Tag: Sin

Elizabeth Glass Turner ~ Is Sin Necessary to Know Jesus? Why It Matters

It’s dangerous to ground our whole understanding of the second person of the Trinity in a scenario in which the only way we know him truly depends on human sin, as if fallenness is necessary in order to know the Word. Because of fallenness, we know the Word as Jesus Christ, the Word Made Flesh. But to suggest the only possible universe in which we could truly know God is one that has the crucifixion means that God in some way ordained human sinfulness so that we could know him.

Tom Fuerst ~ I’m Not a Worthless Sinner

Worm Theology is probably a good moniker for such belief. It imprisons humanity in this notion that our sin has made us worthless. It fetters us to the falsity that the evil within us has so completely broken us that we literally have no value.

It sounds pious. It sounds like a good understanding of the holy character of God lies behind it. It sounds like something Christians should say. But is this at all what the scriptures teach? Or is this just a leftover from the shame-laden sermons we heard in our youth?

Elizabeth Glass Turner ~ Stolen: How Much Do You Own?

It’s not likely we’ll ever get back the things that were taken – especially those intangibles like “peace of mind.” Things are just things (maddening at first, yes, but in the end moths and rust doth corrupt and thieves break in and…well, apparently, they steal). But I can’t get back the blissful pre-break-in peace of never having had my home violated. There are many clichés about lost innocence. Are those instances just a bite-sized serving of the tragedy of Paradise Lost? Theologians have analyzed the fall of Adam and Eve ad infinitum. There’s a simple truth, however, that the average preschooler is capable of comprehending: Eve and Adam both took something that didn’t belong to them. As simple as that.