Define: Sin

I wonder about what sin really is sometimes. My usual definition is something along the lines of "something that is displeasing to God", but that isn't very specific. So, if you want to get specific you might go to the ten commandments and list idolatry, murder, lying, stealing, adultery, etc. But is that all sin really is? I don't think so.

More exactly, I'm talking about how I feel like sometimes the church categorizes things as sins because the current culture looks down on said activities. Is drinking alcohol wrong? Is smoking wrong? Is getting tattoos or piercing wrong? I'm going to address these with what I believe about each of them.

Alcohol
Does the bible condemn drinking alcohol? No. It actually condones it to some extent. Jesus' first miracle was turning water into wine - alcohol. But what about underage drinking? I think the line is more blurry than we'd like to think. We are supposed to obey the authorities put over us. One of those is the government and their law says drinking underage is wrong. Therefore, underage drinking is a sin. Many churches make that very clear cut and say that you must repent for it. But, if the definition of sin includes this, then what about speeding, trespassing to go tunneling, or having a toaster in your dorm room? Those all break a rule that an authority has put over us, just like underage drinking, but we don't view them as these great sins that require repentance, and certainly the Christian church in general doesn't have much to say about it. But bring up alcohol and they'll talk for hours. So, what then is right? If any one is wrong, they all are equally wrong and should be avoided. But if any one is not wrong, then none of them are wrong and we, as Christians, could do all of them.

What I would like to point out is that the Bible does explicitly state that it is wrong to be drunk. But drinking doesn't have to lead to drunkenness. If every time you drink, you over indulge and become intoxicated, or if your family has a history of alcoholism, then maybe not drinking is the best option for you, but that doesn't make the drinking itself a sin - only the drunkenness is.


Smoking
(Here I am talking purely about smoking tobacco. Smoking pot is another issue that is more of mixture between this discussion and the above on alcohol since it is a) smoking and b) prohibited by the authority over us. I could talk about whether there is a potential sinful nature of smoking pot where it is legal to do so, but I don't care to get into that at the moment.)

Most commonly, Christians condemn smokers by quoting 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 that says, "Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body." But this is taken out of context, the passage (verses 12-20) is talking about sexual immorality. For the sake of my rebuttal, though, I will consider it as a valid argument (because it wouldn't be much fun to argue against no argument). Basically, I'm taking the same approach as above: if the definition of a sin includes that which harms your body, then not only is smoking a sin, but so is sitting too close to the television, eating fast food, or letting yourself get sunburned. With those things you increase your chances of cataracts, increase your chances of cardiovascular disease, or increase your chances of skin cancer, which are all comparable to how smoking increases your chances of lung cancer. So, you either take them all or reject them all. I don't see another way around it. Yet, to a great extent only smoking has been looked down upon by the Christian community at large (though gluttony is making it's way there as well, it isn't as openly frowned upon as smoking is).

I would also like to point out that I believe being addicted to anything is a sin. An addiction is an idol - it's something that you think you need more than you need God. Cigarettes lend themselves to addiction. But so does caffeine and you don't see people getting bent out of shape over someone who needs to get their coffee fix every morning. Is being addicted to coffee just as bad as being addicted to cigarettes? I don't know. Along with this though, is the line between frequent enjoyment and addiction. When does that come along? Or, you could argue that just one cigarette won't significantly affect your health and therefore the above argument isn't violated, so to speak. But if one doesn't significantly affect your health enough to make it violate that argument, how many before it does? 2? 3? 10? 20? 100?

Tattoos and Piercings
I feel like this is less of an issue for most people, but I think there is still many people who are opposed and it has definitely been an issue in the past (or at least with my grandmother.) People quote Leviticus 19:28, which says," 'Do not cut your bodies for the dead or put tattoo marks on yourselves. I am the LORD." to argue against tattoos or piercings. Yet again, I can pose the same argument as above. The rest of the passage also condemns favoritism, hate, grudges, cross-breeding animals, cross-breeding plants, wearing clothes made of two materials, eating meat with blood in it, and cutting the hair on the sides of your head or clipping off the edges of your beard. If you're purely quoting it as "the Bible says it so you must do it", then it's all or nothing. But, that fails to see the purpose of this piece of text. The purpose was to differentiate the Jews from surrounding pagan groups. In the same way, I believe we, as Christians, should try to look different. How should that manifest itself? I'm not really sure, but I don't think it means there's a hard and fast rule against tattoos or piercings.


For any of this, you could also quote 1 Corinthians 10:23 which says, '"Everything is permissible"—but not everything is beneficial. "Everything is permissible"—but not everything is constructive.' How does that play in to all of this?


You might wonder why I'm so curious about these topics. Well, when I was in Spain and it was legal to do so, I drank beer, wine, and champagne and found them all to be delicious. I'm intrigued by smoking and see it as something I'd like if it wasn't going kill me. In my future, I could see any of these as being things I do, but my faith comes first. And I guess I sometimes see sin defined by the church as more of an agenda they're trying to accomplish and I'm more concerned about what sin really is.