Book Review: God is the Gospel
Jan 1st, 2006 by cadmus
How do you define The Gospel? What is The Gospel? What does The Gospel mean to you? In his book “God is the Gospel”, John Piper addresses these questions and many others. In the introduction, Mr. Piper presents us with “What the world needs most – The Gospel’s greatest gift, God.” In the following chapters Mr. Piper examines the Scriptures and presents us with a view of the Gospel that may be new and different that what most are used to. It was new to me. John Piper refers to the NT Greek and Hebrew for some of his scripture references to show the original meaning of the authors. With each chapter he builds on the previous one as he shows that The Gospel, the Good News, is God. God himself should be our focus. Throughout the book, Mr. Piper addresses some common beliefs and understandings of The Gospel and shows through the Scriptures that we are missing out on the greatest benefit and goal of The Gospel. And because of this, we are pointing at the wrong things when we are leading others to Christ.
After teaching a better understanding of The Gospel, Mr. Piper concludes the book with a chapter of hymns praising God as the awesome God he is. The hymns Mr. Piper has chosen praise God for being God, firmly focusing the praise just because God is God.
This book should take some time to read and savor. I plan on reading it again and studying my way through it. This book would be great for a small group study. After reading the book, I found myself using some of his thoughts in our current Sunday school class as we study John.
I highly recommend this book, especially for those that need refreshing and renewing in their understanding of God and his Glory.
