If You Don’t Know What Sin Is, Telling Others to Repent Is Hypocritical

I’ve noticed a trend this past decade of even more pronounced (and hopefully well-meaning) Christians who are so insistent that people repent of their sins because they are vile sinners in need of deep cleansing.

But I have had a long spiritual journey for the past twenty years in my search for truth.

And in that search for truth, I’ve found that God does not care about 90% of what these people consider sin.

That’s a bit of estimation and a bit of being facetious with the self-observed statistics. But the truth is, it isn’t far from the truth. If you want to be a biblical Christian, then be a biblical Christian.

Which means taking church dogmas out of the faith.

And I’m talking all dogma. Most of what churches teach today is based on lies and misunderstandings, or using English translations without consulting the ancient languages.

And you know what? You might not have the capacity or time to study the ancient languages in their original context. But it doesn’t hurt to do a little skimming.

One example I can think of is the commonly used word fornication. Most people “know” what this word means.

But it doesn’t mean the typical notion of sex before marriage that most Christians think. Strong’s G4202 means only a few things. But beware the scribes, as Jesus said. Biblical scribes and translators change things all the time in the modern world. They insert their biases into these words to make up sins.

Porneía from πορνεύω;

harlotry (including adultery and incest); figuratively, idolatry

That is the standard and original definition of biblical fornication. It is religious harlotry, breaking the laws of Leviticus 18, and metaphorically idolatry.

Newer versions of the concordances add things that aren’t in the original meaning of the text, and certainly not how this word was used in ancient Greece.

So, while sex before marriage is not a good idea and is best kept for marriage—it isn’t what fornication means.

This means pastors who tell you kissing, holding hands, wearing more revealing clothing, going to a beach, and all manner of things are simply lying to you.

Thinking a woman is hot, for example, is not a sin. It is in most churches, but they lie about almost everything these days.

This being a certain month, being a woman who is attracted to women is not a sin either. You can’t lump things together into words and hope it sticks.

What is sin in reality?

Anything you find in the first five books of Moses that is a negative commandment, or avoiding commandments that are given to follow. That’s it.

That means working out for reasons other than health is not vain and “lustful.”

That means being affectionate with your partner before saying, “I do,” is also not a sin.

I don’t want to be taken out of context here, though. God’s ideal situation is a committed relationship.

But Christians shouldn’t tell people to repent if they don’t even know what repent means.

“That was the Old Testament.”

Nope.

God is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

“Jesus added new rules.”

Nope.

If He added new rules, He would break Deuteronomy 4:2 and can’t be the Messiah if that’s the case. You’re following a Jesus that isn’t in the Bible at that point.

God hates adding sins that don’t exist as much as He does sins that exist. Because doing so is a sin.

Before you tell your congregation to repent, perhaps learn what sin actually means first.

That’s like me telling someone to bake a cake without the ingredients.

The cake can’t exist without the ingredients, just like a sin can’t exist without a written command against something.

You can keep your traditional Christianity, and I’ll keep my BIBLICAL Christianity.

I am a patient man in most regards. But I hate when people make things up about the Bible. The notion of being holier than someone is funny to me with such believers, because if you don’t know how to be holy at all, don’t tell others to be.

God’s commandments are ultimately for our benefit. They offer us true life in this world.

But making sins up keeps people trapped. And Satan loves that as much as filling us with deceptions from himself and his angels.

My personal theory is that many Christians will be shocked by how Jesus will judge them for adding things to the Bible as much as the Pharisees did so long ago.

Let’s not make their same mistake in our current generation.

“You’re just trying to justify sin!”

“No. I actually know what sin is, which means I would never do such a thing!”

Irony of ironies.

Shalom and blessings to you.