God’s Providence in 2020

00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)

00:00:02.580 | - Well, welcome back to the Ask Pastor John podcast.

00:00:07.040 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke.

00:00:08.160 | We are gonna talk about books today.

00:00:10.240 | John Piper's next book launch is worth having on your radar.

00:00:13.760 | The book is titled Providence,

00:00:15.200 | a 750-page book releasing in less than two months

00:00:18.680 | on January 12th of next year.

00:00:21.600 | We mention it today because starting today,

00:00:23.800 | you can pre-order the title from our friends

00:00:25.940 | at Westminster Books for just $19.99.

00:00:29.980 | We're thankful for their partnership,

00:00:32.040 | and we encourage you to order through them

00:00:34.260 | as you consider supporting

00:00:35.200 | faithful, independent Christian booksellers.

00:00:37.560 | To do that, go to wtsbooks.com.

00:00:41.080 | That's wtsbooks.com,

00:00:43.560 | and there you can pre-order Providence.

00:00:45.540 | Pastor John, the release of your next book, Providence,

00:00:47.840 | is about eight weeks away now.

00:00:49.520 | I've been waiting for this moment for a long time.

00:00:51.360 | This is a really big and important and relevant book

00:00:54.280 | for 2020 and whatever is to come in the year ahead.

00:00:59.020 | Today, I have just a handful of questions

00:01:01.040 | to pose to you about the book,

00:01:03.320 | and we're gonna start with the title.

00:01:04.440 | Explain the title.

00:01:05.720 | Why did you title this book Providence and not Sovereignty?

00:01:10.720 | - Well, that's an important question

00:01:12.480 | for a bunch of reasons,

00:01:13.320 | but one interesting one is that the word providence

00:01:17.260 | doesn't even occur in the Bible,

00:01:18.960 | so people might say, "What's this?

00:01:20.760 | "700 pages on something that's not in the Bible."

00:01:25.040 | Well, no, that's not accurate.

00:01:26.440 | Something that's not in the Bible.

00:01:28.000 | That's not what I said.

00:01:29.080 | I said the word is not in the Bible,

00:01:31.760 | but neither is the word sovereignty in the Bible.

00:01:35.200 | Sovereignty is in like three places,

00:01:38.200 | just like the word trinity, discipleship, evangelism,

00:01:41.720 | exposition, counseling, ethics, politics, charismatics.

00:01:46.640 | None of those words is in the Bible.

00:01:48.880 | I don't, in a sense, care ultimately about words.

00:01:52.720 | I care about words.

00:01:54.160 | I write, good grief, but I don't care.

00:01:56.280 | Ultimately, I care about reality.

00:01:58.680 | So the reason I'm focusing on providence

00:02:03.680 | and not just sovereignty is because sovereignty refers

00:02:07.960 | to God's right and power to do whatever He wills to do.

00:02:12.400 | In that sense, of course, it's true.

00:02:14.480 | God is sovereign,

00:02:16.160 | but I'm writing about God's purposeful sovereignty,

00:02:19.920 | not just His sovereignty.

00:02:21.320 | In other words, this book is not just about

00:02:24.960 | whether God has the right and the power

00:02:27.440 | to do what He wills, but His purposeful sovereignty.

00:02:32.440 | What is His sovereignty doing in creation,

00:02:35.760 | history, redemption, consummation of all things?

00:02:38.840 | That's what I'm about in this book.

00:02:41.880 | That's why the word providence and the reality of providence,

00:02:46.880 | that is, purposeful sovereignty, is front and center.

00:02:51.640 | - Yeah, that's good.

00:02:52.480 | The sum of all God's sovereign acts

00:02:54.680 | amounts to His providence.

00:02:56.400 | - The sum of them and where they're going, their purpose.

00:03:00.560 | I did not expect to write the last third of this book,

00:03:05.560 | which is all about God's providence in making His people,

00:03:10.840 | the bride, what she ought to be.

00:03:13.680 | I thought it was gonna be mainly about the big issues

00:03:16.240 | of suffering in the world and war and pandemic

00:03:20.320 | and down to the nitty gritty things

00:03:22.960 | of whether birds fall out of trees because of providence.

00:03:26.000 | But it came clear to me, well, what's it all about?

00:03:29.120 | It's about Christ purifying for Himself a bride

00:03:34.120 | that He will enjoy in her enjoyment of Him forever.

00:03:39.520 | - So good.

00:03:41.080 | It's a huge and detailed study.

00:03:44.080 | By my unofficial count,

00:03:46.000 | I have over 3,000 Bible citations in it.

00:03:49.720 | Why 3,000 Bible citations?

00:03:52.560 | - I had no idea.

00:03:53.800 | When you told me that number,

00:03:54.720 | I had no idea that that number would be there.

00:03:57.960 | It makes me so happy.

00:03:59.560 | I want to jump up and down.

00:04:01.520 | Here's the reason, because John Piper's opinion,

00:04:04.920 | based on no authority but his own, is not worth a penny.

00:04:08.780 | Nobody should care what I think about anything

00:04:14.360 | or what you think, Tony.

00:04:17.120 | - Yeah, that's true.

00:04:17.960 | - Or what anybody else thinks,

00:04:19.400 | no matter how many degrees are behind their names.

00:04:22.080 | Unless it becomes evident that what you think

00:04:27.080 | or they think or I think is warranted

00:04:31.240 | by a trustworthy source of knowledge.

00:04:34.920 | There is only one infallible source of knowledge about God,

00:04:39.920 | namely God.

00:04:44.120 | If God did not reveal to us what He's like

00:04:48.780 | and what He's up to, we wouldn't know.

00:04:52.720 | He points to what He's like,

00:04:55.760 | what He's up to in the natural world,

00:04:58.280 | creation, natural revelation,

00:05:00.280 | but in the Bible, His inspired word.

00:05:03.800 | He doesn't just point.

00:05:06.160 | He declares, He describes, He explains,

00:05:09.880 | and He applies what He is like and what He is doing.

00:05:14.360 | A book on providence without the Bible

00:05:18.320 | would either be very, very short

00:05:21.880 | or very, very speculative.

00:05:24.060 | In fact, most of them are.

00:05:26.220 | Which leads me just to say one more quick thing

00:05:29.020 | on the issue of 3,000 Bible citations.

00:05:33.260 | This is not an engagement.

00:05:35.340 | The 700 pages is not an engagement

00:05:38.380 | with philosophical treatments on providence.

00:05:41.260 | I'm not a philosopher.

00:05:42.740 | I am a Bible reader.

00:05:44.900 | I'm a Bible interpreter.

00:05:46.420 | I'm a Bible herald.

00:05:48.260 | I'm a Bible applier.

00:05:49.900 | That's my calling.

00:05:50.980 | That's my job.

00:05:51.900 | That's my joy.

00:05:53.340 | My stance with regard to philosophy

00:05:58.180 | is not at all to reject it,

00:06:00.700 | but to say that philosophical reflection

00:06:04.580 | on the providence of God

00:06:06.140 | will have very little possibility of fruitful outcomes

00:06:10.180 | unless the philosopher is more or less saturated

00:06:16.460 | with the Bible, like 3,000 Bible citations

00:06:20.100 | that give God's perspective on providence.

00:06:22.780 | - That's good, yeah.

00:06:23.900 | So 3,000 Bible citations that let God speak

00:06:26.700 | about providence Himself.

00:06:28.540 | But the book is also 200,000 words long.

00:06:30.700 | That's about 750 pages in print.

00:06:34.120 | This is your longest solo book project by a wide margin.

00:06:38.300 | So why so big?

00:06:39.660 | Why such a big book?

00:06:41.020 | - Yeah, I know most people don't read 700-page books.

00:06:46.540 | The longer a book gets, the fewer people read it.

00:06:49.220 | So Piper, why are you shooting yourself in the foot

00:06:53.220 | like this, or maybe the leg?

00:06:55.940 | But a few people do.

00:06:59.720 | And the people who do tend to be people

00:07:04.180 | who influence others.

00:07:06.740 | And I hope the scope, the comprehensiveness of the book

00:07:12.420 | will make it more compelling

00:07:14.820 | because of being more comprehensive.

00:07:18.220 | Here's one other thing to say about what I'm thinking

00:07:22.540 | with the size of the book.

00:07:23.640 | 'Cause I planned for 30 years.

00:07:26.240 | I mean, you've heard me say for decades,

00:07:28.140 | "I wanna write a big book on sovereignty someday,

00:07:30.660 | "or a big book on providence."

00:07:32.460 | Well, it's done.

00:07:33.820 | But here's the other thing to say.

00:07:36.300 | Even though many people don't read

00:07:38.220 | the entirety of 700-page books,

00:07:41.180 | they love the Bible, and they are glad

00:07:44.860 | somebody gathered most of the parts of the Bible

00:07:48.940 | that relate to providence into one place

00:07:51.620 | and gave some reflection on them.

00:07:53.940 | And they like having that book on their shelf

00:07:58.140 | so that they can pull it down,

00:08:00.700 | look for a relevant chapter to the lesson

00:08:03.820 | they're gonna be teaching,

00:08:05.300 | or a particular text they're struggling with,

00:08:07.700 | get it in the index, go find it,

00:08:09.560 | read the few pages on either side.

00:08:11.220 | In other words, I hope the book will be a go-to resource,

00:08:16.220 | even for those who don't read it cover to cover.

00:08:20.580 | - That's good.

00:08:21.420 | Yeah, it's a reference book for all of life.

00:08:24.460 | Something to have close at hand for the years ahead.

00:08:27.820 | This book is, it's so fitting for 2020.

00:08:30.980 | It feels relevant for this year.

00:08:32.300 | But you began writing this book in the summer of 2018.

00:08:34.940 | You had a 12-week writing leave in Knoxville,

00:08:37.580 | and then you finished it up in 2019.

00:08:39.800 | So you wrote this book before 2020,

00:08:42.660 | meaning you wrote it before the pandemic.

00:08:44.540 | You wrote it before the Minneapolis protests and riots.

00:08:47.860 | So much has happened since you finished this book.

00:08:50.800 | What does the book offer us today?

00:08:52.240 | Why now?

00:08:53.080 | What makes this relevant for this moment?

00:08:55.720 | - Well, when I think of why now,

00:08:58.320 | I am back on my heels with wonder

00:09:02.960 | here as we're recording in the middle of,

00:09:06.440 | or I hope toward the end of, a pandemic,

00:09:10.320 | that God would have positioned this book

00:09:13.000 | to come out in this season

00:09:14.920 | because it is about the kinds of beauties and horrors

00:09:19.920 | that we taste every day.

00:09:23.980 | I mean, even in the worst of times,

00:09:26.040 | there are beauties in the best of times.

00:09:28.060 | There are horrors, and that's what the Bible is.

00:09:31.220 | It is full of beauties and full of horrors.

00:09:34.000 | And God has something to say about all of them.

00:09:36.560 | But when I mainly,

00:09:39.240 | when I think, why did you write this book now?

00:09:42.400 | Here's really the answer,

00:09:44.400 | 'cause it was before all this came down.

00:09:47.680 | Because at the beginning of my eighth decade,

00:09:52.120 | I thought, maybe now I have tasted enough sorrow

00:09:57.120 | in the world and in my life to write with some,

00:10:02.480 | I hope, measure of wisdom about serious joy.

00:10:07.480 | Second, I thought,

00:10:10.100 | well, I hope at the beginning of my eighth decade,

00:10:13.280 | I have ruminated long enough

00:10:15.800 | on the paradoxes of reality and Scripture

00:10:20.040 | so as to treat the varied emphases of the Bible

00:10:25.040 | with some mature sense of proportion.

00:10:30.520 | And after 50 years of reflection on the truth,

00:10:35.520 | the all-pervasive importance of Christian hedonism,

00:10:39.880 | namely that God is most glorified in us

00:10:42.800 | when we're most satisfied in Him,

00:10:46.200 | I finally felt like I had come to a place

00:10:49.880 | in my eighth decade where I could show

00:10:54.320 | how this truth, this reality,

00:10:58.360 | is woven into everything, absolutely everything.

00:11:03.120 | Christian hedonism is not a cute,

00:11:06.880 | marginal trick of linguistic interest

00:11:10.560 | on the margins of our theology.

00:11:13.240 | It is in the essence of what God is doing

00:11:16.880 | everywhere all the time.

00:11:18.600 | And maybe one last thing about why now?

00:11:21.700 | Why wait so long and do it now?

00:11:26.000 | As they say, I am walking the verge of Jordan.

00:11:31.000 | I can smell the fields of eternity

00:11:35.240 | across the river from where I stand.

00:11:38.660 | So even though I remain fallible, finite, sinful,

00:11:43.460 | it's either now or never, Tony.

00:11:45.520 | And I think it was God's will two years ago

00:11:50.000 | that it be now rather than never.

00:11:53.920 | - That's good, thank you, Pastor John.

00:11:55.360 | The book is now getting translated into Arabic,

00:11:58.360 | French, Russian, Chinese, German, Dutch,

00:12:01.360 | Portuguese, Spanish, and Korean.

00:12:03.840 | Why such a concerted effort to do major translations

00:12:07.040 | of this book and other books of yours?

00:12:08.880 | - Yeah, it's interesting.

00:12:10.000 | This is more important to me now than ever,

00:12:12.920 | that desiring God and my life count globally.

00:12:17.920 | Across ethnicities, across races,

00:12:22.800 | across nationalities, across languages, across cultures,

00:12:27.720 | God does not endorse or encourage any kind

00:12:32.720 | of nationalistic or ethnocentric focus in his people.

00:12:39.000 | We belong to his kingdom first and foremost.

00:12:44.440 | That shapes everything.

00:12:46.560 | He is pursuing all the nations and all the peoples

00:12:51.760 | and all the languages, all the cultures of the world.

00:12:56.200 | And I want my life to count for the world,

00:13:00.280 | not just for my national or my ethnic or my geographic

00:13:05.080 | or my cultural tribe,

00:13:07.600 | but really the simple, straightforward answer

00:13:11.120 | for why so many translations?

00:13:13.020 | Why try to get it into many different cultures?

00:13:16.280 | The answer is that the reality of providence

00:13:20.400 | is not culturally limited.

00:13:23.640 | It is absolutely true in every language group,

00:13:28.200 | in every culture in the world.

00:13:30.880 | - Yeah, we need to finish this episode up,

00:13:32.700 | but what are your hopes and dreams and prayers

00:13:35.720 | for the Providence book?

00:13:37.680 | - I pray that Christians all over the world

00:13:41.360 | will become God-entranced people.

00:13:46.040 | Yes, from a little dead baby squirrel

00:13:49.040 | on the sidewalk outside my house

00:13:51.920 | to the courses of the stars in the heavens

00:13:55.500 | and every beauty and every horror in between,

00:13:59.160 | from the tiniest to the most magnificent,

00:14:03.460 | all of it, all of it related properly to God,

00:14:08.460 | suffused with God, entranced with God.

00:14:13.480 | I think the doctrine of providence,

00:14:16.660 | the reality of providence is one of the great keys

00:14:21.660 | for helping people become God-entranced people.

00:14:25.700 | And I pray that God's purposeful, gracious,

00:14:30.700 | all-wise, all-pervasive sovereignty,

00:14:35.180 | that is his providence,

00:14:37.360 | would put steel into the backbone of Christians

00:14:41.100 | in our all-embracing obedience to Christ

00:14:45.500 | and our witness for Christ globally,

00:14:48.580 | so that tens of thousands of missionaries

00:14:52.180 | would be sent to the remaining work to be done

00:14:55.420 | in the unreached peoples of the world,

00:14:57.300 | and so that all of us, all of us,

00:14:59.200 | whether we go or whether we send,

00:15:01.420 | that all of us would be prevented

00:15:04.340 | from simply treating Christ and his saving purposes

00:15:08.900 | as something marginal to our lives

00:15:12.600 | instead of being the all-shaping, all-transforming,

00:15:16.260 | all-influencing reality that it's meant to be

00:15:20.200 | in the providence of God.

00:15:22.380 | - Amen, thank you, Pastor John.

00:15:24.040 | Well, this week, the book pre-orders go live,

00:15:26.920 | and this week we are releasing two recordings

00:15:29.480 | that you've made, Pastor John, of the book.

00:15:31.560 | You've read the introduction

00:15:33.200 | and you've read the conclusion of the book.

00:15:34.880 | You've read them as audio book excerpts

00:15:36.360 | for the APJ audience,

00:15:38.360 | and those episodes will go up on Wednesday

00:15:40.520 | and Friday of this week, respectively,

00:15:43.240 | so that you APJ listeners can get the first sneak peek

00:15:46.180 | of that intro and the conclusion from Pastor John himself.

00:15:49.760 | It's rather doubtful that he will have the luxury

00:15:51.740 | to read the entire book himself,

00:15:53.600 | but he has recorded these two important parts

00:15:56.080 | for us coming up later in the week.

00:15:58.840 | And remember, you can support faithful,

00:16:00.360 | independent Christian booksellers

00:16:01.600 | as you pre-order the Providence book.

00:16:03.760 | Head over to WTSBooks.com, that's WTSBooks.com,

00:16:08.400 | and you can pre-order the book today

00:16:09.820 | for a discounted price of just $19.99 per copy.

00:16:14.020 | And of course, whenever we talk about books and pricing,

00:16:16.040 | it's worth putting a little footnote here

00:16:17.960 | that if you're wondering where the book royalties go

00:16:20.160 | when John Piper sells a book,

00:16:21.700 | he addressed that important question a few years back

00:16:23.960 | in a little video you can find at DesiringGod.org,

00:16:27.040 | and that video is titled,

00:16:28.440 | Million Sold, No Money Taken.

00:16:31.740 | Million Sold, No Money Taken.

00:16:35.080 | I'm Tony Reinke, thank you for listening,

00:16:36.520 | and we'll see you on Wednesday

00:16:37.760 | for the introduction to the Providence book.

00:16:40.820 | We'll see you then.

00:16:41.720 | (upbeat music)

00:16:44.300 | (upbeat music)

00:16:46.880 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

God’s Providence in 2020

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