Worldliness

The final chapter in Respectable Sins: Confronting The Sins We Tolerate by Jerry Bridges was a 'doozy.' (Don't you just love that word, doozy? I don't really know what it means, which means I can make it mean whatever I want!) Anyway, I digress...

The author defines "Wordliness" in this way: "It is being attached to, engrossed in, or preoccupied with the things of this temporal life. The things of this temporal life may or may not be sinful in themselves. What makes our attitude toward things that are not sinful worldliness is the high value we put upon them... Worldliness means accepting the values, mores, and practices of the nice, but unbelieving, society around us without discerning whether or not those values, mores, and practices are biblical."

Bridges then focuses on three common areas of worldliness that we are particularly susceptible to: Money (how do we spend what God has given us?), Immorality (are we "vicariously immoral," watching and reading that which is clearly contrary to Scripture?) and Idolatry (do we bow down to our careers, political or social issues, or sports, to the detriment of our relationships with God and our families?

As in every other chapter of this fantastic book, the antidote to "tolerating" these sins is twofold: recognizing these behaviors must come first, followed quickly by repentance. Bridges certainly has helped all of us participating in Women's Study this year with the first of these tasks; it is up to us, though, to following through on the second step.

May God help us to repent of our Respectable Sins; what a doozy of blessing would be ours!