Robbery = Greed
Rape = Lust
Assault = Anger
Murder = Rage
Drug Use = Idolatry
The criminal code has been around a long time, but the attitudes and emotions behind them have been around since the beginning of time.
We scramble to make sense of various crimes, and run roughshod over sin, and naming it as such.
We like higher-sounding, more “sophisticated” explanations filled with psychological jargon, and while such explanations may inform us, they should not take the place of calling sin, sin.
Some lawyers love to twist and turn things, so the perpetrator sounds like the victim.
News reports like to sensationalize crimes, but not to talk about rebellion against God and His ways.
We introduce “programs” to “reform” those who have committed crimes, but few address the heart.
I suppose we will keep doing this dance. Perhaps it will get worse, as we get farther and farther away from the biblical explanations.
I am not discounting the impact that certain events can have on others, and how it may push them in the direction of committing a crime. I’m just saying that somewhere in there, in the details of “why they did it”, there is sin, and it needs to be acknowledged, confessed, and repented of.
“Oh, Rob – all your years in the prison have made you cynical and rigid in your thinking.”
No – I only want people to stop blaming everything and everyone else.
Perhaps one day we will hear a refreshing confession like, “Look, yes they made me angry. Yes my circumstances stunk. Yes, I’ve been depressed as of late. But at the heart of it, I wanted them dead. I wanted to kill them. I was filled with rage and I hated them, and at the root of all this was my sin. It was the evil within me. I just wanted to do it.”
14 but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. 15 Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.” James 1:14
For Jesus,
Rob