John Piper
Christian Focus Publications, 2009, 208 pp., $14.99, ChristianFocus.com
Piper writes that there are two kinds of relevance: the kind that feels like it will make a significant difference in your life and the kind that will make that difference, whether it feels like it or not. Finally Alive, a series of sermons on the new birth, lands solidly in that second type of relevance.
I certainly didn’t feel like I needed to read a book on new birth, but from the introduction to the epilogue I fed on the richness of what new birth is, why it must happen to us, how it happens, what its effects are, and, finally, how we can help others be born again. Piper’s description of our spiritual deadness prior to new birth was perhaps my favorite portion of the entire book.
For the youth worker frustrated with the gap between professed and lived-out belief, this book is a must-read.
