81. Accidental harm

Romans 7:15: "I do not understand my actions; for I don't do what I would like to do, but I do the very thing that I hate."

How does wrongdoing work?
Henry David Thoreau once said: "Severe truth is usually expressed with some bitterness." Bitterness has been deemed a type of protest against injustice. My mood of bitterness is an expression of what you are doing to me – something which is harmful and unacceptable. Something that is wrong.

It is this type of wrong I would like us to look at. Acts which are harmful or hurtful or unacceptable or wrong or immoral or unfair or unjust or discriminatory or sexist or racist, or acts which are showing favouritism or using hurtful words. We could summarise all these things as the sins people commit against us.

So far we have been looking at bitterness; how it forms and how it affects the one who has been hurt if he/she holds on to the bitterness. The conclusion was drawn that bitterness causes more harm to the person who has been hurt, than to the offender. Therefore there is a need for us to deal with bitterness.

In order to know how to deal with bitterness, we need to understand that it is caused by other people's sins (wrongdoings) against us. Yes, sometimes it is our own interpretation, but for today I want to address the actual transgressions taking place. The wrongdoings, if I could call it so. We need to understand sin from a Biblical point of view, how it is defined and how it is dealt with, in order for us to understand the offences and sins other people commit against us.

We need to go back to the Bible, to the original Word of God. The original Bible was written in two to three primary languages: Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek. I am going to use the Hebrew and the Greek words because some depth and meaning have been lost in the translation from the original language into the English language. The Hebrew and the Greek languages in the Bible distinguish between the different types of sin. We will be looking at two types of sin.

The Bible tells us there are two ways in which God looks at wrongdoing or sin. Psalm 32:1 says: "Blessed is he whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sin is covered."

Two important words are mentioned in Psalm 32:1: 'transgressions' and 'sin'. We also notice that these two types of sin are dealt with in different ways. The one is forgiven and the other one is covered. (We are going to look at that in the next presentation.)

What is the meaning of the words 'transgression' and 'sin'?

I want you to forget the English words for the time being. We will be concentrating more on the Hebrew words because the English is a bit deceiving to a certain extent.

The word used for transgression in the original Hebrew or the Old Testament, is the word pesha. In the New Testament or in the original Greek, the word used for transgression is paraptoma. So, pesha is the Hebrew and paraptoma the Greek for the English word, transgression. These words have a different meaning to the word katah in the Old Testament Hebrew, which is the word for sin, and the New Testament Greek word hamartia, which is also the word for sin.

Transgression or pesha or paraptoma usually refers to a purposeful breaking of a covenant. In other words, the purposeful transgression of an agreement. Hamartia or katah, which is the word for sin, means an accidental wrong, something which is not done purposefully.

There are basically two types of sin which are described in the Bible. The first one is a purposeful breaking and overstepping of the Law and the second one is an accidental wrong. And they are dealt with differently, as we've seen. Psalm 32:1 is translated into a more understandable way in the Good

News Bible because it gives the actual meaning of these words. "Happy are those whose sins (pesha or paraptoma) are forgiven; whose wrongs (katah or hamartia) are pardoned (covered)."