I’ve been thinking lately about the English word, “sin”. I’ve been thinking about what we mean by that word. And it’s funny and sad all at once that just like the word “love”, it has come to mean so many things, has been appropriated by so many, that it almost loses it’s value as an expression of reality.
In the context of the Jesus story it’s especially frustrating as it plays such a key part and yet, as an English word, it fails miserably to convey the real denotation and connotation of the original story-tellers. (I’m not implying that the Jesus story is FICTION by my use of the word “story”.) So how do we now, in an age and culture that knows not sin, convey the message, tell the story, in words and images that reveal the reality behind the expression?
Sin – such a dirty word in this culture….
It has a terrible reputation for finger pointing and carries little true meaning to both the religious and secular-though this is not uncommon with a word of such broad meaning-and has little effect in modern vocabulary due to its archaic value; a value increasingly on the rise as related to biblical literature despite modern translations. I think this calls for an increased devotion and a showing forth of biblical doctrine and less bullhorning the population with vocabulary that ceased to be culturally meaningful a century past. Anyhow, that’s my rant…
To answer the question, love is better illustrated and executed than defined taught. Our tetimony as the body of Jesus is that we love one another, and this is true evangelism, bringing this about in a world of static and noise is proving difficult, but with certainty, not impossible.
Our culture certainly sees the effects of sin so we need to be able to explain how obvious problems of injustice, poverty etc. are related to what Christians go on and on about: sin.
I think Brian McLaren put it quite well when he said the fall was all about humans becoming de-ranged as they left the bounds God set for them to flourish in.
If we can then also link the Gospel to these obvious problems and how humans again become ar-ranged we’re almost home.