Book Reflection/Review: Spiritual Depression
Preface: I’ve pretty much never done a book review / reflection aside from the horrible ones they make us do in elementary so this is my attempt at more formalized thought / reflection / review that is hopefully helpful to others considering books to read, as well as myself to remember my impression of books and which ones to refer to again in later situations of life. kay great.
Overall Impression: One of the best books I’ve read. If I had a core list of books I would recommend to every Christian (I somewhat do), this would make the list. I remember the first time I started hearing about it was a few times through freshman year. As someone who struggled a lot with spiritual depression before, simply hearing the title - I had to read it. It did not disappoint.
It’s one of those somewhat denser books where you can just read a chapter and mull it over some days before tackling the next chapter because of how rich it is. Application is so real too, because chances are you and/or people you know struggle with the very thing addressed. MLJ presents challenges to the underlying theology that we often haven’t realized we believed, presenting a calling to truth that sets us free to enjoy what it is to have joy founded in a proper understanding and living of life in Christ. It truly is just good preaching that revives the soul.
Synopsis: This is the text version of a series of sermons that Martyn Lloyd-Jones preached in the 1950′s, contextually after WWII and amid the Cold War, hence an emphatic need for the Christian joy when all the world screamed a reason to be jaded and depressed. I haven’t done my research, but I believe he was a medical doctor, which would certainly explain the subtitle “Its [Spiritual Depression’s] Causes and Cure” and his formatting per chapter /sermon based on spiritual symptoms, diagnosis, cure, and treatment.
If I could summarize very generally the content of this book, it would likely be that many Christians are spiritually depressed and thus encumbered and hindered by misunderstanding the nature of salvation, unbelief, the work of the devil, a lack of preaching truth to oneself, and even one’s own introspective tendencies. This spiritual depression not only steals the Christian joy away that we ought enjoy, but renders us weak for the purposes of spiritual growth into maturity, being more fitting witnesses of the good gospel, and in general ministry for the kingdom of God. The treatment / cure is to arise, stir up, and preach truth to ourselves. The treatment includes a proper understanding of the gospel / our salvation and taking it up to live out (i.e. following Paul’s example in no longer looking back in regret of what heathens we once were, not allowing the past to depress us from pressing onward). Per sermon, MLJ goes into details about more specific causes of depression and more precise selection of Scripture that reveals truth for joy.
Helpfulness / Ease of Application: So helpful, so applicable. Since this is a series of sermons where MLJ exegetes a few verses to explain the specific case of depression and its treatment, it made this book especially easy to use for practicing biblical counseling. It addresses the heart and is systematic in its approach per sermon / chapter. It was a scalpel for my own heart, as so many times, I felt like the book was written purposefully for me. Several chapters I could pinpoint as being my heart’s issue in the past - and truth that I had to learn the hard way (thankful for MLJ’s better verbalization of it all), and other chapters, I was convicted of the need to purge the devil’s lies from my subconscious and give them no foothold if I wanted to live fruitfully. I’ve also been able to use what I’ve read several times for counsel to others, recalling to mind what I recently read. If I had even better memory, it probably could’ve been reused even more.
Digestibility / Ease to Read: It’s a bit different obviously because of the context in where this book was written. It’s written in conversational speech which makes it easier to read without lacking emotion or genuine self-reflection, but at the same time it’s not the same way we speak today. I mean, between a 1950′s UK preacher and a 21st century college student... go figure. What I mean is that linguistically we’re usually used to less complex sentence structure, though I wouldn’t say Spiritual Depression is all too hard to digest compositionally. Also, randomly, I read through the whole book imagining MLJ was some black preacher spitting the Word to me and I was convicted, mentally saying “amen” along with him. Then I heard some audio recordings of MLJ actually preaching... and decided that I prefer the fake voice I constructed in my mind over his actual voice.
Conclusion: All in all, I would highly recommend making or finding time to read this at some point, though personally I probably wouldn’t recommend it to someone just getting into reading Christian lit since it’s not necessarily light reading. Great for learning and practicing biblical counsel, especially for the hindrances that Christians often face, and presenting the call to persevere in Christian joy.
annaxmalina