The Bible screams like its hair is on fire about selfishness, materialism, self-righteousness, and pride.

We Christians make a huge mistake when we think sexual sin is the only kind of sin that needs to be confronted, or that it’s a sin worse than all others.

Let me be explicit: YES, sexual sin is sin. It is destructive. It ruins families and lives. It separates us from God, and (if I read my Bible correctly) threatens to make that separation permanent.

(To be more explicit: God’s plan for sexuality is monogamous, heterosexual, and “til death do us part.” Any deviation from that outline is sinful.)

But sexual sin is not the only sin that we need to be on the watch for.

You may remember this. Several years ago, then SBC President J.D. Greear said, “The Bible appears more to whisper on sexual sin compared to its shouts about materialism and religious pride.”

I don’t think the Bible whispers about sexual sin. (That’s where all the chattering class uproar was.) But Greear is absolutely right about the volume the Bible uses to talk about pride and selfishness. (Tellingly, 100% of the commentary I read about this controversy avoided the second half of his statement.)

The Bible (including Jesus himself) spends a lot more time condemning pride and selfishness than it does sexual sin. The Bible may not “whisper” about sexual sin. Without a doubt, it certainly screams like its hair is on fire about selfishness, materialism, self-righteousness, and pride.

The Bible is written to “religious” people (like me), and us religious people are often better at seeing sin in other people than seeing our own susceptibility to it.