Family Devotion 2: What Is Sin?

The Diagnosis Every Family Needs to Understand

Series: Foundations of the Faith — 15 Family Devotions Suggested Time: 30–45 minutes Key Passages: Genesis 3:1-13; Romans 3:10-23; Romans 5:12

Before You Begin — A Word to the Father

Many Christian families teach sin as a list of behaviors to avoid. The biblical category is far larger and more serious. Before you lead this devotion, sit with one question: What do I actually believe sin is? Not the answer you would give in a Sunday school class — but the category you use when you look honestly at your own life?

Opening Prayer

"Lord, we ask you tonight to help us see ourselves clearly — not to condemn us, but because we cannot be healed from something we haven't diagnosed. Help us understand what sin actually is, and why the gospel is actually good news because of it. Amen."

Read It Together

Romans 3:10-23 — Read aloud together.

"As it is written: 'There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands; there is no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one...' for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God."

Three Ways to Define Sin

1. Sin as Missing the Mark (Hamartia) The most common Greek word for sin in the New Testament is hamartia — literally "missing the mark." The image is an archer whose arrow falls short of the target. The target is the glory of God — the full expression of what a human life was designed to be. Sin is anything — thought, word, action, omission — that falls short of that design.

For younger children: "Imagine you're trying to shoot an arrow at a target. The target is what God made you to be — perfectly loving, perfectly honest, perfectly kind. Sin is when the arrow misses. Every person misses, every day, in ways big and small."

2. Sin as Rebellion (Pesha) The Hebrew word pesha — often translated transgression — carries the meaning of deliberate rebellion, of crossing a line you know exists. This is not accidental failure. It is the willful assertion of your own authority over God's.

For older children: "Think about a law you've broken on purpose — not by accident. Pesha describes that posture toward God. It's not 'I made a mistake.' It's 'I know what God says and I'm going to do what I want instead.'"

3. Sin as Corruption (Avon) The Hebrew avon describes sin as a twisting, a distortion of what was meant to be straight. It captures the idea that sin doesn't just affect what we do — it warps who we are. The image is a piece of wood that has been warped by water. It no longer holds its original shape.

For teenagers: "This is why the Bible's solution to sin isn't just forgiveness — it's also transformation. Forgiveness deals with the guilt. Regeneration deals with the corruption. Both are necessary. A person who has been forgiven but not transformed is still a warped piece of wood."

The Origin: Genesis 3

Read Genesis 3:1-13 together. Several things to note:

The serpent's strategy was not to convince Eve that God doesn't exist. It was to convince her that God was withholding something good — that obedience was loss, that independence was gain.

The nature of the choice was not primarily about fruit. It was about the location of authority. "You will be like God, knowing good and evil" — deciding for yourself what is right and wrong, rather than receiving that from God.

The immediate consequences were shame (they hid), broken relationship (they blamed each other and God), and exile from the presence of God.

Ask: "What do you notice about how the serpent talked about God? What was he trying to get Eve to believe?"

The Scope: Romans 5:12

"Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned."

This is the doctrine of original sin — not that Adam's guilt is imputed to us as if we personally committed his act, but that the nature Adam inherited after the Fall (a nature bent toward self rather than God) is the nature every human being is born with.

For older children and teens: "We don't sin because we're taught to. We sin because we're born into a condition that inclines us toward it. That's why behavior modification alone doesn't solve the problem — you can change the behavior but not the underlying inclination. The gospel deals with the inclination."

What Sin Is NOT

Before closing, correct two common misunderstandings:

Sin is not primarily breaking a list of rules. It is a relational rupture — a broken relationship with God that produces broken behavior. The rules matter because they describe the shape of the relationship, but they are descriptive of the problem, not its definition.

Sin is not just the "big" stuff. The biblical category includes pride, envy, ingratitude, distorted loves, misplaced worship — the interior life, not just the external behavior. Jesus's Sermon on the Mount makes this explicit: anger is the heart of murder, lust is the heart of adultery.

Discussion Questions

For younger children:

1. What does it mean to "miss the mark"? Can you think of a time you tried to do something right and still got it wrong?
2. Why do you think Adam and Eve hid from God after they sinned?

For preteens: 3. The serpent told Eve that following God meant missing out on something good. Do you ever feel that way about what God asks? What does this passage say about that feeling? 4. What's the difference between "I made a mistake" and "I chose to do something wrong"?

For teenagers: 5. Paul says "there is no one who seeks God." That sounds extreme. What does he mean, and how does it change how you think about spiritual life? 6. If sin warps who we are, not just what we do — what does that say about what kind of rescue we actually need?

Application

Have each person complete one sentence:

• "One way I see this in my own life is..."
• "The thing I most want God to do something about in me is..."

Close in Prayer

Pray specifically, by name, about what came up. Let the prayer acknowledge that everyone at the table — including the father — is someone who has sinned and falls short. Then pray toward the gospel: the solution is coming.

Next: Family Devotion 3 — "Who Is Jesus? The Claims, the Evidence, and What They Demand"