On Oct 12, 2005 I’d written about the three places in scripture where we clearly see sin reduced to three types- lust of the flesh (physical appetites), lust of the eyes (acquisitive desires for material goods or power), and pride of life (egotism, desiring status in someone else’s eyes). The three scriptures are Genesis 3:6,Matthew 4:1-10, and 1 John 2:16-17.
In Rick Warren/ John Baker’s Celebrate Recovery’s lesson last week, as a part of beginning the inventory development step we were talking about sins and the damage they do to our “basic social, security, and/or sexual instincts”. When I read that a little light when on. Those three “instincts” fall into the same three categories as the categories of sins in scripture.
sexual instincts = physical appetites (lust of the flesh) , security= desire for goods or power (lust of the eyes), and social= desire to have status in relation to others (pride of life).
Then, today I was listening to the radio program of Rev. Skip Heitzig from Calvary Chapel and he was talking about the 1 John scripture. He said that pride of life (which he called bragging egotism) is a “social sin”, it requires the presence of other people where the first two are private sins, confirming my recognition of the connection between the two lists.
It just never ceases to amaze me how the Holy Spirit leads different people to the same Truths in the Word! Truth is Truth is Truth……
Heitzig went on to point out that John, in verse 17, further divides everything into two categories- “of the Father” or “of the world”. In our Truth Project curriculum, Del Tackett says essentially the same thing with regard to worldviews. There’s the biblical Christian worldview and “all others”, for all practical purposes. The things of the world will pass away, but the things of the Father are eternal.
What a simple story! How is it that I can see this and so many can’t?