Synopses & Reviews
Think youve ever deceived yourself? Then this book is for you. / Think youve never deceived yourself? Then this book is really for you. / Socrates famously asserted that the unexamined life is not worth living. But Gregg Ten Elshof shows us that we make all sorts of little deals with ourselves every day in order to stave off examination and remain happily self-deceived. Most provocatively, he suggests this is not all bad While naming its temptations, Ten Elshof also offers a strange celebration of self-deception as a gracious gift. In the tradition of Dallas Willard, I Told Me So is a wonderful example of philosophy serving spiritual discipline. A marvelous, accessible and, above all, wise book. James K. A. Smith / Calvin College / author of The Devil Reads Derrida / In this wise, well-crafted work Ten Elshof helps us to identify, evaluate, and respond to our own self-deceptive strategies, as he probes with occasional self-deprecation and unavoidable humor the bottomless mysteries of the human heart. His reflections on interpersonal self-deception and groupthink are especially helpful. To tell me the truth, Im glad I read this book. You will be too I promise. David Naugle / Dallas Baptist University / author of Reordered Love, Reordered Lives / Ten Elshofs discussions are erudite, biblical, searching, and laced with soul-restoring wisdom. All of this together means that this book is solidly pastoral. What it brings to us is appropriate to individuals, but it especially belongs in the context of small groups and local congregations. Dallas Willard (from the foreword)
Synopsis
Think youżve ever deceived yourself? Then this book is for you.Think youżve never deceived yourself? Then this book is really for you.Scripture is peppered with talk of self-deception and its poisonous effects on the pursuit of holy living. Christians in the past thought long and hard about the ways we deceive ourselves. They called on self-deception to explain a wide range of problems in Christian experience. Strangely, though, self-deception has all but disappeared from our consciousness today. We rarely admit to the possibility of deceiving ourselves in any area of our lives.In I Told Me So Gregg Ten Elshof reintroduces readers to self-deception and offers an explanation for its recent neglect in Christian thought. He describes conditions that tempt us to deceive ourselves and points out where they exist in contemporary Christian life. He explains the most successful strategies we use in self-deception and offers practical advice on how to confront and eliminate them. But readers will be surprised to discover that self-deception isnżt always such a bad thing. Ten Elshof shows how sometimes it can even be a useful, God-given gift.Honest and incisive, consistently wise and frequently funny, I Told Me So offers fresh insights on how we deceive ourselves and smart strategies to combat the deceiver in all of us.
Synopsis
Think you've ever deceived yourself? Then this book is for you.
Think you've never deceived yourself? Then this book is really for you.
Table of Contents
Let's make a deal -- What? why? where? -- How-to, part 1 : attention management and procrastination -- How-to, part 2 : perspective switching, rationalization, and ressentiment -- Getting help when it's not working -- How-not-to, part 1 : giving self-deception a demotion -- How-not-to, part 2 : three good ideas -- Three warnings.