In a handful of places Piper’s quest to impress us with the grandeur of God’s purposeful sovereignty leads to unusual constructions. If you aren’t planning to read Providence for that kind of effect in your soul, don’t bother reading it at all. Readers will find that Piper makes good on his aim to humble, awe, comfort, strengthen, encourage, gladden, and hearten them through this extended meditation on God’s glory shown in his purposeful sovereignty, especially toward his people and in Jesus Christ. Readers will find Piper as spiritually vibrant and convicting as ever, especially in his insistence on experiential Christianity. That is a point for every preacher and aspiring preacher to ponder. He calls out “preachers” as needing this encouragement.
When we do this, even Bible words themselves can become alternatives to what Paul calls “spiritual. How easy it is to think we have experienced communion with God when our minds and hearts have stopped with verbal definitions, grammatical relations, historical illustrations, and a few applications.
The longer I have studied Scripture and tried to preach it and teach it, the more I have seen the need to encourage preachers and laypeople to penetrate through biblical words to biblical reality.
He is the God-besotted man he wants us all to be, and he is willing to put his finger into our chests and challenge us on it. His stirring intensity has not flagged and is concentrated in these 700 pages, which are a testament to the “effects of seeing and savoring the providence of God” in his life (693). Readers will find him as spiritually vibrant and convicting as ever, especially in his insistence on experiential Christianity. Those who thrill to Piper’s passion will find much to thrill them here. Piper invites us to experience the profound effects of knowing the God of all-pervasive providence: the intensifying of true worship, the solidifying of wavering conviction, the strengthening of embattled faith, the toughening of joyful courage, and the advance of God’s mission in this world.Ĭrossway. And its goal is the Christ-exalting glorification of God through the gladness of a redeemed people in a new world.ĭrawing on a lifetime of theological reflection, biblical study, and practical ministry, pastor and author John Piper leads us on a stunning tour of the sightings of God’s providence-from Genesis to Revelation-to discover the all-encompassing reality of God’s purposeful sovereignty over all of creation and all of history. Providence is “God’s purposeful sovereignty.” Its extent reaches down to the flight of electrons, up to the movements of galaxies, and into the heart of man. From Genesis to Revelation, the providence of God directs the entire course of redemptive history.
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