Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Book Review: “The Enemy Within” by Kris Lundgaard, Presbyterian & Reformed. 1998

Overview—Give a brief overview of the book, including its theme, perspective and approach.

“The Enemy Within” is essentially a journey into the sinfulness of the human heart. Lundgaard wants his readers to know the “exceeding sinfulness of sin” and to learn to hate and to do battle with the flesh. Lundgaard leans heavily on the works of puritan author John Owen. One could look at Lungaard’s book as “The Mortification of Sin for Dummies”, though that would fail to do justice to his helpful volume. Lungaaard traces the power of sin in what it is, how it works, and what it does. He then concludes with three chapters on defeating sin.

Critique—Offer a brief critique of the book, including elements of strength and weakness.

I found “The Enemy Within” to be a very practical and helpful book. Written in 13 convenient chapters, with discussion questions following each chapter, “The Enemy Within” would be best used in a small group study where participants could probe deeper into Lungaards brief chapters. Though Lundgaard is brief, he really does a good job in channeling Owen for a contemporary audience. Lungaard’s weakness lies in trying to make his chapter titles and subject headings a bit too clever and pithy. When reviewing chapter titles like “The Haunted House”, I found myself asking, “Now what exactly did he mean by that again?” Owen, upon whom Lundgaard leans, was painstakingly straight forward in getting his point across.

Application—Offer some specific application to your own ministry— demonstrating the value and relevance of the material in this book.

Besides whetting my appetite for reading more of John Owen, “The Enemy Within” did something truly helpful to me: I found myself truly hating the sin in my own life and realizing its depth and power. As I read through the various chapters, I was reminded at how deep the roots of sin go. Gladly, I also was driven to the cross as the only hope and remedy for sin’s grasp and power. I was pressed to a greater vigilance and watchfulness against my personal “enemy within”. I can see reading through this book with a small group and exploring the wiles of sin in our lives. His chapter on “No Idle Mind” was particularly challenging.

Best Quote—Be sure to include the page number where the quote can be found.

p. 64: You must understand this: the flesh weakens conviction against sin by separating the remedy of grace from the design of grace…, The flesh makes you forget the design (that you are saved to be holy) and think only of the remedy (if you sin you will be forgiven). It preaches half a gospel ( a twisted gospel) to us: “Go ahead and indulge – it’s already paid for.” Those who fall preay to such deception are evidently many, since the scriptures go to such lengths to condemn it (Romans 3:5-8; 6:1-4, Jude 4).

1 comment:

N Abram said...

Hello, thanks for this very helpful review.