If You're Going To Sin, At Least Don't Be Stupid

Suggested Reading: Proverbs 6:20-35

The other day I was reading my daily dose of Proverbs when I stumbled across this verse: "For a prostitute's fee is only a loaf of bread but an adulteress goes after a precious life" (Proverbs 6:26, HCSB). And I thought, Wait, is scripture seriously telling us that it is better to go to a prostitute than to have an affair? Thinking that was odd, I kept reading. A few versus later, another sin was compared to having an affair. "People don't despise a thief if he steals to satisfy himself when he is hungry. Still, if caught, he must pay seven times as much; he must give up all the wealth in his house. The one who commits adultery lacks sense; whoever does so destroys himself" (Proverbs 6:30-32, HCSB).

For a minute, I wrestled with the question: But aren't all sins the same in the eyes of God? Doesn't God hold us just as accountable for any one sin as for any other sin? Even though that is what I've been taught most of my life, I'm not entirely convinced that is the case, but that concept doesn’t even enter into the picture with these verses. These verses aren't about which sins God counts as worse than others. These verses are about which sins are going to get us into the most trouble here on earth.

The author of these proverbs is trying to tell us, in rather pithy terms, that going to a prostitute only costs you money but having an affair can cost you your life; stealing, if you have a legitimate need, will be punished but understood, while having an affair is just stupid. Talking about having an affair, the proverbist (I may have just made up that word) asks, "Can a man embrace fire and his clothes not be burned? Can a man walk on burning coals without scorching his feet?" (Proverbs 6:27-28, HCSB). Now, aside from the obvious masters of mystical arts, the answers to both of these questions is "NO!" If I were to write a summary of this passage, I would probably write, "If you're going to sin, at least don't be stupid!"

We live in a society where people almost expect to see affairs take place. One movie I saw recently tried to convince the audience that having an affair could actually strengthen a marriage by giving one's spouse a boost of confidence that would improve the relationship between husband and wife. Media is constantly produced that manipulates audiences into rooting for an affair to take place because "they really love each other" or because "they deserve to be happy" or because "their spouse is an insensitive jerk." We have websites designed to help people have affairs behind their spouse's back. Everywhere we look, people are telling us that affairs are natural, that they are expected, that they really don't do that much harm, that they may lead to a purer love than the marriage itself. To all of these ideas, the author of Proverbs calls "BS."

Why is it that ancient societies often extended the death penalty to adultery? Why is it that the only excuse Jesus gave for divorce was infidelity? Why does the author of Proverbs even suggest that going to a prostitute is better than having an affair? Why is it that country songs about affairs always end in a semi-truck plowing through the local hotel? Secularists and some academics today will tell you that affairs were not tolerated as a symptom of a male-dominated society trying to imprison its woman to a set of rules that held them down. The real reason? Extra-marital affairs destroy lives.

Even more sobering is Jesus' assertion that if a man looks at a woman in order to lust after her, he "has already committed adultery with her in his heart" (Matthew 5:28, NIV). This one statement of Jesus should cause us to see pornography in any form in a new light and to lump it in with these warnings that the author of Proverbs is giving us.

All sin is wrong, although some sins are understandable. Committing adultery, however, shows a lack of sense, whether it involves an actual physical act or only occurs in our hearts. We all fall into sin, but we don't have to be stupid about it.

I Stole It And I'm Gonna Keep It

Suggested Reading: Leviticus 6:1-7

Imagine you walked in from work one day and your brand new 55” flat screen television was gone. So you call the police to report a burglary and as they begin their investigation they notice no signs of forced entry. This makes you wonder. So, when the police leave, you head over to see a friend, a friend you trusted so much that he had the spare key to your house. When you walk into his living room. Sure enough, your brand new television is sitting right there in his entertainment center. Now, imagine your friend, caught in his crime, immediately drops to his knees, weeping and begging for your forgiveness. You’ve known and loved this friend for years and this is the first time he has ever done anything like this. So, you decide to grudgingly accept his apology. But when you move to pick up the television to take it back home, your friend stops you.

“What do you think you’re doing?” the friend asks.

“I’m taking my new TV back home,” you reply.

But then your friend astonishes you, saying, “Wait. I’m not giving it back. I’m sorry for taking it, but I’m going to keep it.”

Would that be enough for you? No. You would want your friend to make the situation right. Just to prove he was sorry, you would probably appreciate him doing a little something extra for you, like washing your car or paying you a rental fee for the television. You might not require it, but something extra would go a long way toward proving he was genuinely sorry and toward helping you to forgive him, right?

As absurd as that scenario is, we sometimes have a tendency to act like that thieving friend. We might not do something as obvious as steal a television, but we hurt people and cause them pain, we steal their time and efforts. We fudge our time at work or borrow money that we never intend to give back. We keep that nice dish that somebody loaned us and “forget” to give it back. We spin the facts about an event to make ourselves look good (and someone else look bad, by extension). We find a cool gadget and neglect to inform its owner. And when we finally feel guilty enough we want to go to God and ask for forgiveness, but we don’t want anybody to know what we’ve done so we only tell God.

This tendency in ourselves is why God commanded in the Law of Moses, “When someone sins and offends the Lord by deceiving his neighbor in regard to a deposit, a security, or a robbery; or defrauds his neighbor; or finds something lost and lies about it; or swears falsely about any of the sinful things a person may do—once he has sinned and acknowledged his guilt—he must return what he stole or defrauded, or the deposit entrusted to him, or the lost item he found, or anything else about which he swore falsely. He must make full restitution for it and add a fifth of its value to it. He is to pay it to its owner on the day he acknowledges his guilt. Then he must bring his restitution offering to the Lord” (Leviticus 6:2-6, HCSB). In the case of the law, God wasn’t even interested in accepting an offering until the sin being atoned for had been set right.

Now, Jesus has atoned for our sins and covered us because we are simply incapable of making right every sin we’ve ever committed. But as people who claim to love God and follow His Son, shouldn’t we want to make it right when we’ve done something wrong? Shouldn’t we care enough to right our wrongs and correct our mistakes and not simply try to get out of being punished for our wrongs? Shouldn’t we be humble enough to admit when we’ve acted sinfully and do our best to make up for it when it is within our ability? Shouldn’t we do the right thing?

We can’t simply ask God to forgive us. To the best of our ability we must make the situation right and correct our wrongs. If we’re going to apologize, we need to return the television, too.