MANKIND
MANKIND
Virgil Warren, PhD
I. The Purpose of Mankind
II. The Image of God in Mankind
III. The Effects of Sin on Mankind (See What the Bible Says About Salvation, pp. 38-45.)
A. Section I: Consequences of sin: personal perversion and meaninglessness
B. Section II: Consequences of sin: guilt, alienation, and destruction of the
environment
C. Section III: Perpetuating sin: ignorance
Once sin entered the human race, it moved from person to person, from generation to generation down to our own day. We get it started it on our own and keep it moving “unassisted”; we get a lot of help from other people! In this section we are thinking about the ways our ignorance can get sin started and keep it moving without the input other people often give.
There are different kinds of ignorance.
(1) One kind is simply not knowing that something is wrong. We may never have been told that something is not good for us. We may not have been told what consequences it brings. Sometimes effects take a while, or they are subtle enough that we do not connect what we are doing and the bad that comes from it.
Can you think of something you started doing without realizing it was bad for you or for the people around you?
(2) Another kind of ignorance is the fact that God is invisible (John 1:18; Colossians 1:15; 1 Timothy 6:16; Hebrews 11:27; 1 John 4:12, plus many Old Testament passages like 33:20).
Can you see how this fact may contribute to your own sinning?
How can we keep his invisibility from having this effect on our living?
Why do you suppose God does not “show his face to us” if his invisibility has that effect on us?
(3) A third kind of ignorance is the viewpoint from which we look at things. We look at the world from our own eyes, sol we do things that harm or offend other people. This results in what we call self-centeredness.
What can minimize this problem?
D. Section IV: Perpetuating sin: influence and desire
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