Thought Exercise on Seven Deadly Sins

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The Difference Between Covetousness and Envy

Author

Keywords

What an envier wants is not, first of all, what another has; what an envier wants is for another not to have it… . To covet is to want somebody else’s good so strongly that one is tempted to steal it....

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The Old Testament: The Real World

Author

Phillip Yancey

Keywords

Scripture

Judges 16:1-31, Job 1:6-22, 2 Samuel 13:1-22, Matthew 14:1-12, Luke 23:13-25, Psalm 22:1-31

The Old Testament portrays the world as it is, no holds barred. In its pages you will find passionate stories of love and hate, blood-chilling stories of rape and dismemberment, matter-of-fact account...

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Contemporary Treatments of the Seven Deadly Sins

Author

Rebecca Konyndyk DeYoung

Keywords

Vice

Reading Aquinas, I found the vices to have revealing and illuminating power. By contrast, many voices in contemporary culture, unfortunately, dismiss, redefine, psychologize, or trivialize them. Some...

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No One is Greedy (Apparently)

Author

Timothy Keller

Keywords

Some years ago I was doing a seven-part series of talks on the Seven Deadly Sins at a men’s breakfast. My wife, Kathy, told me, “I’ll bet that the week you deal with greed you will have your lowest at...

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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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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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Are All Sins Equal?

Author

Kevin DeYoung

Keywords

Sin

Scripture

James 2:10, Hebrews 10:26-27, Romans 2:6-8, Matthew 12:31-32, Luke 12:47-48

Like many popular adages, this one about all sins being equal before God is not entirely wrong. Every sin is a breach of God’s holy law. And whoever fails to keep the law in one point is guilty of bre...

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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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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 Parable of the Onion

Author

Austin Fischer

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Take Dostoyevsky’s fantastical parable of the onion. A very wicked woman dies and is tossed into the lake of fire. Her guardian angel devises a plan to rescue her. Because she was so wicked, the angel...

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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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Jesus and Iron Man

Author

Casey Clark

Keywords

Scripture

Numbers 21:4-9, Isaiah 53:, John 3:14-15 , Matthew 12:38-41, Psalm 107:23-32

The symbol of judgment and death, the serpent, is lifted up as Israel’s symbol of life. Jesus draws this parallel for us in John, hinting toward the way the tool of Roman execution, the cross, will be...

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Virtues and Vices Can Offer Fresh Perspective

Author

Rebecca Konyndyk DeYoung

Keywords

Reaching back to the tradition of virtues and vices can also give us fresh eyes and expose new layers of meaning in our reading of scripture. Before I read Aquinas on sloth, I would have associated it...

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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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The Three Basic Problems of Sin

Author

R. C. Sproul

Keywords

Scripture

Genesis 11:1–9, Genesis 3:1–13, Judges 16:4–22 , Matthew 23:12, Acts 5:1–11, Psalm 51:10–12

Karl Barth (1886-1968), the famous Swiss theologian, once wrote that all human sin finds its roots in three basic human problems. He included pride (hubris), dishonesty and slothfulness in his list of...

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Confession: Coming to the Edge of Our Graves

Author

Rebecca Konyndyk DeYoung

Keywords

Confession of Sin

One of the movements in the rhythm of discipleship and sanctification is the movement of dying. The practice of confession is where the “dying” of conversion repeatedly occurs. We come as though to th...

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A Tender Conscience is a Terrible Thing to Waste

Author

Kevin DeYoung

Keywords

Temptation

I’m not a big movie buff. I’ve seen my fair share, but if I have an evening free I’d rather read a book, play a game, or watch sports than take in a movie. My wife, on the other hand, likes movies, mo...

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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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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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Our Fascination with Descents

Author

Matthew Y. Emerson

Keywords

Holy Saturday

Descents are everywhere. From Hercules and Orpheus venturing into Hades, to Harry Potter following the pipes down into the Chamber of Secrets, to the Sheriff and Joyce Byers frantically searching for ...

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Show Me the Prints of the Nails

Author

The Pastor's Workshop

Keywords

Martin of Tours was a 4th century Frankish soldier who, after a personal encounter with Jesus, left the Roman army and became a hermetic monk and later a bishop. Dozens of stories of his life have cir...

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Everyone’s Guilty

Author

Stuart R. Strachan, Jr.

Keywords

Scripture

Jeremiah 17:9, Isaiah 53:6, Romans 7:18-19, Proverbs 28:13, James 5:16

A few years ago, HBO released a gritty (surprise!) crime drama called True Detective . The show starred Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson as the two detectives responsible for catching a serial...

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Different Seasons, Different Challenges

Author

Ronald Rohlheiser

Keywords

Scripture

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8, Ecclesiastes 3:11, Luke 15:11-32, Proverbs 20:29, Psalm 90:10-12

Someone once quipped that we spend the first half of our lives struggling with the sixth commandment ( Thou shalt not commit adultery ) and the second half of our lives struggling with the fifth comma...

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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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The One Ring and the Failure of Willpower

Author

Ryan Bundrick

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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Don’t Look Down But Up

Author

Rowan Williams

Keywords

Scripture

Hebrews 10:24-25, Philippians 2:3-4, Ephesians 4:2, Romans 12:10, 1 Peter 5:5

In his excellent book on the desert fathers, Where God Happens , former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams tells of an encounter between two monastic fathers. The first was Macarius, famous in...

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Saints of Darkness?

Author

Austin Fischer

Keywords

There are many ways to be a saint, and at times our fidelity may look like betrayal. We may have to become “saints of darkness.” We may have to be saints whose light seems to go out as we wander in th...

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One of the Great Ironies of Sin

Author

Timothy Keller

Keywords

Scripture

Matthew 23:12, Romans 12:3, 1 Peter 5:5, Daniel 4:37, Philippians 2:3-4

One of the great ironies of sin is that when human beings try to become more than human beings, to be as gods, they fall to become lower than human beings. To be your own God and live for your own glo...

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Temptation Without Sin

Author

Paul E. Little

Keywords

We read of the temptations of Jesus, but we never hear of a confession of sin on his part. He never asked for forgiveness, though he told his followers to do so. This lack of any sense of moral failur...

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Cat and Mouse Games

Author

Max Lucado

Keywords

Scripture

Genesis 3:14-15, Job 1:6-12, Isaiah 14:12-15, Colossians 2:13-15, Luke 10:18-19, Psalm 91:13

My friend Carter Conlon has ministered in New York City for more than two decades. Yet he spent many of his early years on a farm. He recalls a barnyard scene that illustrates the status of Satan. A f...

thought exercise on Seven Deadly Sins

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