Unlearn the Demand for a Sin Free Life

Learn the University of Our Fallenness

In our ongoing series of my book in progress (The Art of Unlearning), we’ll spend two weeks unlearning the demand to be free of sin and temptation, and learn instead the necessity, role and purpose of temptation in the Christian life. As more controversy arises over authors’ poorly chosen words, illustrations, and analogies, I welcome your input into how these excerpts are encouraging you or where you might think I need to rethink, restate, or even drop some of what I’m working on.

“Sticky sin” describes moral issues that tend to stick around. We fall, and then we fall again. Or we finally get victory, and then collapse into pride because of our victory. Or we use one sin (vanity) to fight against another sin (gluttony) and realize we’re just trading sins, not overcoming sin.

Of all the things I had to unlearn, one of the biggest was my faulty understanding of temptation. I especially want younger Christians to know this: to be human is to be tempted. There is no humanity without temptation. Thomas Brooks writes, “The eagle complains not of her wings, nor the peacock of her train of feathers, nor the nightingale of her voice—because these are natural to them. No more should saints complain of their temptations, because they are natural to them. Our whole life, says Augustine, is nothing but a temptation; the best men have been the worst tempted; therefore, remain silent before the Lord.”[i]

Even Jesus was tempted. If you think you can become so holy, disciplined and consecrated that you leave temptation behind, you are in for a bitter disillusionment. Your temptations will die when you die, but not one second before.