Bible Question: 3 NT passages which give acatalog various sins |
Bible Answer: Hi, Joe... Our Lord said, "He who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me; and he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and will disclose Myself to him." (John 14:21 NASB) I believe I read somewhere that Christ Himself asserted (or reasserted) something over 250 commands in the gospels. However, one would not want to limit it to just His explicit commands, since all Scripture is His Word. How about if you work through something like the Sermon on the Mount, looking at each imperative statement, after working out who is being addressed. Obviously, any command that is failed to be obeyed, would be considered a sin -- although sin itself is more than just a matter of commission and omission. One other issue to avoid is that a list of commands will be a suitable checklist of behavior. Commands are rooted in doctrine. Theologians speak of indicatives (doctrine) versus imperatives (practice). It is in our nature to try to try to do the right things without understanding the right truth. We are all pharisaical at heart. The proper practices, however, if they do not arise from the proper doctrine, are frequently as much of a problem as the wrong practices in the first place. Nonetheless, we do not have to dig too deeply to surface our own sinfulness. For that end, all we have to do is look at the "great commandment" from Matthew 22:37-40. In Him, Doc |