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11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Beautiful Gift, July 14, 2000
This review is from: The Innkeeper (Hardcover)
This book is a beautiful gift from John Piper. It was an advent poem written for his congregation in Minneapolis. It will touch your heart deeply and then, at the end, the gospel! I have given this book to many as a gift. Buy it for anyone you wish to bless with the gift of Jesus. The illustrations are beautiful sketches by John Lawrence. It may be given as a gift to a child with caution. (read it yourself first and decide.)
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Book To Treasure and Pass to Generations, November 28, 2011
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
As I write the review of this short novel, I am punched with it's huge impact leaving me nearly breathless. I am assured again that "good things come in small packages." I can honestly say I pray my great-great grandchildren will be reading "The Innkeeper" with their families on Christmas Eve's yet to be. John Piper imagines what if Jesus stopped to see the "Innkeeper" who housed Joseph and Mary in his stable? In melodic, vivid, poetic verse he shares the tale. Accompanying his elegant prose are hauntingly beautiful paintings by Glenn Harrigton. It takes maybe 30 minutes to read the first time and a lifetime to reread. In this richly conceived tale is such passion, such pain, such glory, all will be touched that chose this anthem for Jesus. Thank-you most talented John Piper for poetry that stung yet soothed my heart in tandem. Thank-you, Glenn Harrington, for pictures viewed with utter amazement. Thank-you, Jesus, for this book and the gifts you gave these two men who shared them for Your glory. Buy this book and have it as a family keepsake. I want you to have the experience I just did. Bless all of you this holiday season and for all the Christmas's to come.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An Essential Advent Reading, December 9, 2009
This review is from: The Innkeeper (Hardcover)
Every year John Piper writes an Advent poem as a gift for the congregation of Bethlehem Baptist Church. This one tells a fictionalized story of the innkeeper who housed Joseph and Mary.
Most Nativity retellings emphasize the fact that there was "no room in the inn," interpreting this to mean the innkeeper had no eyes to see the meaning of the Nativity. But Piper takes a different tack, giving a historically plausible interpretation that Jesus' poverty-stricken parents would have been grateful for a free place in the godly innkeeper's stable, and that the innkeeper and his wife understood that they had housed the Messiah.
In this story Jesus, on his way to be crucified, visits the innkeeper and hears his account of the Nativity. His story goes on to dramatically describe Herod's Slaughter of the Innocents (Matthew 2:16-18), in which the innkeeper lost his entire family and his right arm. He lived on in lonely grief, never understanding why God would allow such evil to happen. Jesus grieves with the man and promises that after his crucifixion he will defeat the serpent who has the power of death, and raise this man's family to life again.
Piper draws together the stories of a joy-filled family and a terrible evil. We expect sentimentality at Christmastime, but his poem has none. The story actually strikes a discordant tone with its portrayal of dread and horror, but this problem is answered with the sure hope that Jesus brings to those who suffer under the reign of death and evil.
Because of the violent content of the story, it may be best suited to teenagers or mature grade-schoolers.
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