Before I say anything, let me begin by stating categorically that I am as much a failure in these things as anyone you care to name – or choose not to name for that matter. I need to be clear about that because I don’t want anyone reading this to think that I am setting myself up as any kind of example in how to do this right, I only write this because I think it is interesting and challenging to me and probably will be to others too. As I write these things, I will try to use you and I in equal parts to let myself be challenged and to let you as the reader also be challenged.
The seven deadly sins do not occur as a list in scripture per se, but certainly each of these faults are demonstrated at a number of points for the evil they produce (though you can find most of them in Galatians 5:19ff (ff = more than one verse following).
Scripture does not have seven deadly sins, but rather one “deadly sin” – or rather sin itself, which is deadly – in that it corrupts what is good, destroying it like a cancer from the inside out. Scripture goes so far as to say that even if you do everything else right, any one sin will undo it all. [See James 2:10]
This puts each of us into the category of law-keeper or law-breaker, and because no one can claim to have kept all of the law and never stumbled once, aside from Christ himself, we all find ourselves in the law-breaker category.
Each of these sins begins in the mind and then leads into action. [James 1:14f]