The only reason why material life exists is to overcome sin. To not have that central concern is to be misdirected.

People get their concerns directed properly when they are powerless victims. They then see what sin is and that it needs to be overcome.

There is a very instructive story on this subject. Bishop Oscar Romero was gunned down while saying mass in El Salvador in 1979. Bishop Helga Camera in Brazil escaped similar martyrdom several times. They both said that when they were newly ordained priests, they were assigned impoverished parishes, and it transformed them.

Look at what this says. They walked among the peasants and knew them. But not until they felt the same forces did they see what is happening. At the bottom of society, powerless persons see sin raining down upon them like a storm. Persons who are not vulnerable do not see it. It is not visible when looking from the top down.

Anyone who saw that hailstorm of sin would know that it is a threat that needs to be overcome. They would also see that they must not allow that threat to come from themselves, and they would overcome their own sin.

Persons who are not vulnerable and victimized cannot be told through words that overcoming sin is the most significant concern in life. Words only describe a set of realities; they don't say how important they are.

However, the concern for overcoming sin can be acquired in earlier lives; and therefore, people differ in their moral concerns at all levels of society.

There are any number of corrupt purposes, standards, ethics and theologies which have some other concern. Sometimes, sin is not assumed to exist, as in atheism; and sometimes, acquiring power is assumed to be more important, as in Buddhism. Everything in between is a corruption, when overcoming sin is not the central concern, because sin destroys life, and it increases until it is overcome.

The concern to overcome sin is closely related to a concern for other persons, which is called love. Christ's primary command was to love (John 13:34). A concern for other people and for life must exist before there is a reason to overcome sin.

Love