As I looked over my prior Book Review postings, it would seem like the only books I read are those by John Piper! That is not the case … but I guess something about each of them strikes me in a sense where I am sparked to post a comment. This is a book I just purchased while out at the T4G conference and started reading. So this is not any type of summary or response to the book as a whole. I just wanted to quote his introductory remarks that struck a chord with me as my motivation for distributing free bible commentaries via this internet platform. The speakers at the conference have continually made the point that nobody ministers as an independent, self-made preacher. We all stand on the shoulders of the insights and spiritual gifts of those who have gone before and contributed to our understanding of the Word of God and its application to our life and ministry.
Here is what Dr. Piper had to say:
I see myself, and this book, as one small part of God’s unfathomably complex matrix of influences that make up the Christian community of discovery and illumination. . . It is a stone tossed into a pool of people. Its ripple effect, if any, will flow through relationships. Its aim is to be part of God’s global purpose to create a beautiful bride for his Son — “the church … in splendor, without spot or wrinkle … holy and without blemish.” (Eph. 5:27). The beauty of that bride consists largely in the humble, holy, happy, loving way Christians treat each other. If the end is corporate glory, we should not be surprised that the means is corporate growth. We read the word together; we reach the end together.
God has used hundreds of people to help me understand and love the Bible. I would like to help you — so you can help others. This is as it should be: a legacy of shared illumination until God’s purposes for the church and the world are complete. May God turn your own ripple into a wave of blessing for the few that you know, and the thousands you don’t. I am praying to this end.
Well said! Of course in his humiliity, it is evident that his works make quite a splash! But each of us can contribute our own ripple effect in this overall legacy of shared illumination.