{"id":6258,"date":"2024-06-24T03:34:00","date_gmt":"2024-06-24T03:34:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=6258"},"modified":"2026-10-02T01:32:23","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T01:32:23","slug":"mere-sinners","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=6258","title":{"rendered":"MERE SINNERS?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">When I listen to the hardcore proponents of original sin &#8211; the Jonathan Edwards &#8220;Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God&#8221; types &#8211; what really strikes me is the hyper focus on man&#8217;s utter sinfulness to the exclusion of all other considerations.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">They stress that humans are &#8220;God haters&#8221; and that God has every right to condemn sinners to hell for their affront to His glory and justice and righteousness, but I almost never hear them speak of the pain which we inflict on each other with our sin.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Every sinner you encounter in this life isn&#8217;t merely a sinner. He or she is also a victim of the sins of others.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">How many alcoholics have an alcoholic parent?<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">How many abusers were abused themselves as children?<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">How many thieves are the product of broken, dysfunctional homes?<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And that &#8220;sinner&#8221; you are tempted to judge might also be the victim of generational poverty or natural disasters or disease or &#8230; who knows what else.<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Heck, imagine the (mis)shaping power of the surrounding culture!<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We tend to forget those influences, but I don&#8217;t think God does.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When I listen to the hardcore proponents of original sin &#8211; the Jonathan Edwards &#8220;Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God&#8221; types &#8211; what really strikes me is the hyper focus on man&#8217;s utter sinfulness to the exclusion of all other considerations.\u00a0 They stress that humans are &#8220;God haters&#8221; and that God has every [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6258","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6258","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6258"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6258\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6259,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6258\/revisions\/6259"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6258"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}