Skip to main content

Finally Alive by John Piper - Review

I just finished Finally Alive by John Piper and I would like to write a review for this book that will encourage you to go out and get this book for yourself.  It was good enough that I am planning on doing a Bible Study/Book Study using this book.  And it is important enough of a topic, that I want to promote its study as much as possible.

Here is what the Desiring God website says about this book:

Spiritual rebirth is precious and crucial. When Jesus said, “You must be born again,” he wasn't simply sharing interesting information; he was directing us toward eternal life.
It is essential to know what God intends when he uses this language of being born again, so that we may experience new birth and help others do the same.

So, Finally Alive is a book about the New Birth.  John Piper takes the time to explore several different passages of scripture that deal with this teaching.  That might be my favorite part about this book, it is truly an exploration of scripture, not a human-created mandate on a topic of interest to the author. In being so scripture-driven, he pulls together several different loose ends and shows the amazing power of God in the work of salvation.  This is a topic that has been near to my heart over the last several months as I have been preaching through the book of Ephesians.

As I said, I want to encourage you to read this book.  The understanding and the implications of the new birth can be life changing.  Not only will you walk away encouraged by the power of God in saving sinners, you will have a clearer picture of the necessity of sharing the gospel so that others may be born again.

You can download the pdf version of this book by going to the Desiring God website or by clicking here.

Comments

  1. Michael Longfellow3/01/2012 8:48 AM

    Great book! Read when it first came out and thought the same as you, it is an exploration of Scripture! It also thrusts you into the reality of the need to proclaim Christ to everyone you come into contact with. The sum of all beauty is Christ and the sin of worldliness is to diminish our capacity to see Him and be satisfied in Him and show Him compellingly to a perishing world.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That is one of the things that I have grown to love about John Piper, so many of his books are basically expositions of scripture. It stirs in me a greater love for the Bible and a confidence in its authority.

      Thanks for commenting!

      Delete

Post a Comment

Leave a thought of your own.

Popular posts from this blog

The Seed and The Soil of Education (New Learning Project Part 1)

(This is my entry for the first part of my project for my New Learning course that I am taking.) Introduction Corn Fields in Illinois I have lived the majority of my life in the Midwest: mid-state Illinois to be specific. Where I live, farming is everywhere. My grandparents and great-grandparents on both sides of my family were farmers. My dad grew up on a farm and owned farmland, well into my own adulthood. But, even if it wasn’t in the family, I still would have been surrounded by farming. You can’t go more than a mile outside of my city’s limits without encountering miles and miles of fields. Most of our highways, and even interstates, are located between acres of farmland.

This too shall pass...

Gam zeh ya'avor (Hebrew) "This Too Shall Pass" Welcome!  According to Google Analytics, this is by far the most visited post that I have ever written.  If someone comes here from a search engine, most of the time they are looking for " this too shall pass quote " or simply " this too shall pass " on Google or one of the other search engines. I am sure that most of the time visitors are looking for the originations of this quote, but I have to wonder, why is this quote on people's minds? Why are they pondering the passing of events?   Here is my thought: It is probably because most of us have realized that the adult life is much harder than we ever imagined it to be. There is more pain and more sorrow than we had ever imagined as children, but we have learned that time keeps ticking. And as time continues to flow things pass. In fact, even the really big things and the really hard things will still pass. If you are here because you are thinking ...

The Minnesota Crime Commission wrote:

Every baby starts life as a little savage. He is completely selfish and self-centered. He wants what he wants when he wants it: his bottle, his mother's attention, his playmate's toys, his uncle's watch, or whatever. Deny him these and he seethes with rage and aggressiveness which would be murderous were he not so helpless. He's dirty, he has no morals, no knowledge, no developed skills. This means that all children, not just certain children but all children, are born delinquent. If permitted to continue in their self-centered world of infancy, given free reign to their impulsive actions to satisfy each want, every child would grow up a criminal, a thief, a killer, a rapist.