You’ve probably heard a bunch of definitions, like: disobedience, violation of God’s commands, rebellion, failure to meet God’s standard, transgression against God’s will, and breaking God’s law.

One of the most quoted is “missing the mark” from the Greek and Hebrew, referring originally to archery. It can make you feel like you didn’t quite cut it. Maybe try harder. You didn’t put in enough practice. Get more focused.

Let me suggest another way of looking at it.

• The Hebrew is chata: to sin, miss, miss the way, go wrong, incur guilt, forfeit, purify from uncleanness

• The Greek is hamartia:
  • derived from A “not” and méros, “a part, share of”) – properly, no-share (“no part of”)
  • loss (forfeiture) because not hitting the target
  • sin (missing the mark)

Maybe the point was they forfeited, and “missing the mark” is just what caused them to miss out on the prize. In Greek, the word “sin” is literally the two words “no share” put together.

When you sin, you end up with “no share”, you have “no part of” fellowship with God.

From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part [méros] does its work. – Eph 4:16

Fellowship is having a share, being a part of….

• fellowship = koinonia:
  • what is shared in common as the basis of fellowship (partnership, community).

Here, fellowship (share/part) and sin (no-share/no-part) are contrasted in the same verse:

But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin. – 1 John 1:7

Sin breaks relationships. It’s not so much about what you did, as what that did to your relationship with God and others. It takes you out of fellowship. You have no part, no share. The solution isn’t to try harder to be good, but to receive forgiveness through the blood of Jesus and get reconnected to him and his body.