Respectable Sins Book Review

I highly recommend Jerry Bridge's book "Respectable Sins". It is a book about sin, but it deals with the sins that we often do not take seriously. Christians have a way of focusing on the sins of society around us while overlooking the sins so prominent in our own hearts and lives.

The book opens by showing us the gospel of Jesus Christ and what God has done for us to help us to be people of holiness. Bridges reminds us that holiness is not something we can obtain on our own since our flesh wars against the Spirit (Galatians 5:16-17). Bridges shows that the way to holiness is not in rules of religion but only by the grace of God given to us freely in Christ (Titus 2:11-14). The problem of holiness is not that we can't obtain it but that we are by nature children of sin who need to be born again by the Spirit (Ezekiel 36:25-27; John 3:3-7).

Secondly, Bridges turns to showing us that sin is not just found in society at large but it can be in our thoughts, our words, and in our actions. It is easy to see sin in others, Bridges points out, but we need to first see sin in us (Matthew 7:1-3). Bridges then takes the light of God's Word and allows us to see that all sin grieves the heart of God (Ephesians 4:29-31). Sin is lawlessness (1 John 3:4). The Law of God shows us our sins (Romans 7:7, 14; 1 Timothy 1:8-10; James 2:8-11).

Bridges gives 7 helpful directions with dealing with sin:

1. Address our sin in the content of the gospel - God has forgiven our sin and credited to us the perfect righteousness of Christ.
2. Rely on the enabling power of the Holy Spirit - For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, “Abba, Father.”
3. Recognize our responsibility to diligently pursue all practical steps for dealing with our sin.
4. Identify specific areas of acceptable sins.
5. Memorize and apply appropriate scriptures.
6. Pray over the sins we tolerate
7. Involve one or more other believes with us in our struggles against our subtle sins.

After giving these practical steps of dealing with our sins, he writes a chapter about each one of these acceptable sins: ungodliness, anxiety and frustration, discontentment, unthankfulness, pride, selfishness, lack of self-control, anger, judgemental ism, envy, jealousy, sins of the tongue, and worldliness. This is a long list, and to be quite honest, I found that I had need to deal with almost all of them.

One of the ways that I have continued to meditate on the things contained in this book is by using a tree as an illustration. I have always thought of pride being the root of sin. But since reading this book, my thought process has changed. The life of a tree is the root system. Pride is the trunk of the tree not the roots. The root system is ungodliness. It is ungodliness that ultimately gives life to our more visible sins. Christians are ungodly. Ungodliness is defined as living one's every day life with little or no thought of God, God's will, God's glory or one's dependence on God. Whether we like to admit it or not after examining ourselves there is truth in that statement.

I believe this book will be tremendously helpful to Christians of all ages as they read it. It accomplishes several goals if read with humility. First, it brings sins we often neglect to deal with to the front of our minds. How many of us have even thought about our impatience this week? It's a sin we learn to live with. Or how many of us have thought about our lack of self control today? Second, this book focuses on heart issues and not externals. Sins of the heart are serious before the Lord, but we neglect them because no one else sees them. Respectable Sins drives our attention inward to our own hearts. Third, after driving our spiritual gaze inward, Bridges drives our gaze upward to the gospel. This book is gospel saturated and thoroughly explains how the gospel confronts our sins and shapes our lives. Finally, this book helps us to take sin seriously. As explained in the book, our culture seems to brush sin aside with ease. Respectable Sins will help us realize the malignancy of sin.

Respectable Sins is the type of book to keep close by and pull out when you are dealing with a specific sin and need help. It will direct your attention to Christ and offer Biblical ways to confront your respectable sins.