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Book Review: Respectable Sins

I received a copy of the venerable Jerry Bridges’ latest book Respectable Sins: Confronting the Sins We Tolerate as a gift from my parents recently and slowly but steadily made my way through it. This is a very practical book that attempts to point out to Christians the sins that we have allowed to take root in our lives and accept. He starts the book with a discussion of sin and how it has disappeared not only from the vernacular of the country, but from most churches as well. When sin does come up in many Evangelical churches today, it is used to describe the actions of others instead of the actions of Christians. The first five chapters deal with a discussion of sin, how it separates us from God, and how the gospel is the only remedy for sin.

Chapter six is where the book begins to be very practical, providing some directions for dealing with sin. For example, Bridges recommends that once we identify that we struggle with a certain sin we should internalize scripture that deals with this sin, recognize the place of the Holy Spirit and pray regularly and specifically about the area of sin, and finally bring along others to help us in accountability and prayer.

The rest of the book deals with individual areas of sin: ungodliness, anxiety and frustration, discontentment, unthankfulness, pride, selfishness, lack of self-control, impatience and irritability, anger, judgmentalism, envy, jealousy, sins of the tongue, and finally worldliness. Seeing a long list like that would make just about anyone want to put the book down, but Bridges does a good job making the discussion encouraging and practical, often including examples from his own life.

I found that as I worked through the chapters I was really convicted in areas that I have ignored or not spent time thinking about. For example, the chapter on unthankfulness helped me to realize how little time I spend being thankful for the things that I have received in life. The chapter also dealt with the topic of being thankful in difficult circumstances, not just being thankful when everything is going well. The chapter on self-control helped me realize how a lack of it can wreak havoc in so many areas of life, and that overindulgence in any area can bring unhappiness.

In the chapter on impatience and irritability, Bridges describes impatience as a strong sense of annoyance at the (usually) unintentional faults and failures of others. I found this to be a very good definition that helped me to put some perspective on my irritability. I take the train to work, and I have turned into a typical experienced commuter who gets irritated with people who talk on the train. In almost all situations, the person doing this is not doing it intentionally, so if it is bothering me it is my problem.

The chapter on anger was also interesting. Bridges addresses the issue of righteous anger, something that many Christians use as an excuse for their anger over the actions of others. It seems to me like many Christians are very angry about political issues in the United States, and many may feel it is justified as righteous anger. He says:

“The fact that we may be reacting to another person’s real sin does not necessarily make our anger righteous. We are more likely more concerned with the negative impact of the sinful actions on us than we are that it is a violation of God’s law. Or we may even use the fact that it is a violation of God’s law to justify our own sinful angry response.

I would recommend this book for individuals, but it might work even better if read in small groups where there can be some discussion and accountability.

Bridges finishes off with some recommendations of putting some of the lessons of the book into practice, and ends with a very appropriate verse, 1 Peter 5:5: “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble”.