I’ve heard the comment many times. But today I’m remembering that a woman said it when confronted by the death of her live-in boyfriend. He had abused her often in fits of rage. Those fits gained intensity by the misuse of alcohol. On this occasion, he abducted her child and threatened to kill the child and himself. When surrounded by police, he threatened the child with a gun and was shot. The child was safe and returned to the woman. After the shock of it all, she said, “He really wasn’t a bad person.”

I wonder how most define a “bad person” and, more important, what they think sin is. If any of us would say that this man was “bad,” we might be challenged as being judgmental and insensitive. Yet the law and the courts are responsible for making that determination regularly, and the police made that assessment at the scene. He was a threat—a dangerous threat—bad enough to justify lethal force.

Christians understand that God has decreed standards of behavior. We know God’s summary of those standards as the Ten Commandments. One of the reasons God gave us standards is to identify sin. Another is to guide human behavior. A third is to keep the worst sins in check and preserve order.

Yet somehow people believe that Christians and Christian churches should have no standards. Some suggest that there may be standards, but we should not judge others by applying those standards to individual people. It is said that when we accuse someone of sin, we destroy that person’s self-esteem and frustrate his or her pursuit of happiness. Sadly even some Christians don’t want to talk about sin for fear of turning people away.

But the world is full of sin. Domestic violence, alcohol abuse, rage, and threats to life—including the life of a child—are wrong. It’s not okay to do these things, and it’s not okay to harbor the thoughts that lead to them. Those actions and attitudes are different from what God wants. They are sin.

It’s not just that the world is full of sin. People are full of sin. Jesus said that such things flow out of the human heart (Matthew 15:19). While we might like to think that other people are full of sin—they’re bad—the truth is that all people are full of sin. Include here every person who enters the doors of every church and house of worship in the world. Ouch! That hurts. We are all included. God says so, “There is no one who does good, not even one” (Romans 3:12).