What Is Sin?

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I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire.  (Luke 24:32)

What is sin?

The Greek word for sin in the Bible is ἁμαρτία which is pronounced ham-ar-TEE-ah.  It’s literal meaning is “to miss the mark.”

Sometimes we whitewash sin.  We give it different names, like adultery becomes “having an affair.”  We try to minimize the impact by acting like it’s not so bad, if it’s even bad at all.

So let’s look at it from a different angle.  Let’s look at it through Jesus’ construction analogy at the end of the Sermon on the Mount.

In Matthew 7 Jesus said, “Whoever hears these sayings of mine and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house…”

That’s a construction analogy.  He “builds his house.”

When you build a house or some other large structure, you build it using a blueprint.

The expert creates the blueprint, then the builders build what they see designed on the blueprint.

So when the wise man builds his house, as Jesus said, what is his blueprint?

Jesus said, “Whoever hears these sayings of mine…”  That’s the blueprint.  The Word of God is the blueprint.  It’s the blueprint for building our life well.

When we follow the blueprint closely, we build well.  When we stray from the blueprint, we build poorly.

So back to this definition of sin as missing the mark.  If you are spending your hard-earned money to build your dream house, how many times do you want the builder to miss the mark on the blueprint?  None!  You want him to NEVER miss the mark.  You want him to follow the blueprint precisely.

So when it comes to building our lives, why would we ever want to miss the mark, if missing the mark means building poorly?

Sin often happens after some alluring temptation.  We fall for the lie that “it’s going to be so good and fun.”  But if sin is missing the mark and building poorly, it should be easier to avoid, because who wants to build poorly?  It’s a waste of time and resources.  It ruins your reputation.  Poor buildings even hurt people, and sometimes people even die due to poor building practices.

There is much more to this topic, but today let’s stick to this one slice of it.  What is sin?  It is missing the mark.  God has a blueprint for building our lives well, and whenever we sin, we are disobeying the blueprint and building our life poorly.  

As for me and my house, I want to be the wise man who built his house well; and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it did not fall, for it was built precisely according to God’s blueprint.

May God bless you today.

I’m Doug Apple.