high praise for Finally Alive

John Piper’s new book, Finally Alive is earning high praise by reviewers.

Tim Challies says at the beginning of his review:

As I read the final page of Finally Alive I realized that I had found a new favorite book by John Piper. Those who have read my reviews of some of his previous titles know that while I greatly enjoy Piper’s ministry and am indebted to him in many ways, I have not always found his books easy to read. Yet I read Finally Alive with relish, enjoying it from the first page to the last. It is an incisive examination of a topic of profound importance. I think it represents Piper at his very best as an author.

Adrian Warnock says, in part:

By examining the Bible’s teaching on the new birth, John Piper shows us how to be certain our faith is genuine. Because no issue could be more critical, I believe this is the most important book Piper has written. It could be the most important book outside of the Bible that you or your loved one will ever read. I was privileged to have the opportunity to read this prior to launch and it moved me profoundly, challenging me once more to be sure of my own salvation and to appreciate more fully what God has done for me.

John Piper has a Q and A where he explains why he wrote this book:

I am deeply concerned that there are many church members in America and beyond who think they are saved when they are not. Part of the reason for this nominalism is a failure to teach and understand the true meaning of the new birth.

You must be born again. It is a miracle. Many, I fear, don’t even want to think in terms of “being saved” as being in the category of a miracle that only God can perform. They want it to be a decision based wholly on human power involving no necessary miracle. That is deadly.

For those who are truly born again, I want them to exult in what has really happened to them. Many who are truly born again do not know the nature of the change that has happened to them. It is a good thing to know—so that Christ can be honored for the fullness of his glorious work, and so that people can enjoy the assurance of being the objects of that miraculous act.

Finally, I want the new birth to happen more and more. God does the new birth through the word. I pray that the sermons and the book will be a means used by God for the working of this miracle of new birth.

emphasis added

I recently read Spectacular Sins and liked it very much. I think Finally Alive will find a way into the reading rotation.

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