The Seven Deadly Sins

Unfortunately, to many people the word "sin" has lost its edge. We are more apt to hear about sin in reference to a piece of chocolate cake than in its true theological power. Understood biblically, sin is more than merely something that is "naughty but nice"; sin is a destructive pattern of life. It breaks our relationship with God, others, or ourselves. Reclaiming the word "sin" is the first step to reconciliation with God. When we recognize patterns as sinful, we recognize our own desperate need for the saving power of God in Jesus Christ.

What exactly is sin? Just as we organize our cupboards and our schedules to make sense of our lives, Christian thinkers have organized sin into a number of categories in order to understand and surrender these patterns to God. The notion of "seven deadly sins" emerged as a way to recognize specific dangers to our spiritual lives. The origins of the list are unclear. Many scholars say that they emerged from a list of eight bad habits created by Evagrius of Pontus, a fourth-century Greek monastic theologian. Some 200 years later, Pope Gregory the Great reduced the list to seven while writing on the book of Job.

Throughout the Bible, we read about the struggle between our sinful nature and God's desire to free us from bondage. In the book of Proverbs, we have an anthology of wisdom teachings. These collections were customarily attributed to King Solomon. Most biblical scholars now conclude that the title is honorary. The authors of Proverbs were the "sages, a social class that served as counselors, bureaucrats, and teachers during the Divided Kingdom and as preservers of tradition in the later periods" (Camp and Fontaine, 938). The purpose of the book is to guide people away from sin and into a wise and godly life.