Overcoming Sin through Christ

A Comprehensive List of Sins

(Alphabetically Arranged)

Richard Hollerman

The plan of this study is simple.  We will look at a large number of sins, one by one, alphabetically.  We will define the sin, describe it, and comment on it, along with noticing Scripture references on the particular entry.  Some illustrations will be offered along with the description.

Abusiveness

Abusiveness is a broad word that can entail various meanings, all of them negative.  The term abuse may be defined as “to use wrongly or improperly” or “to hurt or injure by mal-treatment.”  Further, it may mean “to force sexual activity on; rape or molest” and “to assail with contemptuous, coarse, or insulting words; revile.”[i]  Another dictionary has, “to treat in a harmful or injurious way.”[ii]  We may speak and respond to a person in a harmful, cruel, and wrongful way—thereby abusing another.

The NASB uses the term in several places.  At the cross where Jesus died, some were “passing by” and “were hurling abuse at Him” (Matthew 27:39; Mark 15:29).  One of the criminals who were crucified with Jesus “was hurling abuse at Him” (Luke 23:39).  This is the term blasphemia, which means “blaspheme” or “slander.”  In Colossians 3:8, Paul says that we are to “put aside” certain sins, including “abusive speech from your mouth.”  The Greek here is aischros, meaning “base, shameful,”[iii]  and it may be translated as “obscene talk” (ESV).  W. E. Vine says that it signifies “whatever is disgraceful,” and in Colossians 3:8, it denotes any kind of “base utterance, anything that is “foul” or “filthy.”[iv]

The Christian must renounce all filthy, obscene, and abusive speech (cf. Ephesians 4:29; Matthew 12:36-37).  In our day, “abuse” is often found in the abusive speech that one person may express toward another.  With the rise of pedophilia and incest, “abuse” is frequently employed in reference to child sexual abuse, which would be “harmful” and “injurious” physical touching or relations that treat a child or teen as an object to gratify one’s lusts.  God says that we must never abuse another person, including both verbal and sexual abuse!  Instead, Scripture says that we are to love every other person, seeking the person’s highest good. Further, Paul says that “love does no wrong” to another (Romans 13:10), thus abuse of this nature is a clear violation of love, the second greatest command of the Lord (Mark 12:28-31).