Respectable Sins - In Our Society

Jerry Bridges, author of Respectable Sins, indicates that the Church, while confronting many obvious and blatant sins - abortion, corporate corruption, homosexuality, and physical abuse - frequently misses the sins that run rampant in it's walls.

“The motivation for this book stems from a growing conviction that those of us whom I call conservative evangelicals may have become so preoccupied with some of the major sins of society around us that we have lost sight of the need to deal with our own more ‘refined’ or subtle sins” (p. 9).

So what sins are “respectable sins”? Bridges’ chapters include the following topics:

• general ungodliness defined as a sinful attitude towards God
• anxieties and frustrations
• discontentment
• unthankfulness
• pridefulness revealed specifically in self-righteousness, even in a pursuit of theological accuracy, in prideful motives behind our achievements and revealed in a spirit of independence
• selfishness with our interests, time, money and inconsiderableness
• lack of self-control in eating, drinking and temperament, finances, entertainment and shopping
• impatience and irritability
• anger, even anger towards God, and the underlying roots of anger in resentment, bitterness, enmity, hostility and holding grudges
• judgmentalism and a critical spirit over differing convictions and doctrinal disagreements
• envy, jealousy, competitiveness and being controlling
• the sins of the tongue like gossip, slander, lying, harsh words, sarcasm, insults and ridicule
• worldliness shown financially, by our idolatry and in “vicarious immorality,” that is, the enjoyment of watching or reading the sinfulness of others.

And Bridges says his list was whittled down for print!

Book Review

Book Summary

A GOD Centered Understanding of Sin

What Sin Is & What Sin Does

Are Some Sins Worse Than Others

Man's Sinful Nature