Studies on Being Enslaved To Sin

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The One Ring and the Failure of Willpower

Author

Keywords

Scripture

John 8:34-36, Hebrews 12:1-2, 2 Corinthians 3:5, Romans 7:15-24, Proverbs 20:9, Numbers 21:

Nearly everybody knows of at least one sin habit in their life that they wish to leave behind them. Yet, no matter what they do, it seems impossible for them to be free of this habit, character flaw, ...

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The Deepwater Horizon Crisis and Our Need for a Savior

Author

Ryan Bundrick

Scripture

Romans 3:21-31, 1 John 1:7, Philippians 1:6, Ephesians 2:8-9, Colossians 2:13-14

In 2010, an oil rig named “Deepwater Horizon” suffered a catastrophic failure. Due to improper installation of the cement seal, a malfunctioning blowout preventer, and cost-cutting decisions by corpor...

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Caught on Camera

Author

Matt Chandler

Keywords

Scripture

Ecclesiastes 12:14, Genesis 39:6-12 , 2 Kings 5:19-27 , Luke 12:2-3, Psalm 139:1-4, Acts 5:1-11

Several years ago I saw a television show called Caught on Camera . It featured clips of people being secretly filmed doing all manner of horrific things, precisely because they thought they were...

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Addictions Attach Desire

Author

Gerald G. May

Keywords

Scripture

Romans 7:15-20, John 8:34, Exodus 20:3-5, Matthew 6:24, 1 John 2:15-16, Psalm 115:4-8

For generations, psychologists thought that virtually all self-defeating behavior was caused by repression. I have now come to believe that addiction is a separate and even more self-defeating force t...

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C. S. Lewis and Despairing in Sanctification

Author

C. S. Lewis

Keywords

Scripture

1 John 1:9, 2 Corinthians 12:9, Philippians 1:6, Psalm 51:10-12, Galatians 6:9, Jude 1:24

As we try to live a life in obedience to God, the stubbornness of our sins can discourage and frighten us. If we are supposed to have a new heart, why are we still so broken? C.S. Lewis struggled with...

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Total Depravity Explained: Humanity's Devolution

Author

T.C. Hammond

Keywords

Scripture

Isaiah 64:6, Romans 3:9-18, Hebrews 11:6, Matthew 19:25-26, Ephesians 2:5

Some skeptics today speak about “evolving” from a primitive condition, but the Bible (Romans 1:18-32) sadly portrays a descent rather than an ascent. The result has been given the theological term “...

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Sin and Trees

Author

John Stott

Keywords

Scripture

Ezekiel 36:26, Romans 6:6, Galatians 5:16-17, Psalm 51:10, Jeremiah 17:9, John 8:34

Sin not only alienates; it enslaves. It separates us from God and it also brings us into captivity. We need now to consider the ‘inwardness’ of sin. It is more than the wrong things we do; it is a dee...

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A Kingdom of Priests

Author

Eugene H. Peterson

Keywords

Scripture

1 Peter 2:9, Isaiah 11:6

When the Hebrews, recently enslaved but now free, were gathered at Sinai to begin their formation as a free people, God spoke the words that defined them over against their four centuries of slavery i...

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First and Third World Fears & Authentic Worship

Author

Mark Labberton

Keywords

Fear

Scripture

Psalm 27:null, 1 John 4:19

One Sunday I was preaching on Psalm 27. It is a remarkable psalm of hope for God’s- deliverance from fear for those who have faced tough times. With the same candor found in many psalms, this one vivi...

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Thirty-one New Testament Descriptions of Sinful Mankind

Author

L. Meredith

Keywords

Sin

Scripture

Ephesians 4:18, John 12:40, 2 Corinthians 4:4, 1 John 2:11, Romans 8:6, Matthew 7:17-18, 1 Timothy 6:5, Matthew 6:23, John 3:19, Romans 1:21, 1 John 1:6-7, John 5:24, Colossians 2:13, 1 Timothy 5:6, 1 John 3:14, Titus 3:3, Isaiah 64:6, Titus 1:15, 2 Peter 2:20, Revelation 22:11, Romans 1:18, Matthew 7:23, Ephesians 2:3, James 4:4, Matthew 6:22, John 3:20, Matthew 7:26, Ephesians 5:15, 1 Peter 2:25, Matthew 6:2, Romans 2:5, Hebrews 3:8, 2 Thessalonians 2:12, 2 Timothy 3:4, 1 John 2:15, Romans 1:30, 1 Timothy 6:4, James 4:6, 1 Peter 5:5, John 3:35, 2 Timothy 4:4, Acts 7:51, John 8:44, 2 Timothy 3:2, Revelation 3:17, John 3:34, Romans 6:16-17, Romans 1:25, John 8:33, Romans 7:7, 1 Corinthians 6:9

Alienated from God (Eph. 4:18). Blind (John 12:40; 2 Cor. 4:4; 1 John 2:11). Carnally or fleshly minded (Rom. 8:6, 13). Corrupt (Matt. 7:17-18; 1 Tim. 6:5). Darkened (Matt. 6:23; John 3:19; Rom. 1...

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How being a Slave Shaped their Reading of Scripture

Author

Esau McCaulley

Keywords

Scripture

Galatians 3:28

The social location of enslaved persons caused them to read the Bible differently. This unabashedly located reading has marked African American interpretation since. Did this social location mean Blac...

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The Symptoms of Moral Disease

Author

John Stott

Keywords

Sin

Scripture

Ezekiel 36:26, Romans 6:6, Galatians 5:16-17, Psalm 51:10, Jeremiah 17:9, Matthew 12:33-34, Romans 7:18-20

Sin not only alienates; it enslaves. It separates us from God and it also brings us into captivity. We need now to consider the ‘inwardness’ of sin. It is more than the wrong things we do; it is a dee...

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A Biblical Understanding of Sin

Author

Richard Plass

Keywords

Scripture

Galatians 5:17, 1 Peter 2:25, Romans 8:7, James 4:4, Ephesians 2:1-2, Isaiah 59:2, 1 John 3:4

In the New Testament sin is not merely an individual, privatized transgression of a moral standard (sins is typically used for specific transgressions). It is far more radical than that. Sin is a mist...

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Sin in the New Testament

Author

Richard Plass and James Cofield

Keywords

Sin

Scripture

Galatians 5:17, 1 Peter 2:25, Romans 8:7, James 4:4, Ephesians 2:1-2, Isaiah 59:2

In the New Testament sin is not merely an individual, privatized transgression of a moral standard (sins is typically used for specific transgressions). It is far more radical than that. Sin is a mist...

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The Devils Logic [Part 2 of 2]

Author

Jared C. Wilson

Keywords

Scripture

Hebrews 3:13, 2 Corinthians 11:14, Proverbs 7:21-23, James 1:14-15, Genesis 3:6

If I were making a list of benefits like the one Mike McKinley imagines, only this time using the devil’s actual logic, it might look more like this: Experience the excitement of new romance. Get th...

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What is Freedom?

Author

Bruce A. Ware

Keywords

Freedom is not what our culture tells us it is. Freedom is not my deciding, from the urges and longings of my sinful nature, to do what I want to do, when I want to do it, how I want to do it, with wh...

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Where Sin Comes From

Author

Thomas Merton

Keywords

Scripture

Proverbs 14:12, Philippians 3:7-8, James 4:1-3, Matthew 16:26, Ecclesiastes 2:10-11

All sin starts from the assumption that my false self, the self that exists only in my own egocentric desires, is the fundamental reality of life to which everything else in the universe is ordered. T...

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Excluding Sinners is Excluding God

Author

Brennan Manning

Keywords

Scripture

Luke 19:7, Matthew 21:31, John 1:11, Luke 7:34, Mark 2:17

There is a story of a public sinner who was excommunicated and forbidden from entering the church, He took his woes to God. "They won't let me in, Lord, because I am a sinner." "W...

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The Center of Our Own World

Author

Paul David Tripp

Keywords

He may have been the hardest person I ever counseled. He was self-assured and controlling. He argued for the rightfulness of everything he had ever done. He acted like the victim when in fact he was t...

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Disregarding God’s Prohibitions

Author

Mark D. Roberts

Keywords

Scripture

Romans 6:1-2, 1 John 1:9, 1 Corinthians 6:18, James 1:14-15, Matthew 5:27-28, Hebrews 13:4, Proverbs 6:32

Some years ago I had a pastoral relationship with a couple of people who were deeply in love with each other. They believed that God wanted them to get married so they could consummate their love. The...

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The Ring of Desire

Author

Timothy Keller

Keywords

The central plot device of The Lord of the Rings is the Dark Lord Sauron’s Ring of Power, which corrupts anyone who tries to use it, however good his or her intentions. The Ring is what Professor To...

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The Curse of Living Under the Law

Author

Timothy Keller

Keywords

Scripture

Romans 4:4-5, Ephesians 2:8-9, Galatians 2:16, Romans 3:20, Galatians 3:9-10

To have Abraham-like faith brings blessing (v 9). The result of living by the law is that we are “under a curse” (v 10). This “curse” has two aspects. Theologically, anyone who says-. I can be saved b...

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The Perversion of Pleasure

Author

Jared C. Wilson

Keywords

Scripture

Genesis 1:31, 1 Timothy 4:4-5, James 1:17, Romans 1:25, 1 Corinthians 10:31, Psalm 16:11, 1 Timothy 6:17

In his classic fictional work on spiritual warfare, The Screwtape Letters , C. S. Lewis imagined a senior demon (Screwtape) corresponding with one of his protégés (his nephew Wormwood) as the latte...

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Taking Sin Seriously

Author

David Platt

Keywords

Sin

Scripture

Hebrews 10:26-27, Matthew 5:22, Romans 3:23, 1 John 3:4, Psalm 51:4, James 4:17

In his short publication, What Did Jesus Really Mean When He Said Follow Me? author and pastor David Platt describes an encounter between a friend of his and an American Taxi driver regarding the ...

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A Wretch Like Me

Author

Randy Alcorn

Keywords

Scripture

Ephesians 2:1, Romans 3:23, Luke 15:11-32, 1 Timothy 1:12-17, Luke 18:9-14

Before I spoke at a conference, a soloist sang one of my favorite songs, “Amazing Grace.” It was beautiful. Until she got to the tenth word. “Amazing grace! How sweet the sound that saved a soul like ...

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Reclaiming the Problem of Eye-Sin

Author

Tony Reinke

Keywords

Scripture

1 John 2:16, Colossians 3:2, James 1:14-15, Job 31:1, Psalm 119:37, Proverbs 4:23, Matthew 5:29, Matthew 18:9

“If your eye causes you to sin…” is one of the boldest phrases from the mouth of Jesus, appearing three times in the gospels. Our eyes not only leads us into sinful behaviors, but also to take in sinf...

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Justifying our Sin

Author

Greg Gilbert

Keywords

Scripture

Genesis 3:6–8 , Isaiah 59:2, 2 Samuel 12:7–9 , Romans 3:23, Luke 18:13–14, Psalm 51:4

I just paid a parking ticket the other day. It was easy. I read the charge against me, flipped the ticket over, checked the box that said “I plead guilty to the charge,” filled out a check for $35 to ...

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The Grievous Sin

Author

E. Randolph Richards and Brandon J. O’Brien

Keywords

Scripture

Ephesians 6:1

In 1988, I (Randy) moved with my wife and two sons (ages two and eight weeks) from Texas to Sulawesi, an island north of Australia and south of the Philippines. We served as missionaries to a cluster ...

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The Sin of Doing the Wrong Job

Author

Arthur F. Miller Jr. and Bill Hendricks

Keywords

Scripture

Matthew 25:14-30, Ecclesiastes 9:10, Proverbs 16:3, Colossians 3:23-24, 1 Corinthians 7:17, Romans 12:6-8

Does God take our work seriously? Consider these words from Arthur F. Miller: It is wrong, it is sin, to accept or remain in a position that you know is a mismatch for you. Perhaps that’s a form of ...

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How Transformation Happens

Author

James Bryan Smith

Keywords

Scripture

2 Corinthians 5:17, Romans 6:11-14, Galatians 2:20, Romans 8:1-2, Colossians 3:3-4, John 8:34-36, 1 Corinthians 6:19-20, Ephesians 4:22-24, Romans 8:15-16

In The Good and Beautiful God , James Bryan Smith describes a new Christian he happened to know who came to him one day feeling dejected. He was so excited to be a follower of Jesus, but he just co...

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