Daily PresenceSample

Did you notice what I noticed this year in reading the New Testament? Almost all of the discussion of sin in the letters to the churches is directed not at lost sinners but at church member sinners. The obvious suggestion is that sin is a problem! Look at I John 1:8-10 with the antecedent ofweinserted in brackets:

8If we [members of the faith] claim to be without sin, we [members of the faith] deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.9If we [members of the faith] confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.10If we [members of the faith] claim we [members of the faith] have not sinned, we [members of the faith] make him out to be a liar and his word is not in us.

Thank God for verse 9! That’s our way out.

But on the basis of the whole meaning we find in these verses, and others like them in the New Testament epistles, I suggest we re-consider a convenient cliche that almost all of us have recited over the years when critiquing the sin of others: “We should hate the sin but love the sinner.”

I like the treatment of that cliche by Christian humorist and gospel singer Mark Lowry. In a video monologueI’m a Recovering Fundamentalist, Lowry explained the issue in a more scriptural light. At one point in his monologue he asks, rhetorically, “Hate the sin but hate the sinner?” Then he answers his question with conviction: “No way I will hate your sin. I’m way too busy hating my own!”

Then he proposes a loving alternative that puts the matter in a much better perspective: “So let’s do this: I’ll hate my sin, you hate your sin. In the meantime, let’s love one another!”

That seems to be the New Testament way.