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The Seven Deadly Sins


The Seven Deadly Sins

 If you don’t know what the seven deadly sins are then here is the list . . .

Lust
Gluttony
Greed
Sloth
Envy
Wrath
Pride

Turn on the TV.  Watch just about any movie. Pay attention to your own life and you will see Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Sloth, Envy, Wrath and Pride. It can sometimes be difficult to talk about sin in general and it can get a little more complex within a Church setting. Within the Church some have abused others by using the word sin to heap on shame, fear and guilt. The word has even been used to threaten and manipulate people within the Church. Adding to these complexities there is often a silent assumption that when the word sin is used, in Church or elsewhere, everybody has the same understanding as to what that word means. Thus the word sin has been abused by some and is probably confusing for others. So does that mean that we should just throw the word out?  No

Yet we need to recognize that talking about sin is difficult for various reasons. Not difficult because it is uncomfortable, awkward or socially taboo. It’s just difficult because life is complex and people come to the word sin with different kinds of baggage and traditions. Over the next few weeks I will post on each of the seven deadly sins. Does this mean that the next seven posts will be torture? Well that is a possibility. However, might I suggest that you could use these next seven posts as an opportunity to take a take a step towards honesty about your own actions, behaviors, and habits.

In Matthew 7:3-5 Jesus says: “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?  How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye. Jesus says first take the plank out of you own eye and then you will see clearly to take speck out the sawdust of your brother’s eyes. We Christians typically excel at looking for specks of sawdust in other people’s eyes. We like to look into the lives of others and suggest that the problem is with them all the while we need to remove the plank of wood sticking out of our own eye.

Consider the next few posts as an invitation to do a spiritual self examination. This is an opportunity to take the plank out of your own eye so that you might see clearly. If one or all of these posts makes you uncomfortable then pay attention to that because that might be a sign of something you need deal with.

I will not bore you with how we got these seven deadly sins. However, these seven deadly sins used to be called capital vices. The word capital comes from a Latin root word that means chief or head. A capital vice is the chief vice or lead vice. Thomas Aquinas was a Christian theologian who lived around the 1200s. He writes that a vice is a habit that inclines one to sin.[1] A helpful way of thinking about these seven deadly sins is in the sense of habits. They are habits that are in our daily lives and incline us to various sins.

For example one of the Ten Commandments is to not commit adultery. How does one do that? I suppose you could simply answer that you don’t commit adultery and therefore I have kept the commandment. But let’s say you do commit adultery. Where did that begin? How did you get to that particular place where you committed adultery? By examining the seven deadly sins perhaps we might better recognize the habits that we have formed in our daily lives that bend us towards sin. These capital vices are habits that we carry around with us and we should take them seriously.

Your sin, weaknesses, habits and vices, are not really overcome. You don’t wake up one day and you are like “I am victorious over lust!” It is rather that sin is transformed. You bring your habits, vices, sins, weaknesses and failures to God and God meets you there. In fact it is in your sins – those cracks in your life – that the light of God is let in. God does not say get rid of your sin first and then we can talk. It is the opposite. You bring your sins with you. These seven deadly sins or vices and habits offer an invitation. The invitation is to bring your vices to God and allow him to transform your life. This is where folks who have ever been to or through a 12 step program have an advantage. When you go to the meeting you stand and say “My name is ____________ and I am an alcoholic.” Even if you have been sober for years and years there is a recognition that you still carry the wounds, weaknesses and failures with you. Thus by looking at the seven deadly sins you expose the vices, habits and sin in your life which allows an opportunity for God to transform your life.


[1] A capital vice is that which has an exceedingly desirable end so that in his desire for it, a man goes on to the commission of many sins, all of which are said to originate in that vice as their chief source. - Summa Theologiae, II-II, 153, 4

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