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Voted #20 by Premier Radio listeners as part of ‘The 100 Books That Changed the Church’ list curated by Premier Christianity magazine and Eden.
The argument at the heart of this book can be stated in a single sentence: "God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him." It sounds simple. The implications, worked out across more than three hundred pages with rigorous biblical scholarship and genuine pastoral passion, are anything but. Premier places Desiring God among the books that have shaped the Church — and for a significant strand of Reformed evangelicalism in particular, its influence has been seismic.
Piper's central move is to challenge the long-standing assumption that the pursuit of joy and the pursuit of God are in tension. He argues, drawing extensively on Scripture and on the tradition of Jonathan Edwards, that they are identical — that God's own glory and our own deepest joy point to exactly the same thing: knowing and being satisfied in God himself. He calls this "Christian Hedonism," deliberately using the provocative language of pleasure to make the point.
The book is demanding — Piper is not a casual writer — but it rewards careful reading. It has given many Christians a vocabulary and a framework for understanding worship, suffering, prayer and mission that they had not previously had.
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About the Author: John Piper (born 1946) was the senior pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis for thirty-three years. He founded the Desiring God ministry and has written prolifically, with other major works including Don't Waste Your Life, Let the Nations Be Glad, and Providence.
