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The Traitor Within: Understanding and Healing Our Deceitful Hearts
“The human heart is the most deceitful of all things, and desperately wicked. Who really knows how bad it is?” (Jeremiah 17:9, NLT).
And yet our culture tells us to "follow your heart". No wonder it too is now desperately sick and beyond cure.
This book will explore the cultural phenomenon The Traitors as a modern parable as it unmasks the human heart. Adrian Warnock blends his medical insights gained from his work as a doctor and psychiatrist with pastoral wisdom gathered from twenty five years serving as part of a church leadership team during a period of growth from less than twenty members to thousands. In recent years Adrian has also experienced chronic illness following his diagnosis with blood cancer, and this book reflects his passion to help others face all kinds of suffering with hope and compassion.
Currently proposed chapters
→ TV’s The Spellbound by Lies
→ How Suffering Revealed What Was in My Heart
→ When Your Body Lies to False Messages and Appetites
→ Help when Life dealing with specfic challenges
→ Healing Your Practical Tools
→ Follow Your Heart? Not When Your Mind Is Lying to You
→ Healing Your Taking Every Thought Captive
→ How Lies Create Our Desperately Sick Society
→ Healing Our Broken Work, Friends, and Family
→ Our Deceitful Without Hope and without God
→ Healing Your Spirit – Meaning and Religion
→ Forgiven in a Moment. Renewed Over a Lifetime. Glorified for Eternity.
About the Author
"Adrian is a first-rate communicator" — Albert Mohler Jr
Adrian Warnock is a Christian, medical doctor, and published author. He has blogged at Patheos since 2003 and has lived with chronic illness since 2017. He is also a podcaster. Adrian writes about hope and healing for body, mind, community life, and spirit. Adrian's background in medicine, the pharmaceutical industry, church leadership, and more recently as a patient, all combine to give him a unique perspective on healthcare, and the faith-based implications of all these fields.
He draws together insights from his medical and psychological specialist expertise, his lived experience as a patient, and his Christian faith. He advocates for the biopsychosocial–spiritual model of wellbeing and is passionate about helping people approach suffering with hope and compassion.
Adrian worked in the UK’s National Health Service as a psychiatrist for eight years, then spent fifteen years in the pharmaceutical industry helping to design and communicate the results of around fifty clinical trials.
After being diagnosed with blood cancer in 2017, he took early medical retirement. He is the founder of Blood Cancer Uncensored, an online patient support group.
Alongside his medical career, Adrian served for more than a decade on the leadership team of Jubilee Church London. He studied theology through Newfrontiers courses.
You are invited to walk the Christian journey and experience what it means to be Transformed By Jesus. The greatest need of our cynical and divided world is to rediscover the life-changing power of the ancient gospel. Every generation must learn how to restate the old truths and live them.
And yet our culture tells us to "follow your heart". No wonder it too is now desperately sick and beyond cure.
This book will explore the cultural phenomenon The Traitors as a modern parable as it unmasks the human heart. Adrian Warnock blends his medical insights gained from his work as a doctor and psychiatrist with pastoral wisdom gathered from twenty five years serving as part of a church leadership team during a period of growth from less than twenty members to thousands. In recent years Adrian has also experienced chronic illness following his diagnosis with blood cancer, and this book reflects his passion to help others face all kinds of suffering with hope and compassion.
Currently proposed chapters
→ TV’s The Spellbound by Lies
→ How Suffering Revealed What Was in My Heart
→ When Your Body Lies to False Messages and Appetites
→ Help when Life dealing with specfic challenges
→ Healing Your Practical Tools
→ Follow Your Heart? Not When Your Mind Is Lying to You
→ Healing Your Taking Every Thought Captive
→ How Lies Create Our Desperately Sick Society
→ Healing Our Broken Work, Friends, and Family
→ Our Deceitful Without Hope and without God
→ Healing Your Spirit – Meaning and Religion
→ Forgiven in a Moment. Renewed Over a Lifetime. Glorified for Eternity.
About the Author
"Adrian is a first-rate communicator" — Albert Mohler Jr
Adrian Warnock is a Christian, medical doctor, and published author. He has blogged at Patheos since 2003 and has lived with chronic illness since 2017. He is also a podcaster. Adrian writes about hope and healing for body, mind, community life, and spirit. Adrian's background in medicine, the pharmaceutical industry, church leadership, and more recently as a patient, all combine to give him a unique perspective on healthcare, and the faith-based implications of all these fields.
He draws together insights from his medical and psychological specialist expertise, his lived experience as a patient, and his Christian faith. He advocates for the biopsychosocial–spiritual model of wellbeing and is passionate about helping people approach suffering with hope and compassion.
Adrian worked in the UK’s National Health Service as a psychiatrist for eight years, then spent fifteen years in the pharmaceutical industry helping to design and communicate the results of around fifty clinical trials.
After being diagnosed with blood cancer in 2017, he took early medical retirement. He is the founder of Blood Cancer Uncensored, an online patient support group.
Alongside his medical career, Adrian served for more than a decade on the leadership team of Jubilee Church London. He studied theology through Newfrontiers courses.
You are invited to walk the Christian journey and experience what it means to be Transformed By Jesus. The greatest need of our cynical and divided world is to rediscover the life-changing power of the ancient gospel. Every generation must learn how to restate the old truths and live them.
- GenresTheology
317 pages, Kindle Edition
Published January 29, 2026
2 people are currently reading
2 people want to read
About the author
Adrian Warnock
4 books54 followersAdrian Warnock is a Christian, medical doctor, and published author. He has blogged at Patheos since 2003 and has lived with chronic illness since 2017.
His books Raised With Christ and Hope Reborn form the series Transformed by Jesus: Spiritual Renewal.
Adrian writes about hope and healing for body, mind, community life, and spirit. He draws together medical and psychological insights, lived experience, and Christian faith. He advocates for the biopsychosocial–spiritual model of wellbeing and is passionate about helping people approach suffering with hope and compassion.
Adrian worked in the UK’s National Health Service as a psychiatrist for eight years, then spent fifteen years in the pharmaceutical industry helping to design and communicate the results of around fifty clinical trials.
After being diagnosed with blood cancer in 2017, he took early medical retirement. He is the founder of Blood Cancer Uncensored, an online patient support group.
Alongside his medical career, Adrian served for more than a decade on the leadership team of Jubilee Church London. He studied theology through Newfrontiers courses.
He qualified with an MB BS medical degree from London University (equivalent to an MD in the USA) and holds postgraduate qualifications in Psychiatry (MRCPsych) and Pharmaceutical Medicine (MFFM, DipPharmMed).
His books Raised With Christ and Hope Reborn form the series Transformed by Jesus: Spiritual Renewal.
Adrian writes about hope and healing for body, mind, community life, and spirit. He draws together medical and psychological insights, lived experience, and Christian faith. He advocates for the biopsychosocial–spiritual model of wellbeing and is passionate about helping people approach suffering with hope and compassion.
Adrian worked in the UK’s National Health Service as a psychiatrist for eight years, then spent fifteen years in the pharmaceutical industry helping to design and communicate the results of around fifty clinical trials.
After being diagnosed with blood cancer in 2017, he took early medical retirement. He is the founder of Blood Cancer Uncensored, an online patient support group.
Alongside his medical career, Adrian served for more than a decade on the leadership team of Jubilee Church London. He studied theology through Newfrontiers courses.
He qualified with an MB BS medical degree from London University (equivalent to an MD in the USA) and holds postgraduate qualifications in Psychiatry (MRCPsych) and Pharmaceutical Medicine (MFFM, DipPharmMed).
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
February 3, 2026
This is not another shallow Christian self-help book with spiritual slogans taped over modern psychology. Adrian Warnock is doing something far more demanding and far more useful.
Starting with Jeremiah’s uncomfortable claim that the human heart is “deceitful above all things,” Warnock pushes back against the cultural reflex to “follow your heart” without discernment. Using the TV show The Traitors as a modern parable, he exposes how easily we are captivated by lies, including the ones we tell ourselves. The metaphor works surprisingly well, not as a gimmick but as a way of helping readers see patterns of deception, loyalty, and self-interest that shape everyday life.
What gives this book real weight is the author’s credibility. Warnock writes as a medical doctor, psychiatrist, church leader, and cancer patient. His reflections on suffering, bodily signals, mental habits, and spiritual formation feel earned rather than theoretical. He integrates medical insight, psychological realism, and Christian theology without flattening any of them. The biopsychosocial–spiritual model he advocates is not jargon here; it becomes a practical framework for understanding how body, mind, community, and faith interact, especially under pressure.
The chapters move thoughtfully from personal suffering to societal dysfunction, from individual thought patterns to cultural lies, and finally to the long arc of Christian hope: forgiveness, renewal, and ultimate restoration. Warnock does not offer quick fixes. Instead, he invites readers to face uncomfortable truths about themselves while holding out a steady, compassionate hope rooted in the gospel.
This book will particularly resonate with readers who are tired of simplistic answers, who are navigating illness or loss, or who sense that both secular optimism and shallow religiosity fail to account for the depth of human brokenness. Honest, grounded, and pastoral without being sentimental, this is a serious contribution to conversations about faith, suffering, and what genuine transformation actually requires.
Highly recommended for readers willing to think deeply and be challenged rather than merely reassured.
Starting with Jeremiah’s uncomfortable claim that the human heart is “deceitful above all things,” Warnock pushes back against the cultural reflex to “follow your heart” without discernment. Using the TV show The Traitors as a modern parable, he exposes how easily we are captivated by lies, including the ones we tell ourselves. The metaphor works surprisingly well, not as a gimmick but as a way of helping readers see patterns of deception, loyalty, and self-interest that shape everyday life.
What gives this book real weight is the author’s credibility. Warnock writes as a medical doctor, psychiatrist, church leader, and cancer patient. His reflections on suffering, bodily signals, mental habits, and spiritual formation feel earned rather than theoretical. He integrates medical insight, psychological realism, and Christian theology without flattening any of them. The biopsychosocial–spiritual model he advocates is not jargon here; it becomes a practical framework for understanding how body, mind, community, and faith interact, especially under pressure.
The chapters move thoughtfully from personal suffering to societal dysfunction, from individual thought patterns to cultural lies, and finally to the long arc of Christian hope: forgiveness, renewal, and ultimate restoration. Warnock does not offer quick fixes. Instead, he invites readers to face uncomfortable truths about themselves while holding out a steady, compassionate hope rooted in the gospel.
This book will particularly resonate with readers who are tired of simplistic answers, who are navigating illness or loss, or who sense that both secular optimism and shallow religiosity fail to account for the depth of human brokenness. Honest, grounded, and pastoral without being sentimental, this is a serious contribution to conversations about faith, suffering, and what genuine transformation actually requires.
Highly recommended for readers willing to think deeply and be challenged rather than merely reassured.
February 3, 2026
The Traitor Within is a rare kind of spiritual book that refuses to flatter the reader. Instead of echoing the modern mantra to trust your instincts, it carefully and convincingly challenges that assumption, asking what happens when the heart itself is unreliable. The result is a work that feels both sobering and quietly hopeful.
Adrian Warnock brings unusual credibility to the subject. His background in psychiatry, church leadership, and lived experience with chronic illness gives the book a grounded, humane tone. The reflections never feel theoretical or detached. They feel earned. By weaving together Scripture, medical insight, cultural observation, and personal suffering, the book speaks to the whole person rather than isolating faith from real life.
The use of the television series The Traitors as a modern parable is surprisingly effective. It opens a door into deeper conversations about deception, self-awareness, and the subtle ways we rationalize our own behavior. From there, the book expands outward, addressing mind, body, society, and spirit with clarity and pastoral care.
What makes this book especially impactful is its balance. It is honest about human brokenness without becoming bleak, and firm about truth without losing tenderness. Readers are not pushed toward quick fixes but invited into a long process of renewal grounded in grace. For anyone seeking a faith-centered exploration of suffering, self-deception, and transformation, this book offers wisdom, humility, and a steady sense of hope that feels desperately needed right now.
Adrian Warnock brings unusual credibility to the subject. His background in psychiatry, church leadership, and lived experience with chronic illness gives the book a grounded, humane tone. The reflections never feel theoretical or detached. They feel earned. By weaving together Scripture, medical insight, cultural observation, and personal suffering, the book speaks to the whole person rather than isolating faith from real life.
The use of the television series The Traitors as a modern parable is surprisingly effective. It opens a door into deeper conversations about deception, self-awareness, and the subtle ways we rationalize our own behavior. From there, the book expands outward, addressing mind, body, society, and spirit with clarity and pastoral care.
What makes this book especially impactful is its balance. It is honest about human brokenness without becoming bleak, and firm about truth without losing tenderness. Readers are not pushed toward quick fixes but invited into a long process of renewal grounded in grace. For anyone seeking a faith-centered exploration of suffering, self-deception, and transformation, this book offers wisdom, humility, and a steady sense of hope that feels desperately needed right now.
January 30, 2026
"The Traitor Within: Understanding and Healing Our Deceitful Heart" is a powerful and comprehensive look at the hidden motives and self‑deception within the human heart. The author explains with biblical clarity that although Christ saves us instantly and completely, true transformation is a lifelong process—just as Romans 12:2 teaches.
The book offers practical, detailed steps for addressing heart issues and walking through inner healing with honesty and grace. At its core, it reinforces Jesus’ call for believers to continually abide in Him, because apart from Him, we can do nothing. The book powerfully reveals Christ as the ultimate source of strength, renewal, and genuine, lasting change.
A thoughtful, insightful, and spiritually grounding read. Highly recommended.
The book offers practical, detailed steps for addressing heart issues and walking through inner healing with honesty and grace. At its core, it reinforces Jesus’ call for believers to continually abide in Him, because apart from Him, we can do nothing. The book powerfully reveals Christ as the ultimate source of strength, renewal, and genuine, lasting change.
A thoughtful, insightful, and spiritually grounding read. Highly recommended.
February 22, 2026
thoughtful
This book offers a thoughtful and challenging look at the idea of “following your heart” and whether that advice truly leads to healing. Adrian Warnock draws from his background in medicine, ministry, and personal illness to explore suffering, self-deception, and faith with honesty and compassion. I appreciated how he connects culture, Scripture, and real-life experience in a way that feels grounded and practical. It’s a reflective read that encourages spiritual growth without offering easy answers.
This book offers a thoughtful and challenging look at the idea of “following your heart” and whether that advice truly leads to healing. Adrian Warnock draws from his background in medicine, ministry, and personal illness to explore suffering, self-deception, and faith with honesty and compassion. I appreciated how he connects culture, Scripture, and real-life experience in a way that feels grounded and practical. It’s a reflective read that encourages spiritual growth without offering easy answers.
February 5, 2026
Clarity and biblical truth throughout this well referenced book. Covers a lot of ground and is a deep and considered read. Recommended if you want to explore the role of self deception and the links to the bible
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews