The Sin We Made Up

Let me tell you about the church I grew up in.

If you drank alcohol, you were sinning. If you danced, you were sinning. If you went to a movie theater, you were sinning. If you played cards, you were sinning. If you wore jewelry, you were sinning. If you listened to rock music, you were sinning.

And here is the thing: none of those things are in the Ten Commandments. None of them are in the lists of sin in the New Testament. None of them are in the warnings to the early church. They just showed up one day and became rules.

Where did they come from? And why do we treat them as if they are God law?

The Prohibition We Made

Take alcohol. The Bible mentions wine 211 times. Jesus turned water into wine. Paul told Timothy to drink a little wine for his stomach. The Last Supper included wine. And yet, somehow, alcohol became a sin in some churches.

How? Not from Scripture. From tradition. From the temperance movement. From a specific cultural moment in American history where people decided that alcohol was the cause of all evil. And the church adopted it, and now it is a test of spirituality.

The same thing happened with dancing. Same with movies. Same with cards. These were not biblical prohibitions. They were cultural rules, dressed up in spiritual clothing, and then defended as if they were God commands.

The Thing That Actually Is Sin

Now here is where I need to be careful. There are things that are sin. Murder is sin. Adultery is sin. Lying is sin. Stealing is sin. Hatred is sin. Envy is sin. Pride is sin.

And notice what these have in common: they harm people. They violate love. They break relationships. They are not about personal preferences or cultural norms. They are about doing real damage to real people.

Drinking a glass of wine does not hurt anyone. Dancing does not hurt anyone. Watching a movie does not hurt anyone. But lying does. Envy does. Hatred does. That is the difference between what we made up and what God actually said.

If it does not violate love, is it sin? Maybe not. And that is a question worth asking.

The Twist

Here is what nobody expects: the rules we make up about "sin" actually create real sin.

When we judge people for drinking, we create pride. When we look down on people for dancing, we create self-righteousness. When we treat people as less spiritual because of their movie choices, we create division. The rules we make up create the very sins we claim to be avoiding.

And worse: they keep people out. Someone who might come to Jesus hears that they cannot drink, cannot dance, cannot watch movies, and they walk away. The rule becomes a barrier to the very thing we say we want.

What if we focused on the actual sins? The ones that harm people, that break relationships, that violate love? And let the rest go?

Sin is serious. But making up sin is also serious. And treating made-up sin as if it is real sin damages the faith of everyone involved.