! Let's just pray and try to think positively. Maybe things will work out OK."
The topic of sin is even more loathsome because of the way some Christians have portrayed it. People rave on and on about sin, and then we find out they're as bad as anyone they ever raged about. It's no surprise that our culture gets excited when a Christian figure falls--it's like watching a bully get beat up!
Finally, to many "sin" means all the things they don't struggle with. It's easy
to call people "sinners" when they're referring to habits that are no temptation
for them at all. Someone who never touches a drink will more easily call heavy drinkers
sinners. Someone who has always been energetic and motivated may quickly judge lazy people
as sinners. This is another reason the term has become associated with self-righteousness
and judgment.
With all these bad associations, there are few issues as confusing to Christians as sin. This leads to some real problems. We'll talk about those in a bit. But first, we need to look at God's perspective of sin as it's found in the Bible.
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