Jeff Cook interestingly pairs the seven deadly sins with the Beatitudes' "pictures of a restored creation." I re-read this book and was surprised how my reaction to is has changed in a couple years!! Before I said, "Oh, thought provoking; interesting. Never thought of that before." Now I say, it is convicting at many points, and also disappointing.
First of all, for a Christian with a solid biblically-based worldview, this book would be a helpful read! For a "seeker" or for someone who only reads books of this "kind," I would recommend some other books to accompany it!
But on the whole, I want my response to center on the conviction and challenge God brought through the following 3 chapters:
- "Envy and the Mourner"- both feel a lack, and want. But
Envy has the deadly ability to distract my heart and mind from the daily bread God puts in my hands each morning, focusing me instead on the gifts, status, talents, and joys he gives to others. This is not only a rejection of the good that God has given me; this is a desire to become someone I'm not, was never made to be, and will not enjoy becoming if my jealousy ever were to succeed (52).
The mourner is the place to be, because "those who mourn expose their pain....[and] open themselves up to receive help, and in those spaces there is healing" (65). I want to be like the mourner, acknowledging envy as rejection of God's provision, and seeing my wants and longings as promptings for prayer, as ways to wait on God and eagerly anticipate his continued provision.
- "Sloth and those who Hunger for a Life Made Right" drew a contrast similar to the first. It also reminded me of the book Allure of Hope (see an older post). This world is broken, I am broken. I don't experience the abundant, FULL life for which God created me. What do I do with that? My tendency is to resort to sloth (perhaps similar to Jan Myers' "Path of Hovering") and trying to be unaffected, apathetic. Clearly, this is not the way it's supposed to be! Cook points to several of Jesus' parables and concludes that "in order to stay inside with the king, one had to be passionate about the king's concerns" (72), which is directly applicable to what God demands of his servants- we are to be passionate about his causes!! Now, in order to do this, we need God's help! Praise the Lord he gives it, by his lavish grace. I appreciated Cook's portrayal of how this happens by his contrast with the Tower of Babel and Pentecost: we are moved to be about the kingdom not by reaching God's level, but being ready and having him come and fill us!! Oh that's good!
- "Lust and the Pure of Heart" convicted me of how I look to others to fulfill my needs rather than purely, wholeheartedly seeking what is best for them, and looking to God to fulfill my needs. I appreciate that Cook points out that desires aren't bad-- they're are good, but need to be fulfilled rightly! And what a glorious proclamation that when we are pure in heart, our desires will be fulfilled in seeing God himself!
Though helpful and thought provoking, this book and this chapter in particular brought certain points that I cannot wholeheartedly endorse. For one thing, I wasn't in step with Cook's CS Lewis-like view of hell. Hell was portrayed as something we create for ourselves, and as much a reality in this life as in the one to come. Though I would agree that choices rejecting God;s will does not lead to life in any way, I think the hell after the final judgement will be worse than the negative, though destructive and powerful, consequences on earth, and will not just be the absence of God, but the pouring out of God's wrath. Cook says, "The seven deadly sins are the best description of life in hell. The real question for all of us not whether we will someday go to hell but whether we will ever come out" (174). Really?! My tendency is to excuse that, saying he's close and just being dramatic and using different words than I would use, but to be honest, I fear for those who might read this book and believe what he says!
Case in point, see page 169:
God has already done all the work necessary to rescue you and me from slavery to sin, and now we stand in the space between our past and God's future.
Yes! Right on! Then he continues,
We live in the desert between the hell we long to leave behind and the heavenly reality we pray consumes every cell of our bodies. It is the shadowlands. Hell is still with us, and heaven is all too slowly breaking in. Saved from a world of darkness, we still must peer through the gray of a world in which the full light of day has not yet dawned.
Um, kind of. Sounds ambiguous, or maybe misleading to me. I wouldn't say that slavery to sin is equal to hell. Yet I think I see the point he's trying to make, and yeah, I get it.
Similarly, the chapter I struggled getting through was the "Wrath and the Meek Peacemaker" chapter. I agree with the idea that WE are not to be wrathful. Cook quotes Dante saying that wrath is "a love for justice perverted to rage and spite," (124) which is obviously bad. Maybe we're just arguing semantics here, word choice, but I believe that scripturally, God does display wrath. Of course, his wrath could be defined as Arthur Pink describes it: "[God's] eternal detestation of all unrighteousness...the holiness of God stirred into activity against sin," (from
http://bible.org/seriespage/wrath-god, which has lots of scripture references to the wrath of God). Anyway, we shouldn't have wrath, it is to us to be meek peacemakers and trust God to deal out vengeance. Moreover, we are to be grateful that Jesus has exhausted the wrath of God toward believers!
Cook quotes Jesus saying, "all who draw the sword will die by the sword," as meaning, "Jesus categorically said that the way of wrath is not the way of God" (132). I wish that Cook would have said that God has wrath, and is just in doing so. I wish he would have said that because of Jesus, his wrath against us is gone, for he sees us as righteous, and his wrath is only toward evil. I wish he would have said that because we trust the all-knowing, all-powerful, forever-just God to deal justice and vengeance, we don't need to! I look to Jesus as an example of a peacemaker, he brought us peace with God by his blood. As his followers, we are to be like him, working to bring reconciliation between God and man!
It is possible that Cook and I agree on this point, we are just using different words and focusing on different aspects. I agree that for a human, wrath is a sin. I just wish he would have said it differently.
I also wish there had been more attention drawn to what I consider the gospel message, which I think is essential to any discussion of sin. Cook talks at length about the crucifixion, talking about how Jesus was meek through out it; in his introduction he talks about the Last Supper and fruit; but he never talks about the reason Jesus died being our sin. He never talks about our sin deserving punishment aside from the forgiveness available by Jesus' atonement. I understand that atonement is not the focus of this book, but rather the contrast between destructive sins that are appropriately called "deadly," and the full life that is available in obeying Jesus and being truly blessed. I admit this is something I wish my "gospel-centered" friends would focus on a little more. Still, Cook's only summary of the gospel is as follows:
God is working to see our world abound with the kind of life that he has. God is presently entering the hearts and minds, the communities and relationships, of broken human beings. This is the solution to the sin problem. This is the gospel.
and I find that sadly incomplete.
And finally, in his last chapter and final juxtaposition of the deadly sins and Beatitudes, Cook concludes,
Both call us to serve them, to eat, to enjoy, and to believe. But only one draws us into reality. Only one promotes life.
And only one will make us happy.
Eek.
True. But is that the point?
