My little children , I am writing these things to you that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. - 1 John 2:1
Notice the wording of IF anyone sins, making sin seem to be the exception, and sinlessness to be the norm.
No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man; and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, that you may be able to endure it. - 1 Corinthians 10:13
Pretty clear. Nothing that's thrown at you is irresistible, your sin is a choice. If it's a choice and a sinless option exists, sinlessness can be a way of life.
Now I certainly don't believe in salvation making it impossible to sin, some kind of magical blessing that makes sin vaporize when it gets too close to the Sanctified Christian. But the admonishments we receive in Scripture aren't promoting some kind of "close enough" morality. There's no talk of an acceptable level of sin in the regenerate Christian's life.
I definitely think that just like a highly liturgical church needs to be on guard against producing robots that chant back the appropriate creed, those working with kids in an evangelical setting need to be aware of the opposite blunder. My experience has been that the latter tend to embrace more worldly mediums of ministry, everything from Switchfoot to "Satan is a Nerd" t-shirts. These may be mighty Hammers of God, who am I to say? The Devil's work may be smitten $16.99 at a time. But my point is that the line between believer and non-believer is a bit more blurred here, and in an attempt to match every gizmo the world produces with its Christian double two years later, some worldly philosophy can creep in.
That philosophy is the same that I've seen in the Education system, a kind of tip-toeing around feelings where we don't expect much from kids and when they do come up short, "it's ok," we say. "So," the goateed youth pastor asks me, "you think that we should expect kids to be sinless? Well then their self-image will be destroyed when they do sin." That's the point, I would reply. We should be repentant if we sin. It should bother us that we sin at all.
Matt
John
5 comments:
Amen and amen.
Rock on, Gaither.
Amens from me, I haven't heard much of that kind of speak since I left Moscow. It's sad.
Being of the older sort, it's refreshing to hear that from one of so few years. We've been observing it for many years. And it appears to be getting worse. Have you ever seen TVU? "Christian" music (like Switchfoot). It's jumpin' up and down rage. Where's the love, joy, peace, etc.? Can't wait 'til it makes its appearance in the big church worship teams.
This is late so if anyone reads it feel I will be a bit surprised…I fully agree with the standard you are setting for where our minds should be, we should be repentant if we sin. Using the word “if” instead of “when” as a basis for our mindset as you pointed out from 1 John. My caution with saying we can be sinless is looking at a couple different things: first, Paul…pretty sure that guy, if anyone, could have been sinless, but still at the end of his life is calling himself the chief of sinners. Second, I haven’t looked in a while, but 1 John uses like three or four words that are all translated into the word “sin,” which makes me wonder what the author is saying in that verse you are quoting. Honestly, I tend toward calling you an idealist in this area, but I am not a scholar of any sort and am just going off the little bit I do know. Anyway, long reply to say I love your thoughts on sin and how all our sins are a choice to be overcome but I am not sure about taking the step to saying we can be sinless (at least not in this life).
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