by Danielle Camorlinga — March 25, 2015
Without fail, when our family opens up The Action Bible (or any book, for that matter) one question will be asked. Every time. Multiple times.
“Which one is the bad guy?”
And each time, without fail, we explain that things aren’t so black and white. That some of these bad guys will become good guys, and some of these good guys were once bad guys, and ultimately, every guy in here is a bad guy in one way or another, except Jesus. This has gotten us thinking about how we categorize bad guys and how that translates to our apologetic interactions.
So who are the bad guys?
I have little doubt that most of us answered that question fairly automatically, probably in spite of ourselves. Was your first thought homosexuals? Adulterers? Pesky old earth creationists? No, I believe this is a trick question. The answer should sound something like “Who isn’t?!”
Sin is sin, but our sin nature inclines us to cherry pick which sins are *really* bad and which are *basically* harmless. We ignore the plank and focus on the speck (Matthew 7:3), fixate on sins that we have deemed especially bad, and sweep other sins under a rug of “well, I’m basically good, aren’t I?” When we do this, not only do we act in a manner contrary to scripture, we also hinder our witness to others.