How People Change: the book

The following is a review of “How People Change,” by Timothy S. Lane and Paul David Tripp. Published by New Growth Press, 2006. I think it’s available at the Mars Hill resource center. 

Between an entry that finished with the words “I never change and I’m tired of getting my hopes up” and another titled “To Do: 2/26/07″ (with 21 check-boxed items following), my journal of the last 2 years holds a single sheet that is almost entirely empty lines.

Except for three words and one piece of punctuation:

is
change
possible
?

That sparsely maintained notebook contains random entries of everything from absolutely dispair over a personal crisis to Costco online ordering instructions to thoughts on Paul when I visited Ephesus to . . . well just little bits of my whole life.

I have been on edge with that question ever since college. Aren’t we new creations in Christ? Why am I still sinning? Why am I still such an idiot? How come I can’t love everyone and how come I get so annoyed or laugh at the thought of kicking a mean lady’s puppy or whatever? What does the Bible MEAN, “you are dead to your sins,” when it’s obvious sin is alive and well in my heart? Am I stupid or is it false advertising? Can I change? It doesn’t seem like it! At least not for more than a month or two!

Timothy S. Lane and Paul David Tripp wrote a book: How People Change.

And I read the entire thing. You may say, “good for you. Aren’t you impressive.”

But I’m telling you, I don’t finish books; University crushed my love of reading with its 4-million-paged hardback, 110-lb. books with no pictures, or at least no pictures I was interested in.  But this one I actually finished.

Ok for serious, part of it was because it was assigned to me as an attendee of Mars Hill Church’s recent leader’s training event, wherein the authors themselves came and spoke.

But I was glad I was assigned to read it.

“GET ON WITH THE REVIEW!” you say. Your wish is my command.

1. The book says nothing new; it’s all in the Bible. But it’s the stories that make the theology come to life. We need to hear how the gospel plays out in real life, and real life in THIS CENTURY. And this book delivers.

2. It uses an analogy based off of Jeremiah 17:5-10 to structure the book based on two types of trees: the fruit tree and the thorn bush. The thorn bush produces thorns by its nature, and the fruit tree produces fruit by its nature. Both live under the scorching sun (our circumstances; trials and temptations), but each produces a different result based on its nature. The fourth item of the analogy (besides heat, thorns and fruit) is the CROSS. Um, I’m going to jump here and say that part is self-explanatory and is linked in their diagram between the thorn bush and the fruit tree - it is the only way to pass from being a thorny sinful person to being transformed into a fruit tree.

3. Its most valuable tools are its incredibly insightful self-assessment questions. Try chewing on these for just 20 minutes:
“What are your Thorns? (Complaining, laziness, anger, envy, lust, bitterness, avoidance, pide, indifference, hard words, blame, judgmental spirit, greed, lack of self-control, and so on.)
Where do your actions and responses fail to demonstrate the Fruit of faith?
In your current situation and relationships, how are you responding sinfully? 
Where have you slacked off?
When have you given into anger or envy?
Where have you quit doing what God says is good?
To whom have you spoken unkindly?
Where have you blamed others?
When have you accused God?
Are you dealing with your feelings by doing unhealthy things (too much eating, spending, or working; escaping with too much TV or too many novels; too much emphasis on things like clothing, appearance, houses, cars)?”

(excerpts from page 140)

4. I particularly liked “The Gospel Gap” chapter, wherein the authors outline ways in which Christians twist the gospel and focus on the externals rather than the heart. They cite formalism, legalism, mysticism, activism, biblicism, “psychology-ism,” and “social-ism” as typical departures from the gospel. Each one of those is illustrated by a synopsis of a person struggling in their walk that way. I was kind of shocked and bothered that I wasn’t guilty of just ONE of them, but rather MOST of them. It would’ve been a lot simpler if I could’ve JUST been a legalist. Or JUST a biblicist. But I pretty much blushed as I saw myself in all of them except perhaps “psychology-ism.” Yeah, I want to earn God’s favor by following the rules. Yeah, I think that I need to be DOING stuff all the time in the church to truly be a Christian. Yeah, I think that if I know all my theology then no one can touch me. And yeah, I go crazy when the church is not fulfilling my social needs. The authors point out that these tendencies of Christians to choose to pervert the gospel with externalism often gives them a sense of independence - an “I don’t need you any more, Jesus, thanks.” The part that stings me is that I think this thought was encouraged by my community growing up: “he saved your soul, now get your act together and deserve it.” I thought grace and Jesus were for getting saved once, not for saving me every day.

5. You know what the bottom line is? People are changed by Jesus. They do not save themselves or change themselves. It’s funny; we think that the gospel is for saving us once, and that we don’t need it as much the next day. Or five years later. Or fifty. But we DO. We can frustrate the work of Jesus and his Holy Spirit in transforming their lives, but He WILL complete the work he has begun in transforming us into his own image. And the sooner we can cooperate with him, and allow him to be the center, to go to the cross daily and confess our utter need of HIM, JESUS, the MAN-GOD PERSON, not the idea, fairy-tale or far off historical and political hero, the sooner our lives begin their transformation and without “forcing it” - the fruit starts growing on the tree that Jesus has planted in place of the thorn bush.

So now I have a book full of highlighter and ink, voraciously consumed. I wish I had taken it slower to soak in it, but I actually have the work book, which goes over the same things chapter by chapter, but with space to actually RESPOND to the questions.

Honestly. I’m not a book pusher. I usually hate book reviews. But if you have been frustrated with the big mystery of Christian life between the part of getting saved and the other part of meeting Jesus in heaven as a completely sinless and righteous daughter of the King, this book is for you.

Oh, and I almost forgot. That journal full of tears and the same problems over and over again, and the lists of the same things to do, over and over again, and the burning questions and frustrations next to the pages of ‘Personal Goals for Fall Quarter 2006′… it got to its last page. One last blank page full of lines. Now it says, simply:

change
is
possible
!
!
!