Taste and see : 140 meditations / [print]
John Piper.
- Sisters, Oregon : Multnomah Publishers, (c)2005.
- 429 pages ; 22 cm
1. The exuberant omnipotence of God -- reasserting God's rightful place in all of life -- 2. Lesson from a lost Mastercard -- "Cast all your anxieties on Him because He cares for you" -- 3. God is love, God is God -- Balancing complexity and simplicity in the Bible -- 4. The great work of God: Rain -- A Thanksgiving meditation on Job 5:8-10 -- 5. "There is a lion outside! I shall be slain in the streets" -- Pondering the illusions created by a lazy heart -- 6. Early morning at the manse -- How a father fights for his faith and his family -- 7. Ten lessons I learned from my father -- honoring my father for his faith and his family -- 8. Lessons on retirement from Charles Simeon and Raymond Lull -- "He how loves not, lives not; he who lives by the life cannot die" -- 9. Can Christians be held hostage by the sins of the beloved? -- WHen is mercy mercy and when does it mourn? -- 10. When "want to" and "ought to" don't match -- living between hypocrisy and license -- 11. The only ultimate love -- do people go to the Grand Canyon to enhance their self-esteem? -- 12. "No evil will befall you," really? -- beware of Satan's use of Psalms -- 13. Will your family dig its own grave? -- meditation on martyrdom and families -- 14. Righteous Job and the rock star -- pondering power and popular influences on youth -- 15. Her body, her self, and her God -- pondeirng diaries from yesterday, today, and tomorrow -- 16. A letter to my wife saying yes to adoption -- Monday, November 6, 1995, 11:12 p.m. -- 17. Sky rider, eternal home, and everlasting arms -- meditation on the uniqueness of God in majestic helpfulness -- 18. How to pray for the soul (yours or another's) -- praying in sync with the way God works -- 19. Beware of common sense! -- "Command what you wish, and give what you command" -- 20 Clyde Kilby's resolutions for mental health -- awakening amazement at the strange glory of ordinary things. 21. The missing note of sovereign joy -- a lesson on love from Augustine -- 22. How to be filled with the Holy Spirit -- how do you drink the wine of God? -- 23. What is communion with God? Wisdom from John Owen -- thoughts on Hebrews 10:22 -- 24. What if our dying is discipline? -- meditation on I Corinthians 11:29-32 -- 25. "The greatest thing in the world is to be saved" -- thinking about the greatness of what we are saved for -- 26. The agonizing problem of the assurance of salvation -- where to look when looking in is fearful -- 27. Are you a descendant of King David? -- meditation on Psalm 18:50 and Isaiah 55:3 -- 28. There is no salvation outside Israel -- did the Old Testament teach that Gentiles could be true Jews? -- 29. Justified, but not forgiven? -- pondering the difference between judicial wrath and fatherly displeasure -- 30. Imperfections: the mark of all the perfected -- meditation on Hebrews 10:14 -- 31. Ten reasons to love the truth -- the perils of vulgar relativism -- 32. Should Christian colleges indoctrinate? -- the other alternative to the adolescent academia -- 33. Luther, Bunyan, Bible, and pain -- meditation on Psalm 119:71 -- 34. Does God really want you to be encouraged? -- on seizing the gift of hope -- 35. They gave it their best shot in vain -- if they don't knock you down, they can't let you up -- 36. Discernment by desire -- finding God's will by the fragrance of the Holy -- 37. You are about to change your job -- thinking about how God shakes us loose and leads in a new way -- 38. What is a "root of bitterness"? -- the price of presumption -- 39. When God's will is that His will not be done -- meditation on I Samuel 2:22-25 -- 40. The root of mental health: being healed by knowing God -- on not helping people be happy on their way to hell. 41. The simultaneous sound of laughter and weeping -- living in the real world of constant pain and pleasure (somewhere) -- 42. Thank God for diaries, journals, and biographies! -- meditation on the life of David Brainerd -- 43. Are we not content just to sow -- pondering ordinary and extraordinary seasons of ministry -- 44. News! News! News! -- getting the gospel and theology in right order -- 45. The dangers of computer unreality -- five resolutions -- 46. Darwinism on my front porch -- are your a tick-tock in the timeline of evolution? -- 47. Does God have civil rights? -- urban injustice, the Fourteenth Amendment, and God -- 48. Can joy increase forever? -- meditation on Ephesians 2:7 -- 49. Prison profanity: Where does it come from? -- meditation on Ephesians 4:29 and 5:4 -- 50. How can Elsie run? -- how to run and box when you are over eighty -- 51. The unashamed God -- meditation on Hebrews 11:16 -- 52. God does not repent like a man -- meditation on I Samuel 15:11, 29 -- 53. Devil prayers and divine pleasuers -- meditation on being real -- 54. A word of poetry -- pondering the implication of rock-solid reality for creative art -- 55. Prayerfully ransack the Bible -- pondering the both-and of prayer and study -- 56. How can eternal life be a free gift and yet "according to works"? -- meditation on Romans 2:6-8 -- 57. Jesus and the children -- pondering children as pride detectors -- 58. Bodies, breakfast, and the marriage bed -- meditation on daily worship -- 59. The pistol star and the power of God -- meditation on science, sight, and divine splendor -- 60. If you believe, you will see the glory of God -- thoughts on whether seeing grounds faith or faith grounds seeing. 61. How does the Spirit produce love? -- and why He does it this way -- 62. Can the regenerate be erased from the Book of Life? -- meditation on Revelation 3:5 -- 63. How dangerous is our faith? -- less and more dangerous than you think -- 64. Facts, seen and unseen -- what does it mean to walk by faith and not by sight? -- 65. Please, feed me more! -- the cry of dying faith -- 66. Cherishing truth for the sake of love -- obscuring truth to obtain triumph -- 67. Augustine on what it means to love God -- thoughts on love as delighting, not just acting and willing -- 68. "Lord of the dead" -- facing death when God is your God and Jesus is your Lord -- 69. How does one sun make you guilty of the whole law? -- degrees of guilt before God -- 70. One danger of denying God's foreknowledge of human choices -- undermining the New Covenant -- 71. The grace of being born to you -- a tribute to the supremacy of grace in the life of Ruth Piper -- 72. How dispensable is gender? -- preserving God's precious and satisfying patterns of life -- 73. Making a difference by fire -- "what are you doing here?" I hare been very zealous for the Lord of Hosts" -- 74. When to separate and when not to -- a letter to an earnest inquirer -- 75. Some questions to ask when considering a job -- pondering vocation as service to Christ -- 76. Sweet sovereignty and the assurance of salvation -- what can be sweeter than to be "kept by the power of God"? -- 77. More, more, more -- seventeen aspects of holy dissatisfaction -- 78. On lending to God -- meditation on Proverbs 19:17 -- 79. "The terror that is named the flight of time" -- "In the Lord your labor is not in vain" -- 80. Foundations for thinking about race and interracial marriage -- pondering the primacy of being created in the image of God. 81. Controversy: Essential and deadly -- communing with God in the doctrines for which we contend -- 82. "Finally, brethren, pray for us" -- a plea for pastors -- 83. Being loved and being hated -- thinking about the dark side of missions -- 84. Embracing a God-centered God with God-centered love -- a letter to one longing to love the God of Romans 9 -- 85. Between resignation and triumphalism -- finding the way between presumption and paralysis -- 86. How to be strong in the Lord -- pondering the power of joy in the Lord -- 87. "For your sake He became poor" -- taking the poverty of Jesus to heart -- 88. From shadow to substance for the sake of Christ -- pondering the shift from Old Testament to New -- 89. The sovereignty of God: A precious and practical doctrine -- savoring the sovereignty of God in the life of George Mueller -- 90. How is the wrath of God being revealed now? -- meditation on Romans 1:18 -- 91. The wrath of God on believers and unbelievers now -- what wrath becomes in the life of believers -- 92. What does the slaughter of the Amorites mean? -- when to leae judgment to God -- 93. A life well-lived is like writing a good poem -- meditation on I Corinthians 15:10 and the process of writing and living -- 94. Martin Luther's rules for how to become a theologian -- prayer, meditation, and suffering -- the path to understanding -- 95. Is the Holy Spirit phase three of God's Word? -- preserving the finality of phase two -- 96. Who governs thought and tongue? -- meditation on Proverbs 16:1 -- 97. Answers to prayer in the midst of nonanswers -- meditation on the detours of God -- 98. Who was Jesus' grandfather? -- how to think about apparent contradictions in the Bible -- 99. "They love all men" -- thoughts on how to make a name for Christ -- 100. Pluralism: We have been here before -- meditation on why we are here. 101. "God has allotted to each a measure of faith" -- meditation on Romans 12:3 -- 102. Shall we goof off that grace may abound? -- why does the gift of faith not produce passivity? -- 103. Another paradox of prayer: "vain repetitions" versus "continual coming" -- pondering Matthew 6:7, Luke 11:8, and Luke 18:5 -- 104. Does unconditionality conceal the real remedy? -- wisdom from anther century -- 105. Where does Christian living come from? -- refections on the power of right knowing -- 106. Can you be worthy of God? -- finding what fits with the faithfulness of God -- 107. If I have found favor, let me, O God, find favor -- meditation on knowing God in Exodus 33:13 -- 108. Are Christians fully satisfied? -- pondering (again) the path between paralysis and triumphalism -- 109. Going beyond the limits of unlimited atonement -- Christ died for all, but especially for His bride -- 110. When adulteresses are men -- spillover of a sermon on abortion -- 111. A joyful meeting with -- the camaraderie of a common vision of suffering -- 112. When Jesus will not answer a question -- how not to be a pig or a dog -- 113. In quest of rest -- pondering the God-centered purpose of sleep -- 114. Will we love Christ at the end of the year? -- meditation on I Corinthians 16:22 -- 115. "Take heed how you hear!" -- ten practical preparations for hearing the Word of God on Sunday morning -- 116. "Why do you call me good? God alone is good" -- what th rich ruler needed to learn about the goodness of God -- 117. You almost can't teach an old dog new tricks -- thoughts on the possibilities of change -- 118. Seneca, C.S. Lewis, and a sale -- how does death steal our days? -- 119. Jesus delivers us from the wrath to come -- how shall happiness not be thin? -- 120. A surprise endorsement for doctrine -- teach us what the Bible says. 121. A Jewish response to the Passion of Christ -- an open letter to Rabbi Marcia Zimmerman, Temple Israel -- 122. Use means, but don't trust in means; trust in God -- a lesson from George Mueller's life and teaching -- 123. How to speak about God when He hurts us -- eleven truths from the Book of Lamentations -- 124. What did Christ purchase for your children with His blood? -- the blessings and limits of Christian ancestry -- 125. How the Archbishop got it wrong -- humane confidence versus destructive doubt -- 126. Sin, civil rights, and missions -- the amazing role of sober truth -- 127. "Abhor what is evil" -- the part about mercy I left out of the sermon -- 128. God works wonders -- in steady-state obedience and in total disobedience -- 129. Surrendering and demanding rights: two kinds of love -- thoughts on mercy and justice in 2 Thessalonians 3:6-15 -- 130. Should only unanimous decisions guide the church? -- letter to a friend on how leadership works -- 131. Tsunami and repentance -- the point of all pleasure and pain -- 132. "Fact! Faith! Feeling!" -- testing a common slogan -- 133. If Christ predicted war, may Christians pray for peace? -- distinguishing God's work and ours -- 134. The transforming power of feeling mercy -- using imagination and revelation to know our condition -- 135. The greatest event in history -- two paradoxes in the death of Christ -- 136. A call for Christian risk -- how the removal of eternal risk creates the call for temporal risk -- 137. Do Jews have a divine right in the Promised Land? -- how Christians should think about the Jewish-Palestinian conflict -- 138. What is the Christian gospel? -- Exploring what makes the "Good News" good news -- 139. A prayer for our church -- asking God to build a certain kind of man and woman -- 140. The Lord alone will be exalted -- making war on pride.
This update to the second volume of Piper's popular devotional, A Godward Life, features 20 new articles, which address controversies such as partial-birth abortion and gay marriage. With three indexes and 120 brief biblically based essays, it also provides pastors and lay leaders with illustrations as sound as Scripture and as current as tomorrow's Internet news.