Book Title: Desiring God
Author: John Piper
My rating: 4 stars
My Review:
I have a deep appreciation for John Piper and his teaching ministry. I’ve heard many of his sermons, have seen numerous topical videos of him where I’ve cheered and he stood firm on the bible on issues where many people are caving into worldly pressures. I believe him to be a sincere man of God. Because of this, I was very excited to get this book for review.
I enjoyed it. I agree with his basic premise that the pursuit of pleasure in God is not only permissible but essential. I don’t, however, like the term Christian hedonism and feel that his continual use of the term takes away from the meat of the book.
I love that the book is full of scripture. In fact, it’s hard to find a single page in Desiring God that doesn’t have a scripture reference on it. That’s good! As far as I can tell he’s not taking any of the scripture out of context and they support his thesis well. God wants us to have joy in Him! Skimmers may miss the “in Him” point though, and I think that’s why many have not enjoyed the book - they’re assuming Piper is encouraging a life of selfish pleasure, worldly enjoyment, entertainment and fun. He’s not, but you have to read well to realize that.
There are some negatives in my mind, that caused me to give this book a 4 star rather than a 5 star rating. Piper relies heavily on C.S. Lewis. I grew weary of his name and his quotes. I realized I’m one of the handful of Christians who don’t bow at the feet of Lewis, so I’m biased in that respect. But it affected my respect for this book on the whole and I had to mention it. The other glaring negative is that this book is wordy. Very wordy. You’ll often find yourself reading something and thinking “didn’t he just say that a page or two ago?” That gets old and I think that could be why many readers will find themselves skimming as they go along. This book could have been half as short and much more powerful without that. I’m guessing this is because, perhaps, this book is taken from transcripts of several of Piper’s sermons and the editors didn’t take the time to cull some of the repeats.
So overall, I think this book is worth the time invested to read and discuss.
“I received this book for free from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group for this review”.