Sin as Thanklessness

This is a great passage to ponder during Thanksgiving:

Romans 1:22-23
21 For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

Luther said that the Apostle Paul wrote Romans to “magnify sin”. The more I read Romans and see Paul’s theology of sin unpacked layer after layer–idolatry, religion, original sin, total depravity, slavery, bondage of the will, lusts and covetousness–the more I see what Luther is getting at with that statement. But in light of the Thanksgiving holiday, I was freshly reminded and wrecked this morning as I thought about my failure to continually thank God for the abundant riches God has blessed me with. I complain endlessly about my money problems, when over half of the world lives on $2 a day. A great article from Al Mohler on this passage from Romans helped me to repent.

Albert Mohler – They Did Not Honor God, or Give Him Thanks

In it he writes:

“This remarkable passage has at its center an indictment of thanklessness. ‘They did not honor Him as God or give thanks’. Paul wants us to understand that the refusal to honor God and give thanks is a raw form of the primal sin. Theologians have long debated the foundational sin — and answers have ranged from lust to pride. Nevertheless, it would seem that being unthankful, refusing to recognize God as the source of all good things, is very close to the essence of the primal sin….To fail in thankfulness is to fail to honor God — and this is the biblical description of fallen and sinful humanity. We are a thankless lot.”

Pursuing Thankfulness, By His Grace…