I always like a question to which I can give a direct answer, and the answer here is “Yes”. We live in bodies, and with hearts and minds, that if exposed to sin are often brought into bondage to those sins. Different people have different predispositions to addiction. For some it is alcohol, for others it is pornography or nicotine, for yet others it is homosexual lust. So prone are we to sinful addictions that we can turn otherwise good things into bondage, things like chocolate or success in the workplace. So, yes, Christians, like everyone else, can become addicted, because as Jeremiah 17:9 says, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick.”

Let me point out here, however, that when we ask “Can some people be addicted?” we run the risk of greatly misunderstanding the nature of sin. According to the Bible, not only can sin lead to addiction but it always does; not only might we fall into addiction to sin, we all have done so. Our Lord taught, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin.” It is not that every sin leads to an automatic addiction to that sin – although the potential for this ought to fill us with dread. The point is that sinners are addicted not just to this sin or that, but to sin itself.

If you think that is not true, then I invite you simply to stop sinning. But of course, you can’t. In fact, the more you try not to sin, the more you will sin. This was the experience of one famous addict to sin, the apostle Paul. He wrote, in Romans 7:14-19: “We know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin. I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate… I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.”

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