This is the first post I am calling a “Coffee Shop Discussion”. The idea being that those who want to participate can share their experience, opinion, or anything else that they feel would be edifying to the conversation.
Does every act of sin begin in the mind? By that I mean; does a person entertain thoughts of an act of sin before the act is actually done? Setting aside the fact that our thoughts in and of themselves can be sinful; and also set aside the fact that in a moment of rage a person can be violent and insulting without thought. Removing these two scenarios from the conversation, are there others you can think of not first entertained in the mind (even for a moment)?
This is interesting. I realized I hadn’t really ever thought much about sin performed without thought. Dangerous…
It occurred to me that this not only happens, but there can be some twists and turns too.
For example, if you dig really deep, you can find what I’ll refer to as “learned” sin. It’s really hard for me to cite examples off the cuff. But in my head, these would be sins that are learned maybe even from birth. Maybe generational sins? This is scary because they may just be a commonplace in your life . Something you were taught. Justified by historic or familia ideology. In my line of work, I see so many people that are in a bad place due to things engrained in them from an early age. Because this did not happen to me, it’s hard for me to understand. But these folks sometimes do not even understand the error of their ways because the “way” has just always been there for them. It’s really heavy because I see some of this with guys that profess too be Christians. Like they learn about becoming saved before they learn about what’s keeping them from being saved. This is tough to see. It becomes clear many claim to be Christians, but clearly need to climb higher and give themselves up to break through the fog.
The other sin that came to mind was what I will call “justified” sin. This is unfortunately a very common path to sin for me. Sometimes it’s societal. Unfortunately the checks and balances are out of place in our society and justification of sin can be so easy when condoned by the rest of the world.
But there has been sin in my life that was not condoned by society that I just worked up a justification for. So I will refer to this as “justified” sin.
I will (embarrassingly) do my best to share what I think is a personal example. When I was young, I became quite proficient at shop lifting (or boosting as the kids call it nowadays). I distinctly remember, in a Social Studies class, learning about how a pair of Levi’s jeans cost about $1.90 to produce. At the time, they were a more expensive and popular brand. At the time costing $30-35 per pair. This infuriated me. I did not come from a family with an income that supported these luxuries. This started a whole series of justified sins for me. I felt like I was rebelling against the establishment! Sticking it to the man. Or maybe even going as far as fighting against a sin initiated on me via lack of concern for me displayed by unrealistic and greedy capitalists! “These jeans were made in a sweat shop in some third world country and I’m going to initiate a war against this injustice”! That made it justifiable. There was thought there, but you can see it already started to fade. This got much worse when I decided all of my friends should also benefit from my enlightenment regarding this injustice. “Everyone gets new Levi’s”!
That created a whole new issue to blind me in the error of my ways. It made everyone so happy! Friends love getting gifts from friends! So it went from jeans to a whole product line of happiness and gift giving. Needless to say, at this point, there was not a whole lot of “thought”. I think it’s safe to say I was oblivious to the fact that this was anywhere in the neighborhood of sin.
When I began selling $80 baseball gloves out of my locker for $20 each to the underprivileged, there was no greed involved. They were able to get a better glove at a reasonable cost and I would buy as much beer and alcohol as I could and give that away for free on the weekend!
Wow.
I would like to point out that this kind of went from “justified” to “learned” eventually. It reached a point that it I never felt a need for justification. It was just what I did. No thought. Just what I did. No generational lesson. Just me, teaching myself. Maybe with a little help from the dark side?
Jeremiah 4:14
O Jerusalem, wash your heart from evil, that you may be saved. How long shall your wicked thoughts lodge within you?