The Pleasures of God: Meditations on God's Delight in Being God [Paperback]

John Piper (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 26, 2000

Beginning where the foundational truth of Desiring God left off, that "God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him," this expanded rerelease of another classic by John Piper will further explore a life-changing essential -- "We will be most satisfied in God when we know why God himself is most satisfied in God." Fully understanding the joy of God will draw the reader into an encounter with His overflowing, self-replenishing, all-encompassing grace -- the source of living water that all Christians desire to drink. The Pleasures of God will again put God at the center of Creation and leave the reader very satisfied in Him.

Be Most Satisfied in God…

Because GOD Is Most Satisfied in God.

You don’t truly know someone until you know what makes him happy. Our pleasure is the measure of our character. So it is with God. We can only know the greatness of His glory, if we know what makes Him glad. Therefore we must understand “the pleasures of God.”

This is not a book about you. It’s about the One you were made for—God Himself. In this theological tour de force, pastor John Piper navigates the biblical evidence to help us see and savor what the pleasures of God show us about Him, so that we might become like the One we behold.

What the church and world need today, more than anything else, is to know and love—behold and embrace—the great, glorious, sovereign, happy God of the Bible.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Praise for The Pleasures of God

“The Pleasures of God is perhaps the most important book that John Piper has written. It is certainly the freshest and most penetrating. Many preachers and writers are calling Christians today to be more Godcentered. The irony is that even the call to be God-centered focuses attention on us, on what we must do. Certainly the Bible spends no small part of its pages telling us what we must do, but it does so out of profound God-centeredness. And here is a book that does not tell us what we must do to be God-centered; it simply is God-centered. Intoxicating.”
—D. A. CARSON, research professor of New Testament, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School

“There are quite a few books every Christian should read. And there are some that need to be read a second time to really digest them. But then there are a select few that should be read and reread and reread…perhaps every year. John Piper’s The Pleasures of God belongs on that ‘to be reread every year’ list.”
—RANDY NEWMAN, campus minister and author of Questioning Evangelism

“John Piper takes ten of God’s expressed ‘delights’ and searches their significance and implications with rare zeal. What a privilege to have someone think through these biblical realities so lovingly and seek out our biblical reactions so keenly. If all Christian books were offerings on an Australian barbecue, this would be one of the juiciest steaks around—hot, healthy, and wonderful.”
—SIMON MANCHESTER, senior minister, St. Thomas Church, North Sydney, Australia

“In Desiring God, John Piper introduced us to the idea that the pursuit of God’s glory and the pursuit of our joy are not at odds, for the pursuit of God’s glory is our joy. In The Pleasures of God, Piper helps us to see that God’s glory is revealed in great part in what makes Him happy. The Pleasures of God is an invitation to meditate on what makes God
happy. If what makes God happy reveals His glory, and if we become like Him as we behold His glory (2 Corinthians 3:18), then meditating on the pleasures of God will be a means for increased joy in God and gradual conformity into His likeness. If that is your desire, then take up this new edition and read it over and over again.”
—JUAN R. SANCHEZ Jr., preaching pastor, High Pointe Baptist Church, Austin, Texas

“This book is breathtaking in both its scope and its focus and constitutes a joyful yet prophetic call to adore and worship God—whose infinite worth and excellence is revealed in what he loves and delights in. It is at once beautiful and moving, serious, stretching, and profound. The Pleasures of God surely ranks with J. I. Packer’s Knowing God as one of the most profoundly moving and world-view forming Christian books of modern times.”
—REVEREND RICHARD M. CUNNINGHAM, CEO of Intervarsity UK

“Few books are genuinely life-changing. The Pleasures of God by John Piper is clearly one of them. I’ve often said to people, ‘If I were on a desert island and could have only three books, in addition to the Bible, I’d choose Desiring God and The Pleasures of God by John Piper.’”
—SAM STORMS, president, Enjoying God Ministries, Kansas City, Missouri

“Books have profound potential—particularly the one you hold in your hand. John Piper is saturated with God, and his passion fills the pages of this book.”
—C. J. MAHANEY, Sovereign Grace Ministries

“Run, don’t walk, to buy this remarkable work.”
—JONI EARECKSON TADA AND STEVEN ESTES

“I encourage you to read [The Pleasures of God] twice; once to see the portrait as a whole, a second time to savor the sheer delight of loving a God so magnificent, so excellent, so holy.”
—ERWINW. LUTZER, senior pastor, The Moody Church

“In our fallen world, staring at the sun blinds us. But, by God’s grace, contemplating God gives us spiritual sight. Of all of Pastor John’s books, this is the most radical. Get this vision of God, and begin to see.”
—MARK DEVER, pastor, Capitol Hill Baptist Church, Washington, DC

About the Author

John Piper, the preaching pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis since 1980, is the author of numerous books and a senior writer for World magazine. He received his doctorate in theology from the University of Munich and taught biblical studies for six years at Bethel College, St. Paul, before becoming a pastor. He and his wife, Noel, have four sons and one daughter.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 400 pages
• Publisher: Multnomah Books; Rev Exp edition (June 26, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1576736652
• ISBN-13: 978-1576736654
• Product Dimensions: 6 x 1.1 x 8.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (40 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #21,929 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

John Piper is the Pastor for Preaching at Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He grew up in Greenville, South Carolina, and studied at Wheaton College, where he first sensed God's call to enter the ministry. He went on to earn degrees from Fuller Theological Seminary (B.D.) and the University of Munich (D.theol.). For six years he taught Biblical Studies at Bethel College in St. Paul, Minnesota, and in 1980 accepted the call to serve as pastor at Bethlehem. John is the author of more than 30 books, including Sex and the Supremacy of Christ, Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, What Jesus Demands from the World, and Don't Waste Your Life.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

102 of 106 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Surprised by God: infinitely more delightful than imagined!, August 9, 1999

By 

Darren Hsiung (Berkeley, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Pleasures of God: Meditations on God's Delight in Being God (Paperback)

I have to admit, when I first read this book, I wanted to throw it across the room. But earnestly searching scriptures (with the intent to prove the book wrong), I was forced to unhappily conclude that Piper was completely on the ball. Then the most amazing thing happened: as I reread the book with a heart of faith, my disturbed state of mind gave way to a liberating joy in the good news of the sovereign God who is infinitely worthy and glorious beyond our wildest imaginations. I've always known that God is big, but Piper's expositions have been the lynchpin to my realization that God is BIG; truly one whose ways are above our ways and whose thoughts are above our thoughts. And in light of this, the deep love of Jesus has become even more amazing to me: how such a God could love and die for sinners such as us.

To God alone be the glory!

35 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Theology and passion become one, July 28, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: The Pleasures of God: Meditations on God's Delight in Being God (Paperback)

I have read practically all of Piper's books, including his classic Desiring God, and the Pleasures of God outranks all of them. Piper manages to accomplish something that very few theologians can: mesh theology and joyful devotion to God. Theology to Piper is by no means an end in itself; it is meant to direct God's people towards him with deeper understanding of his character. Piper is humble and yet strongly convicted in his apprehension of God and the ways in which he interacts with his son Jesus Christ and his people. He puts down all vying theologies with passion and scriptural weaponry. This book is not for the new Christian or someone trying to explore the character of God for the first time; it is for those who have meditated on scripture for some time but are looking to be impassioned by the Bible and apply its sublime truths in richer, more accurate ways. This book is like the Bible in that it prepares and motivates the reader for application, without w! hich it is meaningless.

30 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Irresistible Grace, October 11, 2004

By 

L. Knowles (Vermont) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Pleasures of God: Meditations on God's Delight in Being God (Paperback)

I first saw this book reviewed in the early 1990's. It aroused a double response of curiosity and suspicion. Like many a cynic I asked myself, "Now who's this guy and what's he spinning?" Against my natural inclination to dismiss it, I ordered POG. On receiving it I began reading and found my suspicions confirmed: here was another triumphal and insensitive adherent to the doctrine of the sovereignty of God.

Strangely, however, I couldn't stop reading. Despite months of scrawling angry counter-arguments in the margins of its pages I was drawn inexplicably to the sensibility of its core premise about God's delight in being God. To make this story short, I found myself, in the end, exhausted but surrendered to the portrait of God that Piper paints with the full palette of scriptural truth. And finally happy too, with the beginnings of the joy Piper wished for his sons in the Foreword.

Salvation history testifies to the fact that a distinguishing evidence of the truth is that it is often hated - at first. The fact that POG eventually had such an unnatural (or supernatural) effect on someone like me - initially so inclined to resist and rebuff - speaks more to the validity of this book than if I had joined immediately in the chorus of deserved admiration.

This is not a critical analysis of POG; others have provided that sufficiently on this page. Instead it's a personal account of the Irresistible Grace that against all nature drew a small and scoffing soul into undeserved open spaces where God's glory was seen...and is now sung.