Happy summer time to everyone! As I hope you are enjoying the summer break, we wanted to do something new on the blog. Approximately every week or two, we will be providing a brief review of a book that we have read that we feel would benefit you greatly in your time as a college student and in your walk with Christ. This week Josh Bloodworth, our College Ministry Intern reviews John Piper’s Think. You can purchase the Kindle/e-book format of Think for $2.99 here. Or if you like actual tangible books still, you are killing tress, but you can buy Think for $8.99 here.
Most of us have been deeply affected in one way or the other by the Christian Hedonistic views of Dr. Piper. And in Think, Piper only continues to expand his mission statement, in that God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him. Piper introduces his book in the following manner.
This book is a plea to embrace serious thinking as a means of loving God and people. It is a plea to reject either-or thinking when it comes to head and heart, thinking and feeling, reason and faith, theology and doxology, mental labor and the ministry of love. It is a plea to see thinking as a necessary, God-ordained means of knowing God. Thinking is one of the important ways that we put the fuel of knowledge on the fires of worship and service to the world.
One of the refreshing and all too uncommon aspects of this book is the inclusion of biblical exposition at the heart of his arguments. A book entitled Think would seem somewhat odd without an objective source from which to draw conclusions, but I am very glad that Piper stuck to his pastoral guns in making that objective source be the objective source, that is the Bible.
Piper opens the book by given us a brief look into his background in academia, prior to moving to the pastorate. It was in the academic world where Piper fueled the fires of his worship with deep thought. From there, Piper directs the reader’s attention to his pastoral hero, Jonathan Edwards. Piper argues with historians that Edwards was among the greatest minds that America has ever produced, while it is Edwards’ God-centered theology, which led to deeply theocentric doxology, that he is known for. It not either the great mind, or the vastly worshipful heart, but instead, it is both-and.
Throughout the rest of the book, Dr. Piper methodically presents the meat of his argument that thinking is both dangerous and at the same time indispensable. Piper argues first that the focus of thinking is in reading and understanding what others have written. This is of utmost importance, because God has chosen to reveal Himself to us through the Bible. From this point, Piper reveals how thinking is pivotal to saving faith, and that those that reject Christ and His Gospel commit irrational adultery in their thinking.
Dr. Piper continues by explaining the intricate relationship between thinking and divine illumination in the awakening of faith, and that true faith is characterized by a love for God that treasures God with the whole mind. He goes on to confront a vicious enemy to Christian thinking today, relativism. He presents biblical truth showing that relativism is in fact a very old logical fallacy, and ultimately he displays the immorality of relativistic thinking.
It is at this point that Piper delves into the seeming scriptural dichotomy of being childlike but wise. Both have a scriptural basis, but are they at odds with one another? First, he argues against the anti-intellectualism that has almost defined American evangelicalism. He explains that not thinking can be just as prideful as arrogant thinking. Piper carefully exposits both 1 Corinthians 1:20 and Luke 10:21, both of which seem to set God against intellectual thinking. The wisdom that God is at odds with in these passages are in fact the wisdom of this world. That which is hidden pertains to the kingdom of God, and no one can accept the Gospel or comprehend its components out of their own works, abilities, or thinking, in and of themselves. God must allow these things to be understood, and through this, the glory belongs to God alone, not to the human intellect. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 1:21, “In the wisdom of God, the world by its wisdom did not know God.” The world cannot know God by its own wisdom, but in God’s wisdom, that He bestows on whomever he so chooses, God Himself is able to be known. The knowledge of God was ultimately made manifest in the person of Jesus.
As Think comes to a close, Piper moves into a discussion of knowledge, wisdom, and thinking’s true purpose, which is to bring glory to God, by loving God, and loving people. Knowledge and thinking cannot be in of itself its own end. For that kind of knowledge is the knowledge that Paul argues in 1 Corinthians 8 will puff up. This thinking is proud and exhibits a clear absence of love. Piper says this at the close of chapter 12, “Without a profound work of grace in the heart, knowledge-the fruit of thinking-puffs up. But with that grace, thinking opens the door of humble knowledge. And that knowledge is the fuel of the fire of love for God and man.” The last chapter of Think drives home this idea. All thinking exists for the purpose of knowing God, bringing glory to God, loving God, and loving people in light of that.
In the conclusion of this review, I want to leave you with a quote from Piper that I hope would become a prayer for each and every one of us, those in the college classroom and those in and around the academic community. “It is profoundly right to say all thinking, all learning, all education, and all research is for the sake of knowing God, loving God, and showing God. ‘For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen’(Rom. 11:36).”
