A Brief Bible Study |
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Your Bible Lesson For The Day
How Does Inherited Sin Affect Human Behavior?
To answer this question, you only need to look around you. What kinds of behavior do you see? A man leaves his wife and children for another woman. A mother is arrested for abusing her infant daughter. A son steals money out of his mother’s purse when she is not looking. Teenage pregnancies. Drunken drivers. Drug addictions. Child pornography. Adulteries. Murders. Greed. Gossip. Slander. And the list goes on and on. So what is the answer to the question? Inherited sin is behind every kind of sinful human behavior.
Your Lord Jesus has testified that this is the case. In Matthew 15:19 he says, “Out of the heart comes evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witnesses, blasphemies.” According to Jesus sinful thoughts, words, and deeds all have their start in the sinful human heart. That sinful nature is responsible for every kind of evil behavior that you are seeing.
In Matthew 7:17 Jesus also says, “Every good tree produces morally good fruits, but a rotten tree produces wicked fruits.” Because everyone is conceived and born with a sinful heart and nature, everyone by nature is a like a rotten tree that produces only wicked fruits. And you are seeing the wicked fruits, like those mentioned above, all around you and in the news.
Even though we are Christians, we ourselves are not immune to sinful behaviors. Like Paul confessed in Romans 7:19, 20, so we also must confess, “For the good that I desire to do I do not do, but the evil that I do not desire to do this I do. Now if I do what I do not desire to do, it is no longer I myself doing it but the sin dwelling in me.” We Christians have been reborn spiritually and desire to obey God; yet our sinful nature, called the Old Adam, remains with us throughout our lives, causing us to also do evil rather than the good we desire to do.
So how does inherited sin affect everyone’s behavior? It causes everyone, even us Christians, to commit sins in thought, word, and deed. This is called actual sin.
Your Lord Jesus has testified that this is the case. In Matthew 15:19 he says, “Out of the heart comes evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witnesses, blasphemies.” According to Jesus sinful thoughts, words, and deeds all have their start in the sinful human heart. That sinful nature is responsible for every kind of evil behavior that you are seeing.
In Matthew 7:17 Jesus also says, “Every good tree produces morally good fruits, but a rotten tree produces wicked fruits.” Because everyone is conceived and born with a sinful heart and nature, everyone by nature is a like a rotten tree that produces only wicked fruits. And you are seeing the wicked fruits, like those mentioned above, all around you and in the news.
Even though we are Christians, we ourselves are not immune to sinful behaviors. Like Paul confessed in Romans 7:19, 20, so we also must confess, “For the good that I desire to do I do not do, but the evil that I do not desire to do this I do. Now if I do what I do not desire to do, it is no longer I myself doing it but the sin dwelling in me.” We Christians have been reborn spiritually and desire to obey God; yet our sinful nature, called the Old Adam, remains with us throughout our lives, causing us to also do evil rather than the good we desire to do.
So how does inherited sin affect everyone’s behavior? It causes everyone, even us Christians, to commit sins in thought, word, and deed. This is called actual sin.
