It is interesting how some biblical words have become so associated with hyper-religious things that they have lost any real meaning to most of us. The irony is that most of these words started out as very common, everyday words with no spiritual meaning at all. Two such words are “sin” and “trespasses.” Even most Christians could not tell you the difference between the two.
These words did not start surrounded by any ecclesiastical mystery. Sin is an archery term. It simply means missing the bulls-eye. I am an archer and I used to shoot with a few target shooters. To them the question was how close to the center of the bulls-eye they could get their entire group of arrows. Not me. I always had at least one arrow in each group that landed outside the bulls-eye. I sinned. When you understand sin in this way you realize that everybody from Mother Teresa, to Billy Graham, to me, and yes, even to you, has missed the bulls-eye. The word trespass is no more complicated to understand. When you walk up to a fence with a No Trespassing sign on it and you keep going – you have committed a trespass. If you do it twice you have committed trespasses. Wow, isn’t that spiritual. No, it is not, but more disturbing is the fact that it is very common. We have become a people who ignore No Trespassing signs, real ones and figurative ones alike.
For years my main mode of transportation was a Harley Davidson. I learned to be a defensive driver. I became very aware of what other drivers were doing. Once a month or so someone would run a red light or ignore a Stop sign. I noticed because my life depended on it. Now on my short drive to work in my ¾ ton Dodge pickup I still notice. Every day, let me repeat that, every day I see several people race through a light well after it turned red and Stop signs seem to only apply to others who are not in a hurry.
We are in danger of becoming a lawless people. Oh the politicians keep passing more laws as quickly as they can, but lawlessness is an issue of the heart. Our second President, John Adams, stated: "Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." Those people who rush through a red light or only slow down to 15 mph at Stop signs are not even aiming for the bulls-eye and would pay no more attention to a No Trespassing sign than they do traffic signals. These are not simply religious issues. These are moral issues of a civilized, supposedly self-governing people.
Next time you are tempted to rush through a “pink” light, ask yourself this question, “Do I really want more centralized government from Washington?” If not, try pressing down on the brake pedal instead of the gas.
Principle Based Evaluation: Change must begin from the inside out and from the bottom up. It starts with me (and you) actually exhibiting more self-government.
For more information on the author, Gary Cake, go to: http://www.mtwm.org/
Jessica Rankin
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... Wow. This article was very convicting. The fact that sin actually means "missing the mark" calls for a greater level of conviction in me to not just settle for getting close to the target, but actually hitting it. In our post-modern culture, there is no mark to even hit!! Postmodernism, "stems from a recognition that reality is constructed as the mind tries to understand its own particular and personal reality. It is highly skeptical of explanations which claim to be valid for all groups, cultures, traditions, or races, and instead focuses on the relative truths of each person. [1]" So basically, everybody determines for themselves what target they want to hit, and as long as they hit theirs then its okay. This is how we forget self-government, and it must be stopped! We have a higher target to hit, God's! It is so true what you said about this not just being religious issues, but moral issues that all people have to deal with. Self-government starts small in the family and works its way up, just as Mr. Cake stated. When America won its independence from Britain, it left a place where the government ruled the people. As James Wilson(a leading member of the Philadelphia Convention and one of the first justices on the Supreme Court) stated, “order of things in Britain is exactly the reverse of the order of things in the United States. Here, the people are masters of the government; there, the government is master of the people." We should act so as to preserve the possibility of constitutional self-governance [2]. Self-government is a concept that is slipping away in our culture. From running traffic lights and rolling through stop-signs, to bigger things like drugs and pre-marital sex, America's youth is slipping down the slope of multiple trespasses, "missing the mark," and forgetting how to self-govern themselves. [1] http://www.pbs.org/faithandrea...-body.html [2]http://www.heritage.org/research/politicalphilosophy/fp5.cfm |
