Transcript: You’re watching one of a series of videos where Elisa Childers and I respond to 23 progressive Christian claims, kind of like a progressive Christian manifesto that was written by Ragamuffin TV. We deal with these claims—some good, some bad, some ugly—and I’m hoping that this helps you to think biblically.

Okay, so number 22. I actually—interesting, I was just pondering this question recently. If sin means “miss the mark”—and what he’s referring to is the Greek word “hamartia,” which is one of the words that the Bible uses in Greek to describe sin, which does mean “miss the mark.” So if sin means “miss the mark,” then we all sin in every way by just being alive, for we all fall short of the glory of God.

Yeah, it’s funny how a little phrase can involve so many things I’d want to disagree with. I don’t think we sin by just being alive. Like, merely existing isn’t a sin. Yeah, I don’t know what that—I don’t know what that means, except that it’s to devalue the topic. Yeah, the point ultimately is that sin is not that big of a deal. I think that’s his ultimate point—sin is not really that big of a deal. Which then, you’ve got to wonder, why does he care that it’s not a sin to smoke or not a sin to drink, if sin’s not even a big deal?

Yeah, but whatever. The reality is they’re not really about something. It’s not that they’re trying to construct a cohesive view of Christianity. In my view, the progressive Christians are just trying to tear something down. They’re not trying to build something up; they just want to tear something down. I’m going to attack you on this: “It’s not a sin to smoke, it’s not a sin to drink, and guess what—sin ain’t no big deal anyway.” Okay, well then, why—these are conflicting ideas, actually.

Yeah, but there’s a difference between the etymology of a word and the definition of a word, right? So the etymology or the origin of the word “hamartia” is “missing the mark.” It was like an archery term. But etymology—the more you study Greek or any language, the more you realize etymology is actually not very important. And first-year Greek students or Christians who have a little bit of Greek, they tend to be flipping through Strong’s and going to the root word of the root word of the root word, and I just want to say this is a really bad idea. Like, we should just read usage, not roots. Usage, not roots.

So the usage of the word “hamartia”—it has meanings, according to B-DAG, which is a standard lexicon, meanings ranging from involuntary mistakes or errors to serious offenses against a deity. In scripture in particular, “hamartia” or sin is pretty much always used as a very serious thing. It’s not a “Oh, you missed the mark.” It really is used as a serious thing where there’s a consequence of God’s judgment upon the sinner.

So when they say we all fall short of the glory of God in this, they act like that means, “Hey, we all do it.” It’s kind of like if I caught you shoplifting and you’re like, “Come on, Mike, everybody’s done it.” What you mean is, “So it’s not really that big of a deal.” Right. Except when you have a perfectly holy and just God, if everyone’s done it, it just means everyone’s in trouble because God’s not going to judge us based upon what everyone does, but based upon holiness.

So in scripture, when it says “all fall short of the glory of God,” it’s not a big deal. It’s in Romans, where Romans 1, 2, and 3 are laying out that this is why God’s wrath is going to come down upon us. So this is quoting scripture to mean the exact opposite of what it means.

And I think, too, I think behind this sentiment might be the idea that if that’s all it means—just missing the mark—then, I mean, just looking the wrong way, you’re missing the mark. Or taking a step in the wrong direction is missing the mark. So are you—you went bowling, and you got a gutter? Yeah, we missed the mark. So we don’t mean that, though, do we?

Yeah, so I think that’s a good distinction there. I’m going to be putting up one of these videos every single day until the entire series is uploaded on my channel with a playlist, so you might want to subscribe if you want to get those notifications. But if you can’t wait, there’s links to the two video interviews in large form that I already did on Elisa Childers’ channel down below.

See original video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bIYND1XedY