In our household, there is a theological debate raging.
The question at hand: When saying the Lord's Prayer, should we say "forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors," as Daddy's church does it...or should we say "forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us," like they say at the Lutheran preschool?
This is actually a question that many people wonder about. And the Catechism offers some help in answering. Q&A 14 defines sin as "any want of comformity unto, or transgression of, the law of God."
Transgression is what we typically think of when we sin--actively doing something you should not do. Trespassing a boundary. Violating a command. These are easy to notice (particularly in the lives of others, perhaps easy to overlook in our own lives.)
But what about this phrase "want of conformity?" It means anytime we fail to do something we ought to do, that too is sin. As James puts it, "whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin." (James 4:17) This is something the languages of "debts/debtors" captures that the language of "trespasses" doesn't: we need to confess not only the things we have done, but all the things we have failed to do. "Debts" is a more expansive term that encompasses more: Every good act we owe to our Creator and Redeemer that we overlooked. Every neighbor in need that we turn from. Every trespass we should have confessed. Every encouraging word we didn't say.
This gets me thinking: if you were to put all your transgressions on one side of a scale, and all your "want of conformity" on the other side, which side would be heavier? I'm pretty sure that for all the innumerable trespasses I do each day--all the ways I actively do wrongly, I probably miss just as many opportunities to do rightly, to please my Father, to glorify the Son, to heed the Spirit. In fact, my hunch is that my debt to God is even greater than my trespasses, since each trespass also increases the debt!
All this to say, sin is a bigger deal than just the naughty things we do. It also includes all the good things we don't do. And for that reason, I'll keep asking God to forgive my debts, not just my trespasses. (Take that, Lutherans!)
The question at hand: When saying the Lord's Prayer, should we say "forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors," as Daddy's church does it...or should we say "forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us," like they say at the Lutheran preschool?
This is actually a question that many people wonder about. And the Catechism offers some help in answering. Q&A 14 defines sin as "any want of comformity unto, or transgression of, the law of God."
Transgression is what we typically think of when we sin--actively doing something you should not do. Trespassing a boundary. Violating a command. These are easy to notice (particularly in the lives of others, perhaps easy to overlook in our own lives.)
But what about this phrase "want of conformity?" It means anytime we fail to do something we ought to do, that too is sin. As James puts it, "whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin." (James 4:17) This is something the languages of "debts/debtors" captures that the language of "trespasses" doesn't: we need to confess not only the things we have done, but all the things we have failed to do. "Debts" is a more expansive term that encompasses more: Every good act we owe to our Creator and Redeemer that we overlooked. Every neighbor in need that we turn from. Every trespass we should have confessed. Every encouraging word we didn't say.
This gets me thinking: if you were to put all your transgressions on one side of a scale, and all your "want of conformity" on the other side, which side would be heavier? I'm pretty sure that for all the innumerable trespasses I do each day--all the ways I actively do wrongly, I probably miss just as many opportunities to do rightly, to please my Father, to glorify the Son, to heed the Spirit. In fact, my hunch is that my debt to God is even greater than my trespasses, since each trespass also increases the debt!All this to say, sin is a bigger deal than just the naughty things we do. It also includes all the good things we don't do. And for that reason, I'll keep asking God to forgive my debts, not just my trespasses. (Take that, Lutherans!)
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