WEEK 19

The God of the Unvierse has made it clear. Do not steal. Do not murder. But what if I’m starving and need food but I don’t have the money to pay for it and I steal some bread? Is stealing bread as severe a sin as killing someone? Today’s teaching is going to be focusing on this question: are some sins worse than others?

My son Noah loves throwing rocks into this pond. Now, this pond is usually not calm. There’s typically a fountain in the middle and because it’s sort of in this open space, it usually has a lot of wind. But whenever Noah does throw rocks into this pond, it ripples and makes a splash. But there is a big difference between when he throws in a tiny rock and a big rock. Usually, when he throws in a tiny rock you hear a little “dip” noise with minimal splash and ripple. Of course, you know what happens with the bigger rock. But no matter what he uses to throw into the pond, no matter how big or small, a ripple occurs. And if this pond were peaceful, that ripple would disturb the serene feeling the pond could have. And where a calm pond is able to reflect the heavens like a mirror, a rippled pond is only able to reflect a distorted appearance. 

Paul says in 2 Corinthians 3, “We are not like Moses who had to put a veil over His face to interact and encounter God. Those of us who have turned to Jesus are able to have the veil taken away. Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And all of us who have turned to Jesus, with unveiled faces have the opportunity to behold the glory of the Lord like a mirror. We are being transformed and we reflect the glory of Jesus thanks to the work of the Holy Spirit.”

This was my paraphrase of 2 Corinthians 3:13-18 but it holds to the heart of what Paul is communicating here. As followers of Jesus, we have been given the responsibility – and make no mistake, it is a heavy and weighty responsibility – of reflecting the image and characteristics of our Messiah. And when we sin, no matter how big or small, we allow a ripple into that reflection causing a distorted image of Jesus. 

At the end of the day, it is not about me. It’s not about my accomplishments or desires or needs. At the end of the day, it is about the mission of Jesus of Nazareth and what He is wanting to accomplish in all of our lives. And we must be willing to submit our own wants and desires to allow that image to shine through in our lives. And this means putting away our sinful desires and things that lead us away from God and towards death. This also means being willing to set aside our own version of who we WANT Jesus to be as opposed to the Jesus we find in the New Testament. 

So let’s dive a little further into this question and seek out some other biblical sources to help us find wisdom on this topic. 

When we go back to the Hebrew Bible, we see several places in Leviticus and Deuteronomy where there are curses and blessings for those who keep all of the law of Torah and all those 613 commandments. Why would God do such a thing – putting these curses and blessings into following 600+ commandments that often times seem to be vague and obscure when actually trying to follow them? The very blatant answer is this: they knew better. These were people who were rescued by YHWH, taken out of Egypt and brought into the Promised Land. Because they knew what the commands were and followed a God who was the source of all wisdom, there seemed to be a deeper level of responsibility that fell on them. We see Jesus actually do the same thing in Matthew 11. Jesus had visited and performed miracles in all these different towns. However, they apparently did not repent and kept on living in the same way after they had this miraculous encounter with Jesus. These are people who experienced Jesus in person, who saw the miracles in person, who witnessed all the great things he was doing and teaching. Yet, they didn’t change their ways. So he lays down some very heavy curses on them essentially saying places like Sodom and Gomorrah – known for their morally corrupt ways, would have repented. 

What we’re getting at here is this: sin is sin. James says it like this: “For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it.” 

But the people who know better and continue to living in that sin are guilty of a greater sin because they knew better.

We see this in Luke 12:47-48 where Jesus gives us the famous Spider-man line; “From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked.”

He’s not only talking about wealth and possessions here, but actually about expecting and anticipating His return. Jesus had just given a parable about watchfulness and being ready for the Lord’s return. He explained that those who knew the Master would return but abused their time and resources and power, would be guilty and would receive a worse punishment than those who did not know any better but still did things worthy of punishment. 

Unfortunately, Judas and the Pharisees clearly weren’t paying attention to this parable. Later, as Jesus is going through his trial he stood before Pilate who, according to John, wanted to release Jesus. You may or may not know the line, but Pilate says,

“Don’t you realize I have power either to free you or to crucify you?” Up until this point Jesus refused to speak to Pilate but here decided to respond and said, “You would have no power over me if it were not given to you from above. Therefore the one who handed me over to you is guilty of a greater sin.” –John 19:6-11

So Judas, Caiaphas, and all those who handed Jesus over to the Romans were guilty of a greater sin. It was a worse sin because they knew what they were doing. I don’t know if Judas actually believed that Jesus would be crucified – it’s my opinion that Judas was just trying to get the revolution started against Rome. I have written elsewhere about this topic and I’ve put it in your session guide for you. But Caiaphas absolutely knew what he was doing by sending an innocent man to be crucified. In other words, “The greater the responsibility…the greater ones knowledge of right from wrong…the worse the sin.”

However, Jesus makes it clear that it’s not always just the action of dishonoring God or others, but even our thoughts and emotions towards others can be sinful. As Jesus gives his famous sermon on the mount, this whole scene feels familiar because it is. As Moses gave the commandments from Mount Sinai, so Jesus is acting as the prophet like Moses as it says in Deuteronomy 18:15. In that mindset, Jesus expands on the 10 commandments and says things like,

“You’ve heard it said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” –Matthew 5:27-30

I bring this up here because when we ask, “Are some sins worse than others” we have to remember that all sin is sin. And what may seem like a tiny little sin one day can eventually grow like a weed into something much worse. It may just be a tiny rock, but that tiny rock still ripples. We may have just thought about someone else lustfully one day, but then a year from then you may actually perform the act of adultery. So Jesus reminds us that we need to deal with those things at the root and from the start before they turn into something worse. 

Let’s begin wrapping this up. The Bible gives us wisdom for how to live our lives and how to obey God. And there are countless times in Scripture where someone – even Jesus – is seen doing something that appears to be a sin but when viewed from a human perspective, it turns out God actually rewards them or favors that decisions. We see countless stories where one author says one thing and another author appears to say another. We see people lie to protect others. We see Jesus break the laws of Sabbath to eat (though, I would argue He didn’t – but from the perspective of the teachers of the law, he did). Therefore, we have to be careful and even remove the idea that the Bible is an all-in-one rulebook for how to live our lives.

Rather, as Pete Enns has said, it’s a book of wisdom and it guides us to the source of wisdom. He actually writes in his book “How The Bible Actually Works,” that the Bible’s main purpose is to “form us, to grow us to maturity, to teach us the sacred responsibility of communing with the Spirit by walking the path of wisdom.” And if this is the case then it leaves, “plenty of room for pondering, debating, thinking, and the freedom to fail.” 

 When we encounter Jesus, we are always expected to repent and to be holy. But not even the Disciples got it right all the time nor were they perfect. Nevertheless, they strived to be more like their Messiah. They strived to reflect His image in their lives. Sometimes they got it right. Sometimes they messed up. Thankfully, we have a Messiah who forgives us, who calms the storm, who calms the pond, and ceases the ripples. But that doesn’t excuse us from our present consequences. It doesn’t excuse us from our responsibilities. Our actions and decisions have weight and we should be wise and cautious about how we use our influence because while our actions may have present consequences, let’s never forget that there could be real eternal consequences when we get something really wrong. Jesus was very clear that our actions have both sets of consequences.

So when we are discerning what is and is not a sin, we have to ask ourselves,

“Is this decision going to dishonor God, dishonor others, or dishonor myself?” And something we should consider based on our topic today is this, “Could this action have a ripple effect that could turn into something worse? Is this action reflecting the image of Jesus of Nazareth? And am I using my influence to bring people closer to the God?