Well, I’m going to jump right in.  As I was reviewing my Greek vocabulary this week, the word ‘hamartia’ stuck out.  I may include the actual greek letters in the future, but haven’t explored how to do that yet.

So, what is hamartia?  Hamartia is sin, failure, or wrongdoing.  If you were to look it up on Wikipedia, you would find mention of Aristotle and a character’s ‘tragic flaw’ in addition to the biblical usage.

Where do we see hamartia used in the bible?  Here are some verses.

For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.  (Romans 3:23 NIV)

For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.  (Roman 6:23 NIV)

For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace.  (Romans 6:14 NIV)

Then after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.  (James 1:15 NIV)

If anyone sees his brother commit a sin that does not lead to death, he should pray and God will give him life.  I refer to those whose sin does not lead to death.  There is a sin that leads to death.  I am not saying that he should pray about that sin.  All wrongdoing is sin and there is sin that doesn’t lead to death.  (1 John 5:16-17 NIV)

Sin plays a prominent role in Christian theology.  As we see in Romans 3:23, all have sinned.  So, in order to be a Christian and go to heaven, a person must confess their sin and turn away from their sin.  God will forgive them of their sin, when they repent.

Some Greek words can have different translations, depending on which bible translation you use.  Hamartia seems to be mostly just translated as sin.  It doesn’t matter which translation you use.  I won’t claim always, because I haven’t looked at every translation or even every usage of the word sin in the New Testament.  There are other Greek words for sin or kinds of sins, but as I’m pretty new to this, we’ll just stick to hamartia for today.