Book Response: “Respectable Sins” by Jerry Bridges

Introduction

Jerry Bridges, by far, is my favorite author because it has a great writing style. He approaches both topics of Godliness and Respectable sins with pose and grace. It is written with a perspective of grace. It does not feel like He is personally attacking me when I read these books. With this perspective, I can open my eyes and my heart to what he is scriptural telling us. Jerry Bridges has written Respectable Sins and the Practice of Godliness. Practice of Godliness is the refutation of Respectable Sins. Respectable Sins told us that before we can judge other people’s sins, we should take care of our respectable sins. Without further ado, of my limited amount of time, I will have to tackle only the Respectable Sins book. However, if you want more information, please visit Hawk Youth Mission to see my report on the Practice of Godliness.

Respectable Sins Response

               Respectable Sins main premise was to confront the sins that we tolerate. The Respectable Sins include: ungodliness, anxiety and frustration, discontentment, unthankfulness, pride, selfishness, lack of self-control, impatience and Irritability, anger, the weeds of anger, judgmentalism, envy, jealousy, and related sins, sins of the tongue, and finally worldliness. The weeds of anger include bitterness, resentment, remorse, strife, and grudges. There are several respectable sins that I struggle with. I struggle with Pride, discontentment, anxiety and frustration, and Impatience/irritability. Let’s conquer one sin at the time using the God-Breathed Instruction manual which is none other than the Bible. The Bible has a lot to say about pride, discontentment, anxiety and frustration, and Impatience/irritability. Let’s see how many sins we can conquer by the end of this article.

               First, we need to conquer the sin of pride. Pride has many faces to it. The first face is the Pride of moral self-righteousness. The second face is the pride of correct doctrine. The third face is the pride of Achievement. The final face is the pride of an independent spirit. The one that I mostly struggle with is the pride of achievement and moral self-righteousness. I pride myself that I make all A’s. Sometimes I enjoy bragging to people that I have made all A’s. When, in reality, I should not brag about my achievements because it makes me appear to be prideful. I also think I am self-righteous when I am just the same as all the Christians. Verses, which combat pride, are the following: Luke 18:9; Psalms 51:5; Ezra 7:10; 1 Corinthians 8:1; 2 Timothy 2:15; 1 Corinthians 9:26-27, Philippians 3:12-14; 1 Samuel 2:7; Psalms 75:6-7; Haggai 1:5-6; 1 Corinthians 4:7; Luke 17:10; Hebrews 13:17; Proverbs 2:1; Proverbs 3:1; Proverbs 4:1; Proverbs 5:1; Proverbs 7:1; Isaiah 66:2.

               Second, we need to conquer the sin of Anxiety and Frustation. I did not realize anxiety was a sin against God. It is a sin against God because we do not believe God is in Control. Jerry Bridges says Anxiety is a sin for two reasons. First, Anxiety is a distrust of God. Second, Anxiety is a sin because it is a lack of acceptance of God’s providence in our lives. He also conveyed that

“We tend to focus on the immediate causes of our anxiety rather than remembering that those immediate causes are under the sovereign control of God.” (Jerry Bridges, Respectable Sins: Confronting the Sins we tolerate, Colorado Springs; CO; NavPress 2007, pg. 64-65).

I worry a lot. I probably worry more than the average American There are several verse to combat this as we will see later. My favorite verse is 1 Peter 5:7. 1 Peter 5:7 tells us we should not worry because God cares for us. Other verses include Matthew 6:34, Mark 9:24, Luke 12:6, Mark 6:5-6, Psalm 139:16.  

Conclusion

In Conclusion, these are the two biggest sins I have. I wish we had gotten to more sins and how to overcome those sins, but due to the page constraint I was unable. Hope you can find more resources on how to combat your sins on Hawk Youth Mission. My goal, in writing this paper, is to help others find solutions to the respectable sins and help me conquer my respectable sins also. I thoroughly enjoyed reading “The Respectable Sins” book. I hope to write more on this on my Hawk Youth Mission website. Thank you for encouraging us to read this book even if it was a part of a grade. I do not consider reading the Bible a requirement. I consider reading the Bible as a privilege. Overall, this book was excellent. Hope to read more of Jerry Bridges books in the future. Adios.