Review by Ben Manisier
Written by Jerry Bridges, Respectable Sins seeks to confront the sins we tolerate: impatience, irritability, frustration, anger, pride, anxiety, judgmentalism, and the list honestly goes on.
The title Respectable Sins is enough to make us scratch our heads.
How can a sin be respectable?
Bridges doesn’t try to shift our focus from lust, idolatry, greed, or other typical ‘big, bad sins’ that we often desperately try to avoid – but rather brings notice to the more subtle and socially accepted sins – sins we often don’t pay much attention to.
What is something that I took away from the book?
God knows more than I think he knows.
What I mean is that while I was aware of my sins, God is aware of the sins I’m not even aware of. That’s pretty scary. It’s easy for us to look at major and more obvious sins to avoid such as premarital sex, drunkenness, theft, and murder, but that often makes us blind to the other sins mentioned above. Respectable Sins opened more of my eyes to my failings and the areas that I still need to repent and work on, but more importantly, it reminded me of how abundant God’s grace is.
Where I fail, Jesus has already succeeded.
Application Points
- Always address our sin in the context of the Gospel
- We must learn to rely on the enabling power of the Holy Spirit
- While depending on the Spirit, we must be diligent with practical steps to deal with sin
- We must identify specific areas of sin
- Arm ourselves with specific and applicable Scripture for our sin
Respectable Sins isn’t a book to breeze through. The writing is simple and easy to follow but the content takes a while to digest and reflect. Sin isn’t changed in a day or through one book but Respectable Sins dissects specific sins that are common in our everyday lives with Scripture as a daily remedy. It emphasises the strength of the Spirit but also the responsibility we bear as Christians. If you read this book and think, “This isn’t me”, then you’re reading the book wrong.