Respectable Sins, by Jerry Bridges

Bridges begins by discussing the disappearance of sin, defines us as saints; what sin is, the warring of our soul and our flesh and the fact that, in his opinion, Evangelical Christians are the worst at ‘accepting’ or confronting the respectable sins we tolerate. He goes on to explain and verify by quoting scriptures that sin is sin is sin, despised by God – even cursed by God.

He does tell us early in the work that we should ‘take heart and to remember that Christ has already paid the penalty for our sins and won for us the forgiveness of them’. I couldn’t wait to get to those delicious paragraphs, as the condemnation was beginning to heap up – his point exactly. He says that sin has disappeared from society, because of the ‘feel good’ generation.

Bridges goes into great detail on the different types of respectable sins, but makes a point of telling us that there are many more he didn’t even put in this book. Sin, as this author discusses, is a malignancy and states that is why cancer is called a malignancy and it can metastasize and very possibly kill everything around it…. as do these respectable sins.

He dialogues about sin as ungodly, proves it scripturally, then describes in detail the following respectable sins: anxiety and frustration, discontentment, unthankfulness, pride, selfishness, lack of self control, impatience and irritability, anger, weeds of anger, judgmentalism, sins of the tongue and worldliness. Bridges announces it is ‘our responsibility to put to death the acceptable sins in our lives’.

Bridges’ writing style is easy to follow and uses descriptive, specific examples. This nonfiction is a quick read.

Bridges is detailed about where we go from here and it is a journey!

Happy reading!