I would like to acknowledge my sister-in-law Joyce for challenging my understanding of lust and setting me on a course to discover what God’s Word says on the matter. This is a follow up for “lean not on your one understanding.”

Easton’s Bible Dictionary

Lust:

sinful longing; the inward sin which leads to the falling away from God (Rom 1:21). “Lust, the origin of sin, has its place in the heart, not of necessity, but because it is the centre of all moral forces and impulses and of spiritual activity.” In Mark 4:19 “lusts” are objects of desire.

Romans 1:21 English Standard Version (ESV) For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.

Mark 4:19 English Standard Version (ESV) but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word, and it proves unfruitful.

Easton’s Bible Dictionary makes lust a simple thing to understand until we check the reference verses in another translation other than the KJV favored by Easton’s link.

It would appear from those references that the comment “lust, the origin of sin” is not supported by the referenced bible scripture. While that comment may well be true, it is not supported directly by references. That would indicate that simple questions have more complicated answers and investigation in more depth seems appropriate.

This comes down to a matter of personal satisfaction. If we do not question what is said we will trust the source and move on. This is not about proving a  point, it is about doing an in depth study on an issue that affects us all.

International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia

Lust:

(5 Hebrew and 5 Greek words are so rendered, namely: [lists removed for brevity]

The word both as verb and as substantive has a good and a bad meaning. It probably meant at first a strong desire, a craving, abnormal appetite, not only for physical but for spiritual satisfaction. It has come, however, to be confined in its use almost entirely to the bad sense. Some old translations are not accepted now, the word being used in connections which at present seem almost irreverent. Shades of meaning are learned from an examination of the Hebrew and Greek originals.

Rather than going into a lengthy discourse of the differences between Hebrew and Greek origins, can we agree on two issues that appear in here, that some things are no longer accepted and some things appear to be irreverent.