A book to help Christians think about thinking.
This is a book to help Christians to think about thinking. Focusing on the life of the mind helps us to know God better, love him more, and care for the world. Along with an emphasis on emotions and the experience of God, we also need to practise careful thinking about God. Piper contends that 'thinking is indispensable on the path to passion for God'. So how are we to maintain a healthy balance of mind and heart, thinking and feeling?
Piper urges us to think for the glory of God. He demonstrates from Scripture that glorifying God with our minds and hearts is not either-or, but both-and. Thinking carefully about God fuels passion and affections for God. Likewise, Christ-exalting emotion leads to disciplined thinking.
Readers will be reminded that 'the mind serves to know the truth that fuels the fires of the heart'.
Foreword by Mark A Noll
Introduction
Clarifying the Aim of the Book
1. My Pilgrimage
2. Deep Help from a Dead Friend
Clarifying the Meaning of Thinking
3. Reading as Thinking
Coming to Faith through Thinking
4. Mental Adultery Is No Escape
5. Rational Gospel, Spiritual Light
Clarifying the Meaning of Loving God
6. Love for God: Treasuring God with All Your Mind
Facing the Challenge of Relativism
7. Jesus Meets the Relativists
8. The Immorality of Relativism
Facing the Challenge of Anti-intellectualism
9. Unhelpful Anti-intellectual Impulses in Our History
10. You Have Hidden These Things from the Wise and Understanding
11. In the Wisdom of God, the World Did Not Know God through Wisdom
Finding a Humble Way of Knowing
12. The Knowledge That Loves
13. All Scholarship Is for the Love of God and Man
Encouraging Thinkers and Non-thinkers
Conclusion: A Final Plea
Appendix 1 - “The Earth Is the Lord’s”: The Supremacy of Christ in Christian Learning
(Biblical Foundations for Bethlehem College and Seminary)
Appendix 2 - The Student, the Fish, and Agassiz
Acknowledgments
General Index
Scripture Index
Desiring God: Note on Resources
| Contributors | John Piper |
|---|---|
| ISBN | 9781844749614 |
| Format | eBook |
| First published | January 2014 |
| Language | English |
| Publisher | IVP |
'If you want to feel profoundly, learn to think carefully. And start by reading this book!' - C. J. Mahaney
'I warmly commend John Piper's appeal to all believers to be diligent in engaging our minds and to do so with God-honouring humility and Christ-loving passion.' - Vaughan Roberts
