Job 19:4

If indeed I have erred,

   Does my error adhere to me?

I now love this verse. I have struggled to put into words how we should feel about forgiving others for their sins. I know we are to not judge, and I know we are to love our enemies, and I know a lot of other things similar, but I have always struggled on how to address the behavior of other Christians who judge, do not love others, and behave like everyone else. This verse tells me to just drop it.

‘Erred’ was also ‘gone astray’ or ‘been at fault’. ‘Indeed’ was ‘it is true that’, ‘I have really been’, ‘in fact’, and part of ‘and even if it is true that’.

The second stitch was most often not a question. ‘Adhere to’ was also ‘remains with’, ‘lodge with’, and ‘lie with’. One source added ‘wholly’ to lie with me and seems to deny personal responsibility. The other concept implied was that the error was his alone and no one else’s business.

At this point, I look at the verse in a ‘scarlet’ letter kind of way as if the sinner is asking if the sin is always visible to everyone else. About the only sin I can think of that would always be visible is the number of the beast with an image of it tattooed to peoples’ foreheads. Many people trying to be good only sin in private where no one else can see. People not trying to be good sin all the time and don’t care who sees or knows. Interestingly, the verse is only about an error which might not be sin at all.

I have more work email addresses than I can easily keep up with, and I sometimes use the wrong one when sending out a specific topic to a specific audience. I call those errors and do not think of them as sin. I could not argue if someone wanted to call the laziness behind it sin, but I am not going to beat myself up over it either way. In the end, I have to recognize that other people make errors and do not need to be punished by me for doing so.

The hard thing to accept is when someone purposes sins, does so intentionally, and wants forgiveness while holding the errors of others up as reasons to punish them in some form or fashion. If a seminary graduate cheats on his wife, it does not mean that the whole of his life’s work before and afterwards needs to be disregarded. One error does not make the person ungodly. If a well-regarded pastor steals from the church and denies it, his work does need to be reviewed in the light of his heart change. However, I must admit that the big lawsuit at a local church is making me question everything the leader has done there the last forty plus years. The sin of someone at my church can easily be forgiven when repentance is given. The phrase ‘Vengeance is the Lord’s!’ rattles through my brain every so often, and this verse helps me remember to treat the person I see and not the sin or error I cannot.

Written 10/21/25, Posted 12/23/25, Job 424/~1070