1 Percent of a Book Can Change Your Life
00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)
00:00:02.580 | Welcome back to the podcast on this Wednesday.
00:00:06.320 | As many of you know, I don't only produce this podcast,
00:00:08.940 | I also write books.
00:00:10.040 | And back in 2011, I was honored to write my very first book
00:00:13.600 | called Lit on the topic of book reading,
00:00:16.300 | one of my passions, and answering the questions,
00:00:18.640 | why do we read books anyways,
00:00:20.240 | and how can we read them better, things like that.
00:00:23.320 | And in my research stage for the book,
00:00:25.200 | I set aside one full day for one purpose,
00:00:28.720 | to ransack the vast John Piper archive of online content,
00:00:32.640 | to collect everything that he's ever said
00:00:34.480 | on the topic of reading.
00:00:36.120 | And I found quite a lot actually,
00:00:37.920 | including one amazing quote from Pastor John back in 1981.
00:00:42.360 | And I wanna share with you that quote today, quote,
00:00:45.080 | "What I've learned from about 20 years of serious reading
00:00:48.880 | "is this," Piper said,
00:00:50.280 | "is that sentences change my life, not books.
00:00:55.280 | "What changes my life is some new glimpse of truth,
00:00:58.020 | "some powerful challenge,
00:00:59.220 | "some resolution to a longstanding dilemma.
00:01:02.000 | "And these usually come concentrated in a sentence or two.
00:01:05.660 | "I do not remember 99% of what I read,
00:01:07.740 | "but if the 1% of each book or article I do remember
00:01:10.620 | "is life-changing insight,
00:01:12.960 | "then I don't begrudge the 99%."
00:01:16.880 | I love that quote, it's an amazing find obviously.
00:01:22.060 | And that went in my 2011 book.
00:01:24.160 | The quote itself was buried in a now 40-year-old manuscript,
00:01:28.000 | I mean, really buried.
00:01:29.180 | The moment I found it,
00:01:30.540 | I remember running an online search
00:01:31.940 | and couldn't find any reference to this quote
00:01:34.120 | on any websites or blogs or in any published books
00:01:36.700 | or in any social media.
00:01:38.180 | I mean, there was no audio recording of the message either.
00:01:40.920 | It was buried.
00:01:43.520 | All we had was the written manuscript at DesiringGod.org.
00:01:47.320 | It was either not recorded
00:01:48.780 | or the message recording got lost to time.
00:01:52.060 | So we thought until very recently,
00:01:54.440 | well, it was recorded and we just found the audio recording
00:01:57.960 | from 1981, it's now online for the first time ever
00:02:01.220 | at DesiringGod.org.
00:02:03.300 | And I get the honor today of unveiling that recording
00:02:05.880 | to you on APJ.
00:02:07.700 | Here's the setting.
00:02:09.340 | In 1981, a young Pastor John Piper
00:02:11.620 | wanted to instill hope
00:02:13.960 | in his Sunday school teachers of his church.
00:02:16.300 | Those teachers get one hour with kids
00:02:18.640 | and then the rest of the week,
00:02:19.780 | those kids just watch hour after hour of television.
00:02:23.800 | So isn't it hopeless to think that one hour
00:02:26.380 | of Sunday school can accomplish anything lasting
00:02:29.200 | in these young lives so saturated
00:02:31.540 | with other media all week long?
00:02:34.200 | No.
00:02:36.300 | And here's why.
00:02:37.140 | - I've heard often the contrast made
00:02:43.060 | between spending an hour in Sunday school once a week
00:02:48.060 | and watching television about 20 hours a week.
00:02:54.400 | And the implication or the point that's usually made
00:02:58.100 | is that there's scarcely any hope
00:03:01.180 | that in this one hour on Sunday morning,
00:03:03.740 | we can counteract the fairly secularist humanist viewpoint
00:03:08.740 | that is whether overtly or covertly
00:03:15.220 | ministered through the television set.
00:03:19.460 | That sort of observation creates what I call
00:03:23.920 | quantitative hopelessness.
00:03:26.700 | It gives the impression that life changing impact
00:03:32.460 | and influence is directly proportionate
00:03:36.260 | to the quantity of time spent under a particular influence.
00:03:41.260 | And I think that this way of assessing
00:03:47.060 | the value of influences on our young people
00:03:50.340 | as well as ourselves as adults is wrong for two reasons.
00:03:55.340 | I think it's wrong first because it obscures
00:03:59.520 | the problem with evil.
00:04:02.120 | And then secondly, I think it's wrong
00:04:04.040 | because it obscures the power of a holy moment.
00:04:09.040 | And I'll try to explain what I mean
00:04:11.480 | by each of those two mistakes.
00:04:15.280 | First of all, it obscures this quantitative way of thinking.
00:04:20.540 | Obscures the problem with evil in the world.
00:04:24.140 | It gives the misleading impression
00:04:26.680 | that the approach to take towards harmful influences,
00:04:30.740 | say on television, is to balance them with good influence.
00:04:35.740 | That seems to be the approach.
00:04:39.060 | And so it assumes that the best or the only way
00:04:42.420 | to counteract the hours which we spend
00:04:48.140 | being entertained by the world
00:04:50.680 | and being taught to love the world
00:04:53.360 | is to spend a corresponding quantity of time
00:04:56.800 | being entertained or taught by God or God's people
00:05:01.560 | so as to balance out the evil influences.
00:05:04.760 | And the underlying assumption to that assumption
00:05:07.280 | seems to be that either it's okay or inevitable
00:05:13.360 | that our kids or ourselves will in fact
00:05:17.800 | entertain ourselves with secularist TV programs
00:05:22.600 | or unedified TV programs.
00:05:26.240 | I don't think either of those is the case.
00:05:30.080 | I don't think it's inevitable and I don't think it's okay.
00:05:35.080 | First of all, I don't think it's okay
00:05:37.720 | to entertain ourselves with what we would judge
00:05:41.120 | to be unedifying TV programs.
00:05:45.560 | Paul taught that we ought to do only those things
00:05:49.920 | which build up rather than tear down.
00:05:53.160 | And I have the feeling that many people in the church
00:05:56.780 | don't assess right and wrong on that continuum.
00:06:01.540 | They ask, "Oh, there's nothing wrong here.
00:06:03.760 | They're not doing anything wrong."
00:06:05.560 | When really what they ought to be saying is,
00:06:08.080 | is it edifying, building me up,
00:06:11.840 | making me a better Christian, a better person?
00:06:15.600 | Because Paul seemed to think that that's what the goal
00:06:18.680 | or the aim of all of life should be,
00:06:20.900 | not just finding those things that we can judge
00:06:24.640 | to be not very harmful.
00:06:27.920 | I would say that it's true that most TV programs
00:06:31.360 | are not edified.
00:06:33.480 | The few that I see when I see them don't seem to me
00:06:37.760 | to be the kind that would leave me
00:06:39.560 | at the end of the program rejoicing more in God,
00:06:42.580 | being more inclined to obey Him,
00:06:44.960 | feeling stronger affection for Christ,
00:06:47.920 | more zealous to do good.
00:06:50.480 | They just don't.
00:06:51.320 | Now, the second reason why I think it's wrong
00:06:55.520 | just to assess Sunday school quantitatively
00:06:58.960 | and say, "Well, one hour, what's one hour of Sunday school
00:07:01.360 | against 20 hours of TV or school or whatever?"
00:07:04.560 | The second reason that's a problem
00:07:06.600 | and we ought not to use it is because it either overlooks
00:07:11.600 | or obscures the value of a holy moment.
00:07:17.400 | And what I have in mind here
00:07:19.840 | is tremendously encouraging for teachers,
00:07:23.240 | but all those involved in any kind of counsel or advice
00:07:28.240 | or ministry of any sort,
00:07:30.080 | I think it includes all of us.
00:07:32.760 | This holy moment is what I would call
00:07:35.240 | the immeasurable moment.
00:07:37.800 | What the quantitative approach overlooks or obscures
00:07:43.440 | is the lasting transforming power of an insight,
00:07:48.440 | an insight that can come in a moment
00:07:55.160 | and change a life forever.
00:07:58.320 | That's what I mean by the immeasurable moment.
00:08:01.120 | The impact of a given moment because of a word spoken
00:08:06.120 | can be all out of proportion
00:08:09.560 | to the amount of time it takes to do it.
00:08:12.080 | What I've learned from about 20 years of serious reading,
00:08:16.800 | I say 20, it hasn't been quite 20,
00:08:18.520 | that takes me back to 15 years old.
00:08:20.200 | I didn't start to read until I was about 17.
00:08:23.240 | I hated to read until I was in a junior high school.
00:08:28.080 | So I started reading seriously though.
00:08:29.880 | I got real serious about reading
00:08:31.400 | and I've been serious about reading ever since.
00:08:33.840 | So there's been about 20 years I've been reading.
00:08:36.760 | And what I have learned is this,
00:08:40.000 | it is sentences that change your life, not books.
00:08:45.000 | I don't know if that's been your experience,
00:08:49.280 | but I think for the most part, that's the case.
00:08:51.960 | What changes a life is a new glimpse into reality
00:08:57.960 | or truth or some powerful challenge that comes to us
00:09:02.960 | or some resolution of a long standing dilemma
00:09:08.200 | that we've had.
00:09:09.520 | And most of those, the insight, the challenge
00:09:12.400 | or the resolution are usually embodied
00:09:15.000 | in a very short little space, a paragraph or a sentence
00:09:19.760 | and wham, it hits home.
00:09:22.760 | And we remember it and it affects us
00:09:25.200 | for our whole life long.
00:09:27.920 | I do not remember 99% of what I read.
00:09:32.480 | That may just be me because I have a lousy memory.
00:09:35.080 | I think it's pretty typical.
00:09:36.720 | I don't remember 99% of what I read.
00:09:41.320 | But if the 1% is life changing insight into reality,
00:09:46.320 | I won't begrudge the 99%.
00:09:51.440 | I'll suffer that and accept it as my own frailty.
00:09:56.280 | Usually for me, life changing insight,
00:09:59.240 | and I have been changed by reading,
00:10:01.480 | comes in a moment, in a paragraph, in a sentence,
00:10:05.400 | not in a book.
00:10:06.240 | I don't remember books whole.
00:10:09.320 | Now here's some examples of immeasurable moments
00:10:13.320 | in my life from reading.
00:10:15.240 | You know who I'm going to start with first?
00:10:18.560 | Jonathan Edwards wrote 70, or is it 73 resolutions
00:10:23.560 | when he was in college, lifetime resolutions.
00:10:28.000 | And I have never forgotten number six,
00:10:30.280 | resolved to live with all my might while I do live.
00:10:35.280 | I've never forgotten.
00:10:40.560 | That sentence has meant more to me
00:10:44.880 | than thousands of other sentences that I've ever read.
00:10:48.840 | Live with all your might while you live.
00:10:52.480 | Don't just drift through life, limp through life, live.
00:10:57.480 | Number two, in his religious affection,
00:11:00.680 | he said, "True religion is in great measure,
00:11:06.720 | consists in great measure in holy affections."
00:11:13.840 | I had never read a book, it's about 400 pages or so,
00:11:18.000 | and I don't remember most of what's in it,
00:11:20.160 | but I'd never read a book that showed that true religion
00:11:25.160 | consists very much in holy affections.
00:11:30.680 | Now that's just his 18th century word for emotions.
00:11:35.680 | I had been brought up to think, fact, faith, feeling,
00:11:40.000 | fact, faith, feeling, fact, faith, feeling.
00:11:41.760 | Keep it in that order.
00:11:42.760 | And the feeling drops off the end,
00:11:44.880 | it's just a caboose, you won't miss anything anyway.
00:11:47.440 | That isn't true.
00:11:50.280 | The New Testament shot through with demands
00:11:52.560 | that are so radical that they do demand joy,
00:11:56.680 | peace, hope, gratitude.
00:11:59.920 | I hesitate to mention love because you'd all come up
00:12:02.920 | and say, "Love's not a feeling, love's not a feeling."
00:12:05.040 | But if you read 1 Corinthians 13 and how it's defined,
00:12:11.480 | you can get away from the fact that love
00:12:14.720 | is not only a feeling, but is at least partly a feeling.
00:12:18.200 | For example, love is not jealous.
00:12:21.440 | Jealousy is a feeling.
00:12:23.280 | And if you love, you don't have that feeling.
00:12:26.160 | So that was another staggering sentence,
00:12:31.040 | an immeasurable moment to hear Jonathan Edwards
00:12:33.960 | say and defend true religion in great part
00:12:37.160 | consists in holy affections.
00:12:39.880 | St. Paul, now of course the Bible
00:12:42.360 | is just full of such sentences,
00:12:43.960 | but I'll just mention one because it might tip you off
00:12:46.720 | and help you understand me and a lot of my preaching.
00:12:49.960 | I wonder what sentence you think I would pick out
00:12:52.040 | of St. Paul as the immeasurable moment
00:12:54.840 | that stands out above all others from 1968 to the present.
00:12:59.840 | It's Philippians 2.12 and 13.
00:13:05.720 | Work out your salvation with fear and trembling
00:13:08.840 | for it is God who is at work in you
00:13:11.960 | to will and to do His good pleasure.
00:13:14.120 | That sentence hit me my freshman year in seminary
00:13:18.280 | like a load of bricks because all of Paul's theology
00:13:22.320 | is in it just about.
00:13:24.360 | That intermingling of the sovereign work of God
00:13:27.600 | in our lives with our effort.
00:13:30.280 | You work for He is working to will and to do.
00:13:34.480 | Next person, C.S. Lewis.
00:13:37.200 | This sentence, the first page of his weight of glory.
00:13:42.200 | If we consider the unblessing promises of reward
00:13:46.840 | and the staggering nature of the rewards
00:13:48.800 | promised in the gospels, it would seem that our Lord
00:13:52.080 | finds our desires not too strong but too weak.
00:13:55.440 | We are half-hearted creatures fooling about with drink
00:13:58.200 | and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us
00:14:02.440 | like an ignorant child who wants to go on
00:14:05.040 | making mud pies in the slum because he cannot imagine
00:14:08.360 | what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea.
00:14:12.120 | We are far too easily pleased.
00:14:15.520 | That sentence along with several others converted me
00:14:18.080 | into being what I've called a Christian hedonist.
00:14:21.360 | Namely, that what Jesus wants from us is not the cessation
00:14:25.240 | of the desire to be happy but the heightening
00:14:28.400 | of the desire to be happy until it's so intense
00:14:30.600 | we won't be satisfied with anything but God
00:14:34.040 | as the fulfillment of our joy.
00:14:36.680 | Then finally on reading St. Augustine,
00:14:40.480 | two sentences from the confessions.
00:14:42.000 | I first read the confessions of Augustine
00:14:44.440 | as a sophomore in college, I think.
00:14:46.560 | It was in Western world literature.
00:14:49.240 | I can't remember when I took that course
00:14:50.640 | but my first or second year in college
00:14:53.440 | and two sentences have shaped me very greatly.
00:14:59.800 | One, I have no hope at all but in the great mercy,
00:15:04.720 | in thy great mercy, grant what thou commandest
00:15:09.720 | and command what thou will.
00:15:13.680 | Grant what thou commandest and command what thou will.
00:15:19.400 | It's really the same as Philippians 2, 12 and 13
00:15:22.840 | but stated very, very powerfully.
00:15:26.760 | The impact it had was to show me
00:15:29.120 | that the book I was reading at the time,
00:15:31.040 | Joseph Fletcher's Situation Ethics was wrong
00:15:35.640 | because Fletcher argued love cannot involve feelings
00:15:39.000 | because it's commanded.
00:15:40.040 | You can't command emotions, therefore love must be in action
00:15:43.080 | and therefore it doesn't involve any feelings.
00:15:45.800 | That's not right.
00:15:46.680 | There's a theological mistake in Fletcher's argument,
00:15:50.400 | namely the assumption that God can't command
00:15:55.120 | what we can't give without his help.
00:15:58.120 | But he can command what we can't give without his help
00:16:01.240 | because he can give the help.
00:16:02.840 | And Augustine says, grant what thou commandest
00:16:06.200 | and command what thou will.
00:16:08.240 | The context in the confessions was sexual continency.
00:16:11.960 | Augustine was a raunchy man.
00:16:14.360 | He was very polluted sexually before he became a Christian.
00:16:19.200 | And after he became a Christian,
00:16:20.320 | his problem with sexual temptation did not end.
00:16:23.560 | And he was talking about sexual continency,
00:16:26.600 | containing himself and not being illicit
00:16:29.720 | in his sexual relations.
00:16:32.040 | And he said, I cannot do it.
00:16:35.240 | Grant what thou commandest, then command what thou will.
00:16:39.240 | And then the other sentence that he said,
00:16:40.800 | I didn't see this one until, I can't remember when it was,
00:16:43.840 | but I have always struggled with the problem
00:16:48.480 | of how to love a sunset, a wife, a child,
00:16:53.640 | chocolate ice cream, popcorn, et cetera,
00:16:57.640 | and not have that compete with my allegiance to God.
00:17:01.160 | I don't know if you've ever struggled with that.
00:17:02.640 | How can you stand before a beautiful painting or a sunset
00:17:05.800 | and say, that is beautiful, I love it,
00:17:08.400 | and not have God look down and say,
00:17:09.920 | hey, you're supposed to love me, not that.
00:17:13.960 | And here's what Augustine said.
00:17:16.840 | For he loves thee too little
00:17:21.840 | who loves anything together with thee,
00:17:26.080 | which he loves not for thy sake.
00:17:29.360 | That was an immeasurable moment when I read that sentence.
00:17:34.800 | He loves thee too little
00:17:37.080 | who loves anything together with thee
00:17:40.520 | that he loves not for thy sake.
00:17:43.960 | That bears a lot of pondering, doesn't it?
00:17:46.520 | We can love people, things, sunsets, food,
00:17:51.520 | for Jesus' sake.
00:17:53.600 | That's the end of my list.
00:17:54.880 | It could go on and on and on.
00:17:56.760 | The point is, life-changing moments come in sentences
00:18:01.760 | and paragraphs, not in long, long remembrances of old books.
00:18:06.880 | Lights go on, our hearts are strangely warm,
00:18:10.480 | and experience comes of an immeasurable moment,
00:18:13.400 | and we are changed decisively.
00:18:15.880 | - Amazing, I love the testimony of life-changing sentences.
00:18:18.600 | The immeasurable moment, the immeasurable moment.
00:18:23.160 | I just shared most of the whole recording,
00:18:24.640 | but if you wanna hear the whole thing,
00:18:26.600 | you can find it now online for the first time
00:18:28.960 | at desiringgod.org.
00:18:30.880 | Piper delivered it to his Sunday school teachers
00:18:33.200 | on July 13th, 1981, in a message titled
00:18:36.040 | Quantitative Hopelessness and the Immeasurable Moment.
00:18:40.560 | And a big shout out to John Osborne and Nathan Olson,
00:18:44.160 | two DG staff members who find
00:18:46.880 | and get these lost recordings online for us.
00:18:49.160 | Well done to you, John and Nathan.
00:18:51.240 | Thank you for your work.
00:18:52.440 | Friday, we return to address another mature theme,
00:18:57.000 | particularly the topic of sexual sin.
00:18:58.920 | It's a heavy episode.
00:19:00.480 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke.
00:19:01.680 | We are rejoined in studio with Pastor John.
00:19:03.600 | Then we'll see you Friday.
00:19:04.880 | (upbeat music)
00:19:07.480 | (upbeat music)
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