Where do you think the quote "Hate the sin, Love the sinner"

[Iryssa]

It is not my personal desire to "hate" anyone. However...It is also not my desire to seperate the sinner from his accountability for his sin. Sin and sinners are not separate, and nowhere in the bible is this so. Sin is not some entity in and of itself. To separate a person from his sins is the chief goal of the gospel.

However, I digress.

Shalom Axx,

No, you're right on topic.

I understand that quote to say that we can HATE what they do. We can be disgusted, repulsed and hate their actions, their sin. However, we are to go PAST their sin and our hate for the sinful actions and actually LOVE the person doing the sinning. It's not about accountability, it's about loving them enough to not hate THEM because we hate their actions which are sin. Understand?

If we hated the person sinning, we would never witness to sinners. Or help restore the brother struggling with sin.

No, we need to love that person, just as Jesus loved the sinners. We must love the person enough to show them Jesus' love, share the Gospel, share G-d's Word, IN SPITE of their sin and in spite of us hating their sin. That's what it says to me. And that is a Biblical concept.

Well said.

[EricH]

Even though the exact quote does not come form scripture, the principal is certainly there. That followers of Jesus are to hate sin is a theme that runs through the Bible. For example:

The righteous hate lying, but the wicked act disgustingly and disgracefully.

Proverbs 13:5 HCSB

Loving others is a Biblical principle as well. I don't think any passages are required to convince us of that

[Janakev]

I hate this phrase. Really, I do. Every time I hear it I recall a homily I once heard.

The priest spoke about how some people tend to reduce a person - every complex facet of their personality - to a single sin, as if that is all they are.

This phrase is pretentious in the extreme but more than that it's cowardly.

It's seems a sad fact that Christians are always looking for some way, no matter how subtle or insidious, to criticise others; some take this as carte blanche to do just that. It provides all too easy a way to justify ones bigotry. For all the rhetoric of how loving a religion it is I often find myself looking at those who follow it and find them wanting.

I realise how this must sound but I've been meaning to say these things for a long time.

[Iryssa]

I hate this phrase. Really, I do. Every time I hear it I recall a homily I once heard.

The priest spoke about how some people tend to reduce a person - every complex facet of their personality - to a single sin, as if that is all they are.

This phrase is pretentious in the extreme but more than that it's cowardly.

It's seems a sad fact that Christians are always looking for some way, no matter how subtle or insidious, to criticise others; some take this as carte blanche to do just that. It provides all too easy a way to justify ones bigotry. For all the rhetoric of how loving a religion it is I often find myself looking at those who follow it and find them wanting.

I realise how this must sound but I've been meaning to say these things for a long time.

I think if that's the way you're seeing people use this phrase, those people quite simply are not understanding the real meaning of it.

[EricH]

I hate this phrase. Really, I do. Every time I hear it I recall a homily I once heard.

The priest spoke about how some people tend to reduce a person - every complex facet of their personality - to a single sin, as if that is all they are.

This phrase is pretentious in the extreme but more than that it's cowardly.

It's seems a sad fact that Christians are always looking for some way, no matter how subtle or insidious, to criticise others; some take this as carte blanche to do just that. It provides all too easy a way to justify ones bigotry. For all the rhetoric of how loving a religion it is I often find myself looking at those who follow it and find them wanting.

I realise how this must sound but I've been meaning to say these things for a long time.

Hate the sin really speaks more to us hating it in our own lives. In other words we despise displeasing God so much that we avoid the sin as if we hated it.