Sunday, March 4, 2012

Vice Lists in the New Testament

I was preparing for my sermon this week on 1 Peter 2:1-10. I was reading passage background in the Expositor's Bible Commentary and found this quote that interested me.


Vice lists such as this were common in the ancient world and also in the NT (cf. Mark 7:21–22; Rom 1:29–31; 13:13; 1 Cor 5:10; Gal 5:19–20; 2 Peter 2:10–14; and the appendix to Eric H. Wahlstrom’s New Life in Christ [Philadelphia: Muhlenberg, 1950], pp. 281–87).

Vice Lists.  I had never thought of the Bible as having Vice lists.  Vices are something believers are supposed to avoid, and of course, that's exactly the point that the biblical writers are trying to make.  There are behaviors that don't fit a Christian.  

In Logos, I learned today that you can highlight any passage in any book that contains Bible verses and it will put those verses into a passage list.  I've done that and wanted to present it here for you to enjoy in your study of vices. (with a view of course of "putting them away"  (1 Peter 2:1)

Vice Lists in NT


So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander.



who through him are believers in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God.



21 For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, 22 coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness.



29 They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, 31 foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless.



Let us walk properly as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and sensuality, not in quarreling and jealousy.



not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world.



19 Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, 20 idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions,



10 and especially those who indulge in the lust of defiling passion and despise authority. Bold and willful, they do not tremble as they blaspheme the glorious ones, 11 whereas angels, though greater in might and power, do not pronounce a blasphemous judgment against them before the Lord. 12 But these, like irrational animals, creatures of instinct, born to be caught and destroyed, blaspheming about matters of which they are ignorant, will also be destroyed in their destruction, 13 suffering wrong as the wage for their wrongdoing. They count it pleasure to revel in the daytime. They are blots and blemishes, reveling in their deceptions, while they feast with you. 14 They have eyes full of adultery, insatiable for sin. They entice unsteady souls. They have hearts trained in greed. Accursed children!



Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation—



who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.



obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.



1 But I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. 2 I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it. And even now you are not yet ready, 3 for you are still of the flesh. For while there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh and behaving only in a human way? 4 For when one says, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I follow Apollos,” are you not being merely human?



11 About this we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing. 12 For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food, 13 for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. 14 But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.


Here are some references in the list that aren't vices, but cross-references to the truths mentioned in Peter.



if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.



Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good! Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him!






No comments:

Post a Comment