Are we good at measuring sin in others? Do we scale sins in the correct order? I have been to a good number of Churches where they talked about sin. Some of the topics included drinking, homosexuality, living together before marriage, being unfaithful to your spouse, drug use, gossip, greed. divorce and the list goes on and on. I haven't heard of a formal scale to measure sin before. What I have noticed is that Christians have created a scale to measure sin.
Christians are great at measuring sin in other people. We make our list of best to worst. Our list starts with abortion and moves on to homosexuality. Somewhere in-between the top and the bottom we add in lust and substance abuse. Somehow we forget to add gluttony, gossip, anger and a bunch of minimal sins. Since we only focus on the bad sins, it isn't important to talk about lesser sins. Aren't we great at measuring sin?
We think to ourselves, boy I am sure glad that I am not at the top of the list. Maybe if I join the masses in opposing the bad sins, my little sins won't matter that much. For that matter maybe no one will even notice.
How about my sins are so secretive that no one will know. It isn't any of their business because I am not flaunting my sins. But, but, but……..
Where is our authority in measuring sin of others?
Here are a few Bible verses that I think are valuable to the conversation.
John 1:9 “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
Romans 3:23 “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”
Ecclesiastes 7:20 “Indeed, there is not a righteous man on earth who continually does good and who never sins.”
First off, we scale sins in a worldly way. God doesn't do this. God considers all sin to be equal. There is only one sin that you cannot be forgiven from. The greatest sin is not believing and accepting Jesus as your savior. You cannot be forgiven of this sin without accepting Jesus.
When we measure sins on our scale, we are committing a sin in the process. We are judging others and paying God. It is not our place to rank sin on a worldly scale. When we do this, we are alienating others which we are called to Christ. Instead of pointing out others sins, we should point them to Jesus instead. When Jesus works in these people's lives, he will work on their sins. Before you pick up a sign and decide to picket at planned parenthood or a gay pride parade, consider this. Wouldn't your time be better spent promoting the kingdom of God instead of judging others?
We don't have to agree with the other person to lead them to Christ. Anytime we try to change someone forcefully; we will get rejected. When we offer something that brings hope and light to someone's dark world, we are moving them closer to Christ. Measuring sin will get us nowhere if our purpose is to lead others to Christ.