“Jesus answered them, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin. The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son does remain forever. So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed’” (John 8:34-36).
In the verses leading up to Jesus’ statement above, He explained that the truth is able to make us free (John 8:32). Free from what? From sin. Sin enslaves those who commit it.
How does this happen? It does not somehow remove our free will. Even after we sin, we still have the ability to “choose…whom [we] will serve” (Joshua 24:15) and be persuaded to follow the Lord (2 Corinthians 5:11). So how does this “enslavement” happen?
In this article, we will notice seven ways that sin enslaves us. As we consider these, remember that most are actually accomplished by the devil and his ministers, who tempt us to sin, but they are attributed to sin itself.Continue Reading
For many, empathy is considered an unquestionably positive virtue. Yet in a new book provocatively titled The Sin of Empathy, author Joe Rigney challenges that assumption. In it, he argues that empathy is very different from the Biblical concept of compassion. In fact, he suggests that our culture has distorted compassion and created “empathy” as a justification for sinful and destructive behaviors. He described the pressure to conform to this counterfeit of compassion as living “under the progressive gaze.”
