The Chapel hosted the first week of its three-part discussion on sin, hell, and the devil Wednesday, Jan. 28. The first discussion was centered around sin and featured speaker Eric Anderson, director of Career Development.
Service began simply enough; we opened by standing and singing a hymn, and then a student read a verse from the Bible that pertained to this week’s topic of sin. After a brief introduction from Pastor Gary, Anderson came to the front of the chapel to open up the discussion of sin.
“Sin,” said Pastor Gary, “is sometimes a very easy thing to decipher but can often be big and hard to define.”
This theme permeated throughout the remainder of the discussion. The two men contemplated the different ways that sin can manifest itself in a person’s life. Pastor Gary noted the ways that sin could be interpreted differently even by people of the same denomination.
Anderson brought up where the word “sin” derived from. Etymologically, the word, as it is translated in the Bible, has Greek roots that referred to one missing the mark in archery. From this bit of knowledge, it is easy to see the way that sin transposes into one missing their mark to gain spiritual closeness to God. Pastor Gary followed this up by referencing the way that there are actions that bring one closer to God; there are also actions that places one farther away from God. It is these actions that puts one farther from God that can be considered sin.
During the discussion, some important remarks were made regarding the relationship between man and insect. Anderson brought up a scenario where he had cleared his basement of spider webs.
“To the spider,” Anderson said, “this was probably devastating.”
But, for Anderson’s wife, who had asked him to clear out the basement, this deed was thanked. These are the kinds of scenarios where the concept of sin can seem unclear.
“Intention is very important to me,” said Anderson.
To intentionally do something harmful to someone or something is sinful, to Anderson. But, sometimes even one’s intention can seem unclear, Anderson brought up.
“There are thoughts that are outside of free will,” Anderson said.
Sometimes these thoughts can be unsavory, but Anderson seemed to be under the conviction that these thoughts don’t really count as sin.
The discussion was concluded with the giving of communion, and service ended by singing a second hymn. Overall, the discussion was somewhat brief, but it did cover a fair bit of ground and likely left those in attendance with quite a bit to ponder in their heads.
One student, Michael Gugel-Bryant, who had attended the service gave me his honest opinion on what he thought of the discussion.
“It wasn’t necessarily what I expected,” said Gugel-Bryant. “I was expecting something more about the negativity and catastrophic things about sin.”
Another student, Allison Monai, commented that she enjoyed the discussion. I asked her what she considered sin to be.
“Sin, to me, is when you do something wrong and you know it’s wrong,” said Monai.
After helping myself to the donuts and orange juice that was provided, I asked an eager Pastor Gary about what motivated him to host the three-week service.
“My motivation,” Pastor Gary said, “was to create conversation on this broad theme so that others can create conversation.”
Instead of simply telling others what these enormous and varying topics mean to him, Pastor Gary made certain to emphasize that these topics can have a vast range of understanding among believers.
“We can worship together and have different ideas about sin and hell and the devil,” said Pastor Gary.
