My previous post generated some great discussion, so rather than just reply in the comments, I thought I’d share my take on it here.
I encourage you to read the post and the comments, but here are some excerpts from it:
“There is a belief sometimes taught within Judaism that “sin” is basically misdirected passion. In other words, passion itself is neither good nor evil–passion is simply strong desire, strong feeling. What makes it good or evil is how it is directed…Thus, the belief is that we should not squelch our passions or “tame” them, for our passions are inherent in us, placed there by God. The idea is simply that we live our life unto God and direct our passions toward His purposes.”
I then invited readers to discuss this–to hold it up to the light of Scripture and determine if it had any merit. I truly enjoyed reading people’s reactions to this.
A common response from people was that they could easily see how this plays out with contextual sins (the example I gave was sex, which is good in the right context and sin in the wrong context), but they had a harder time applying it to more defined sins, like lying. (Lying is not a sin of context–lying is lying.) How could one attribute lying to a misdirected passion? Is there a right way to lie?? And so on from there.
Kudos to Steve Oberg for immediately tying this to Paul’s statement, “Everything is permissible…but not everything is profitable.” Good connection. And I also enjoyed Kansas Bob’s interjection that sin can also be an absence of passion.
So…my take on it…
I wonder if it would be better to word this just a little differently. Perhaps rather than saying that sin is misdirected passion, we’d do better to say that sin is a result of misdirected passion. In other words, the passion (or drive) is within us, and left un-directed in the hands of our fallen nature, it will naturally lead us into sin. The passion is the motivator here, and is neither good nor bad. Perhaps that might clear things up a bit for us, so we’re not splitting hairs over whether specific sins are misdirected passions.
One thing I’m thinking of is man’s first venture into sin, in the Garden of Eden. Look at how the serpent tempted Eve. He actually told her a mixture of truth and lies. He said, “You will not die if you eat this.” (That’s a lie.) “For God knows that when you eat it, you will become like God, knowing good and evil.” (That was truth–because the Bible indicates that their eyes were opened when they ate it.) But the gist of the temptation was to appeal to Eve’s inner hunger (passion) for knowledge, then suggest that God was holding out on her–that the only way she could satisfy that hunger was to do it on her terms. If she obeyed God, in other words, that passion would go unfulfilled. So her sin was actually more than just an act of disobedience; it was also a sin of not trusting God with her desires, or her passions. Passion misdirected.
Isn’t that how so much sin is generated in our own lives? Sin centers on self, and when we sin we are usually taking matters into our own hands because we somehow believe that following God’s way won’t get us what we think we need. Taken this way, sin boils down to distrust. And isn’t this what the Scriptures say? “Whatever is not of faith is sin.”
So why is it even important to think about this? What if sin is the result of misdirected passion? So what? Does it even matter? I think so–because if there is merit to this idea, it will change the way we deal with sin and temptation in our own lives. What I mean is this–so much of the time we spend resisting temptation from the standpoint of just trying not to sin, instead of finding a viable alternative to sinning. We tend to resist temptation simply by squelching the desire for it–so much so that there is much theology out there that suggests that our faith is all about self-denial. And while “dying to self” is certainly within the realm of Scripture, the whole of Scripture is NOT about self-deprivation. Quite the opposite, in fact–the Bible repeats the theme over and over that a life lived unto God is filled with fulfillment and goodness. One verse comes to mind among many: “In your presence is fullness of joy; at your right hand there are pleasures forevermore.” (Ps. 16:10) It is NOT true that passion is left unfulfilled when we live unto God. That’s just the lie we believe when we choose sin.
So what if we started looking at our life in Christ that way–from the idea that instead of squelching our passions and desires, we live them out unto God and seek Godly ways to direct them? What if we started dealing with temptation, not by squelching the desire, but by submitting that desire honestly to God, seeking Him for a more constructive way to direct that passion? It might not always play out directly, as in to-lie-or-not-to-lie, but it might reinterpret our faith into a faith of doing instead of not doing. When we live our lives unto God this way, maybe we’ll spend more time looking for the good things we can do instead of just trying not to do the bad things.
If sin is the result of misdirected passion, than submitting those passions to Jesus our Redeemer–who is the One who changes our sin nature–would help us redirect our passions into true Godly living, rather than just suppressing us into a tame, passionless practice of piety.
So all told…I think the idea has merit, and overall seems compatible with the Scriptures.
Any other thoughts?
Wayward Son
Musician. Composer. Recovering perfectionist. Minister-in-transition. Lover of puns. Hijacker of rock song references. Questioner of the status quo.
I'm not really a rebel. Just a sincere Christ-follower with a thirst for significance that gets me into trouble. My quest has taken me over the fence of institutional Christianity. Here are some of my random thoughts along the way. Read along, join in the conversation. Just be nice.
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Jeff,
Excellent post. I just read through both yesterday’s and today’s. Great questions you brought up in both.
“Isn’t that how so much sin is generated in our own lives? Sin centers on self, and when we sin we are usually taking matters into our own hands because we somehow believe that following God’s way won’t get us what we think we need. Taken this way, sin boils down to distrust.”
Amen. I think you stated very well, what resonates in my heart about what sin is. Distrust. Grabbing for that which is not meant for us.
“Does it even matter? I think so–because if there is merit to this idea, it will change the way we deal with sin and temptation in our own lives.”
Again, yes. Amen. It DOES matter whether we sin or not. Sinning signifies that something is not right in our hearts. When we understand and walk in Father’s Love, we naturally WANT to Love Him in response, and love others. Because He is transforming us more-and-more into His nature, sinning becomes something that disgsts us and that we just do not want to do, both because we know it will knock us out of feeling in harmony with Father AND we know that we will suffer the consequences of that sin we do.
“…sin is the result of misdirected passionto “avoid it” or abolish it on our own doing.”
I believe that to prevent from sinning, we are wisest to keep our focus upon God’s Love. When our eyes, ears and all is solidly focused on Love, Himself, it’s very difficult to sin!
Jeff, great post!!
Blessings,
~Amy :)http://amyiswalkinginthespirit.blogspot.com
This is a great discussion here Jeff, with great comments by all. You’re onto something. I don’t know if I have ever commented before but I’ve been following along.
I’m tracking with you especially about recognizing our desires as God given and not quashing them to be pious. Erwin McManus wrote about it in the context of trusting our passions in his book Chasing Daylight – Seize The Power Of Every Moment. I loved the book!
He says a contemporary translation of Psalm 37:4 Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart” is “ when you are madly in love with God, you can do whatever you want.”
I wouldn’t go as far as saying that sin can be solely defined as misdirected passion but it definitely is an element of it. Also, I can see the direct connection with trying to fulfill our desires in our own way and not trusting the Lord. As you said, these concepts can help us to deal with sin and temptation in a different way. Instead of just trying to quash it, we need to ask ourselves what is going on in our heart.
Good thoughts here, Jeff. I think this is part of the redirection many of us recovering pharisees are taking. It’s focuses on what we are entering into: responding to the invitation of the kingdom. (And by that, I do not mean a one-time salvation experience, but all the daily opportunities to participate and ‘enter’ that unseen realm that overlaps this seen one.) It’s interesting that you brought up distrust as the basis of all sin – as *faith* (trust) is the basis for entering into and participating in His kingdom. He offers us an alternative way of life, a counterculture that we can easily miss if we are focused on resisting and rejecting what is not of Him, rather than embracing His alternative. Great stuff!
Amy,
So many Christians live in this place of just “not sinning”, and what’s okay and what’s not, that we miss the greater point about relationship. We spend so much of our time flirting with the boundaries instead of moving toward Christ as the center of our lives. I think we need to get past this, don’t you? 🙂 There’s so much more to this.
Ruth,
Glad to have you chiming in. That contemporary phrasing of Ps. 37 (one of my favorite psalms, BTW) is worth chewing on. “You can do whatever you want” is a bit provocative, isn’t it? But if your love for Jesus is the motivator, you won’t “want” what you shouldn’t “want”. 🙂
Sarah,
Your words for some reason remind me of the words of an old Christian comedian who said there are more “do’s” in the Bible than there are “don’ts”. If you spend your time doing the “do’s”, you won’t have time to do the “don’ts.” 🙂 A bit more primitive take on what we’re talking about here. But still.
I am learning more and more about this day-by-day entering the kingdom. Good stuff.
Jeff, Very interesting post. I have a somewhat different angle on sin. The ‘laws’ are not applicable to one who has embraced Grace, so I have to say sin is being disobedient to the Holy Spirit.
Its like a game of football. The players do not play with the rule book stuck in their pockets and then stopping to check if they have contravened and rule. They play with all their might until the ref blows the whistle.
It the same in the Christian life. God has placed the basic rules in my heart, and I live with vigor. If I over step the mark the Holy Spirit will stop me and say, go and say sorry or repent for that, or do not do that its wrong. I then need to be obedient to hHis voice.
Believe me if you are listening for His voice, you are going to hear His voice when you get near that point of ‘sinning’.
I’m still learning 🙂