Several years ago I took a class in Biblical Greek. One thing I will always remember is the transliteration for the word “sin”. The Greek word is “hamartia” (pronounced hamarteea) and it literally means “to miss the mark”. I remember thinking the difference it made in my mind to think about aiming for something and missing entirely, versus just doing something “naughty”. I’m not sure I can tell you that naughty always evokes remorse in my life. But aiming for something, striving for godliness, and missing my mark always makes me feel a combination of remorse, sadness, and sometimes even frustration. However, what I like about the Greek translation is that when I view my sin as “missing the mark”, it makes me want to brush myself off, and try again. This post is not about sin. But it is about missing the mark. And “hamartia” is probably a good way to describe the correlating emotion in this scenario as well.
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