rob bell, joshua harris and sin.

as of late, there has been a lot of controversy surrounding rob bell's new book "love wins." i haven't read the book, so i'm choosing not to comment on it, but i was reading about all the hullabaloo online...articles on Christianity Today, various preachers and theologians blogs and even my best friend's blog ! if you've heard anything about the book, i urge you to continue to read about it. it's so healthy for our faith to continually ask questions, seek new knowledge, think about different points of view. we grow most when we are challenged with new ideas; that's how we know what we really believe ourselves! 

through the chain of articles and blogs i read through, i came across joshua harris' blog (yep, he did kiss dating goodbye) and his personal response to the pre-released book's teaser video and tag lines...i didn't even realize all these people had blogs, but i really enjoyed harris' perspective on sin. i hadn't ever thought of it that way before, but it totally makes sense. so, i'm re-posting it below. enjoy! and feel free to post your thoughts on it as well...

Sin will always appears as a trifle to those whose view of God is small. If you were to discover a little boy pulling the legs off of a grasshopper, you would think it strange and perhaps a little bizarre. If the same little boy were pulling the legs off of a frog, that would be a bit more disturbing. If it were a bird, you would probably scold him and inform his parents. If it were a puppy, that would be too shocking to tolerate. You would intervene. If it were a little baby, it would be so reprehensible and tragic that you would risk you own life to protect the baby. What's the difference in each of these scenarios? The sin is the same (pulling the limbs off). The only difference is the one sinned against (from a grasshopper to a baby). The more noble and valuable the creature, the more heinous and reprehensible the sin. And so it is with God.

If God were a grasshopper, then to sin against Him wouldn't be such a big deal and eternal punishment wouldn't be necessary. But God isn't a grasshopper, He's the most precious, valuable, beautiful being in the universe. His glory and worth are infinite and eternal. Thus to sin against an infinitely glorious being is an infinitely heinous offense that is worthy of an infinitely heinous punishment.

We don't take sin seriously because we don't take God seriously. We have so imbibed of the banality of our God-belittling spirit of the age that our sins hardly trouble us at all. Our sin seems small because we regard God as small. And thus the penalty of hell--eternal conscious suffering under the wrath of God--always seems like an overreaction on God's part. If we knew God better, we wouldn't think like that. 

well said.