[ICTHUS]

Genesis 3:1-6
1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, "Did God really say, 'You must not eat from any tree in the garden'?"
2 The woman said to the serpent, "We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 3 but God did say, 'You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.' "
4 "You will not surely die," the serpent said to the woman. 5 "For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."
6 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.

What is sin? Some might say that it is opposition to the law of God. Some might say that it is failure to love God with all of ones heart, mind, and soul. But I offer a perspective on what sin is:

Sin is desiring something which God has created for our enjoyment, in a way which is unhealthy. For example, a blazing fire, while it rages within my fireplace, keeps me warm and provides a cozy environment in which to fellowship with family and friends. The same fire on my living room floor will burn my house down. Eve, in the Garden of Eden, saw that the tree of knowledge was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and desireable for gaining wisdom. However; Adam and Eve's sin was not that they desired wisdom from the Tree, it was that they desired wisdom to be granted them in opposition to Gods command. Thus, they desired wisdom from a source which God had expressly forbidden them to partake of, and they sinned therein. They desired wisdom sinfully, rather than wisdom from Gods teaching. They desired the inferior fruit, that of knowledge of Good and Evil apart from God, when they had the Tree of Life to eat from, as well as any tree in the garden.

One of the most famous men in the history of the Church, St. Augustine, bishop of Hippo in North Africa in the 4th and 5th Centuries, was also a terrible sinner in his youth. He started on a life of petty crime, but progressed steadily further into sin and away from God. St. Augustine recounts the first time he deliberately broke Gods commandments, namely, the command not to steal.

What was it, then, that I, miserable one, so doted on in thee, thou theft of mine, thou deed of darkness, in that sixteenth year of my age? Beautiful thou wert not, since thou wert theft. But art thou anything, that so I may argue the case with thee? Those pears that we stole were fair to the sight, because they were Thy creation, Thou fairests of all, Creator of all, Thou good God--God, the highest good, and my true good. Those pears truly were pleasant to the sight; but it was not for them that my miserable soul lusted, for I had abundance of better, but those I plucked simply that I might steal. For, having plucked them, I threw them away, my sole gratification in them being my own sin, which I was pleased to enjoy. For if any of these pears entered my mouth, the sweetener of it was my sin in eating it. And now, O Lord my God, I ask what it was in that theft of mine that caused me such delight; and behold it hath no beauty in it--not such, I mean, as exists in justice and wisdom; nor such as is in the mind, memory, Senses, and animal life of man; nor yet such as is the glory and beauty of the stars in their courses; or the earth, or the sea, teeming with incipient life, to replace, as it is born, that which decayeth; nor, indeed, that false and shadowy beauty which pertaineth to deceptive vices.

- Confessions, Book II, Chapter VI.

Here Augustine acknowledges that he had better pears at home! He pilfered those pears, as we find out from what he writes later in the Confessions because of the pleasure of having the accomplices with which he commited the crime, and their spurning him to do so. Augustine desired the unholy companionship of thieves, those who would not accept him unless he did what they did, unless he joined them in the breaking of the Law of God - Thou Shalt Not Steal. Like Adam and Eve, St. Augustine saw inferior fruit, and rather than tasting the better fruit, he allowed the inferior to lead him into sin.

And so, I exhort each of you: Better pears exist in our Fathers house than in the orchards of this world. The things He has created on this earth for the enjoyment of humankind are good and holy things, when used properly. Do not settle for inferior fruit - eat the fruit from your own house - that of Christ, in the ways that He designed that particular fruit to be enjoyed. You will not be unsatisfied.