Book Club Questions for Live No Lies

1.Comer opens by distinguishing between telling lies and living them. What does he mean by that distinction, and why does he think living a lie is more dangerous than simply believing a false proposition?

2.He describes our culture as one drowning in anxiety, anger, and addiction, yet also one that has largely abandoned the traditional vocabulary for diagnosing the problem (sin, the devil, the flesh). Do you think that vocabulary loss is a problem? What gets lost when we swap spiritual categories for purely psychological or sociological ones?

3.Comer introduces the ancient Christian framework of three enemies of the soul: the devil, the flesh, and the world. Had you heard this framework before? What was your initial reaction to each of the three categories?

1.Comer argues that the devil's primary weapon is not temptation to evil acts but deception — planting false ideas. How does this reframe the way you think about spiritual warfare? Does it make the concept feel more or less real to you?

2.He draws heavily from Genesis 3 and the serpent's conversation with Eve. Walk through that story again: what specific lies does the serpent tell, and how does each one follow a predictable logic of twisting something true into something false?

3.Comer emphasizes that Jesus identifies the devil as 'the father of lies' (John 8:44) and that this is the devil's native language. Why does calling deception the devil's native language change how we should approach false ideas in our culture? How does it raise the stakes?

1.Comer draws on research about how the brain forms habits and emotional patterns — the idea that repeated thoughts literally shape our neural architecture. Did this neuroscientific framing help you understand why lies are so sticky? Or did it feel like it was pulling the spiritual rug out from under the conversation?

2.He makes the point that a lie believed over time becomes a 'body memory' — something we feel as obviously true rather than think as consciously held. Can you identify a lie that has become a body memory for you? What does it feel like, and where did it come from?

3.Comer introduces the concept of 'strongholds' from 2 Corinthians 10 — not just sinful behaviors but false belief systems and thought patterns that have fortified themselves inside us. How does understanding a stronghold as an idea-fortress (rather than a demonic possession) change how you think about breaking free from one?

1.Comer argues that the New Testament word 'flesh' (Greek: sarx) does not mean the physical body but rather the pull of disordered desire — the part of us that wants good things in bad ways or bad things instead of good ones. How does this definition change your reading of passages like Galatians 5 or Romans 7?

2.He notes that our culture has essentially reversed the traditional assessment of the flesh: what Scripture calls vice (sensual indulgence, the gratification of desire as a supreme good) is now widely celebrated as virtue. Do you agree with that cultural diagnosis? Where do you see this reversal most clearly?

3.Comer is careful to say that desire itself is not the problem — desire is a gift, part of what it means to be human and made in God's image. The problem is desire that has been disordered by the fall. How does this distinction protect against both Puritanical body-hatred and modern sensual indulgence? Where does it leave you personally?

1.Comer argues that the traditional approach of 'just say no' to the flesh is not only ineffective but actually counter-productive — suppression without replacement doesn't work. Do you agree? What has been your default strategy for resisting fleshly desires, and how has it worked?

2.He introduces the concept of 'putting on the Lord Jesus Christ' (Romans 13:14) as a counter-practice to indulging the flesh — actively filling your imagination and attention with Christ rather than just trying to empty it of temptation. What does 'putting on Christ' look like in your daily routine?

3.Comer draws on Dallas Willard's teaching about spiritual disciplines as a training strategy — we practice disciplines not to earn God's favor but to train the body and soul to want the right things. Which spiritual disciplines has he mentioned or implied so far that feel most relevant to your particular flesh-battles?

1.Comer carefully distinguishes between 'world' as God's good creation (which we are to love), 'world' as the people in it (whom we are to love), and 'world' as the spirit of the age — the set of anti-God values, assumptions, and stories that structure secular culture. Why is this threefold distinction important? What goes wrong when Christians collapse them?

2.He argues that the 'world' in the New Testament sense is not so much a place (Hollywood, bars, secular universities) as a spirit — a set of implicit values that can infiltrate the church just as easily as any other institution. Do you think the church you are part of has been infiltrated by the spirit of the age? In what ways?

3.Comer draws on sociologist James Davison Hunter's concept of the 'cultural matrix' — the idea that we absorb most of our values not through conscious choice but through immersion in a particular culture over time. What cultural matrix formed you most powerfully before you became a Christian (or in your early years as one)? What beliefs did it give you that you are still working through?

1.Comer (drawing on James K. A. Smith) argues that we are primarily 'desiring animals' rather than 'thinking animals' — our loves, not just our beliefs, determine who we are. How does this anthropology reshape the way you think about discipleship and spiritual formation?

2.He describes secular institutions — the shopping mall, social media, entertainment culture — as having their own liturgies that form us into particular kinds of people with particular desires. Name two or three 'secular liturgies' in your own daily life. What kind of person are they forming you into?

3.Comer is particularly pointed about smartphones and social media as formative technologies. What desires do those technologies cultivate in you — and are those desires aligned with the kingdom of God or in tension with it?

1.Comer argues that the world's lies tend to cluster around three core questions: Who am I? What is freedom? and What will make me happy? How do these three questions map onto the three lies he identifies? Can you state each lie in a single sentence?

2.The first lie — about identity — is roughly: 'You are your desires; your authentic self is found by looking inward and expressing what you find there.' How does this compare to the Christian account of identity, which is received from God rather than discovered within? Where do you feel the pull of the therapeutic self-creation narrative?

3.The second lie — about freedom — is roughly: 'Freedom means having no external authority over your choices; it is autonomy from all constraints.' How does the New Testament's vision of freedom (freedom from sin, freedom for love and service) differ from this, and which vision do you find more compelling — and why?

1.Comer resists two bad options: world-flight (retreating into a Christian subculture and disengaging from the broader world) and world-accommodation (simply blending in). What is his proposed third way, and how does he describe it?

2.He draws on 1 Peter's description of Christians as 'exiles' and 'sojourners' — people who live in a place without ultimately belonging to it. How does that metaphor land for you? Do you feel like an exile in your culture, or do you feel pretty much at home?

3.Comer argues that the primary way Christians resist the world is not through political activism or culture-war tactics but through the quality of life in the church community — an embodied alternative that makes the kingdom visible. Do you find this vision compelling? What are its limitations, if any?

1.Comer describes Paul's 'armor of God' passage (Ephesians 6) and points out that most of the armor is defensive — except the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. What does it mean that truth is our primary offensive weapon? How does this change the way you think about engaging your Bible?

2.He contrasts two ways of reading Scripture: reading it to get information versus reading it to encounter the living God and be formed by him. What is your primary mode of Bible engagement? What would it look like to shift toward the formative mode?

3.Comer spends time on the practice of Scripture memorization — particularly as a way of getting truth into the body rather than just the conscious mind. He references Jesus' own use of memorized Scripture to resist the devil's temptations in the wilderness. Does memorization feel feasible to you? What has been your experience with it?

1.Comer argues that the 'one another' commands of the New Testament — confess to one another, pray for one another, bear one another's burdens — are not optional extras for particularly social Christians but essential armor for everyone. Which 'one another' command do you find hardest to practice, and why?

2.He references Hebrews 3:13's warning against 'the deceitfulness of sin' — the way sin specifically hardens and blinds us so that we cannot see our own deception. How does this help explain why we need people outside our own heads to speak truth into our lives?

3.Comer is honest that the kind of community he is describing — vulnerable, truth-speaking, spiritually formative — is rare and hard to find. What has been your experience? Have you ever had a relationship or community that functioned this way? What made it possible?

1.Comer argues that Jesus didn't just teach spiritual disciplines — he practiced them: solitude, silence, fasting, prayer, Sabbath, Scripture. What is the significance of Jesus himself needing these practices? What does it tell us about what kind of beings we are?

2.He uses Paul's metaphor of athletic training (1 Timothy 4:7 — 'train yourself to be godly') to make the point that spiritual disciplines are not magic rituals but practices that develop capacity — like physical training develops muscle. Does that analogy help you? What does it clarify, and what (if anything) does it miss?

3.Comer talks about the discipline of silence and solitude as particularly powerful for exposing and dismantling the lies we carry — because in quiet, we often hear what we have been drowning out with noise. What do you find when you get genuinely quiet? What do you tend to fill the silence with, and why?

1.Comer ends with a call to decision — to stop drifting and to actively, deliberately choose the way of Jesus. What is the decision he is asking you to make? Have you made it? What does 'yes' actually look like in concrete terms for your life?

2.He reflects on the ancient Christian aspiration: not just to go to heaven when you die, but to become the kind of person whose character is shaped by truth — someone from whom love and wisdom flow naturally because they have been formed by years of practice. How does this vision of 'becoming' differ from much of what you've heard about what the Christian life is for?

3.Comer is honest in the conclusion that this war is not won decisively in a single moment — it is won gradually, through years of faithful practice, community, and grace. How does that long-view perspective affect your emotional relationship to your own failures and slow progress?

1.Looking back across the full arc of the book: what was the single most important thing you learned or the moment when something shifted most significantly for you? Was it a concept, a story, a question, or a practice?

2.Comer organized the book around three enemies: the devil, the flesh, and the world. Which of the three felt most new or most challenging to you? Which one do you have the most work still to do in understanding and resisting?

3.Before reading this book, how would you have described the Christian life and what it is primarily about? How has that description changed — in emphasis, vocabulary, or substance — after working through Comer's argument?