Sin and Shame

Sin and shame are closely related. It was not for nothing that Adam and Eve hid when they heard the Lord coming in the Garden. The word aischron is rendered as shame in three places. In 1 Cor. 11:6, the apostle Paul says that it is a shame for a woman to be shorn or shaven. He uses the same word a few chapters later to describe the problem when women refuse to learn from their husbands, seeking to speak in church (1 Cor. 14:35). Clearly this does not refer to prayer or prophecy in church (1 Cor. 11:5), but even there it is clear that a woman needs to behave in such a way as to not be a shame. In Ephesians 5:12, Paul says that it is a “shame even to speak of those things which are done [by unbelievers] in secret.” This gives us some sense of how shameful Paul thinks this shame is. Unspeakable actions, performed in secret, constitute the shame of the unbelievers. It is more than a little ironic that the only kind of shame that many modern Christians feel is shame over the existence of such passages in the Bible.