Week 1: Introduction — The Disappearing Concept of Sin

1.Bridges opens by observing that the very concept of sin has been eroding in our culture. Before reading this book, how often did you use the word 'sin' to describe your own behavior? What words did you tend to use instead (mistakes, struggles, issues, weaknesses)?

2.What does Bridges mean when he distinguishes between 'flagrant' or 'gross' sins and what he calls 'respectable' sins? Why do you think the church tends to focus on the former while largely ignoring the latter?

3.Bridges argues that we often feel safe from sin by comparing ourselves to society's more visible sinners. Have you ever caught yourself doing this — feeling relatively righteous because your sins are 'not that bad'? What does this habit reveal about how we understand holiness?

4.The introduction sets up a tension that runs through the entire book: how do we take sin seriously without losing sight of grace? How do you personally tend to handle that tension — do you lean more toward minimizing sin or toward guilt and self-condemnation?

5.Bridges writes as someone who has wrestled deeply with his own sin throughout decades of ministry. How does his pastoral tone in the introduction shape the way you expect to receive the harder chapters ahead?

6.1 John 1:8 says, 'If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.' In what specific ways might Christians today be engaging in this kind of self-deception — not openly denying sin, but quietly not naming it?

7.How does the gospel — specifically the finished work of Christ on our behalf — make it both safe and necessary to engage in honest self-examination? What would be lost if we examined our sin without first anchoring ourselves in grace?