John Piper’s Trilogy on the Word of God

The Truthfulness of Scripture

When John Piper sat down to write Reading the Bible Supernaturally: Seeing and Savoring the Glory of God in Scripture, he says, “another book pushed its way into his mind and demanded to be written first.”

So, he delayed its writing, and instead focused on A Peculiar Glory: How the Christian Scriptures Reveal Their Complete Truthfulness to answer the question of the Bible’s trustworthiness. About it, he says:

Surely you must read a book before you can decide whether it’s true. So shouldn’t a book about how to read the Bible precede a book about its truthfulness? Maybe. But in my case, the discoveries I made writing A Peculiar Glory proved essential for the way this book is written. The way the Bible shows itself to be true and completely trustworthy carries indispensable implications for how to read it.

If the Bible is completely true and is to be read supernaturally in the pursuit of worship, what does it mean to preach this word, and how should we do it?

A Word on Preaching from John Piper

The follow-up to both titles is Piper’s latest book, Expository Exultation: Christian Preaching as Worship. He explains the impetus to write on this topic:

One of the primary burdens of this book is to show that preaching not only assists worship, but also is worship. The title Expository Exultation is intended to communicate that this unique form of communication is both a rigorous intellectual clarification of the reality revealed through the words of Scripture and a worshipful embodiment of the value of that reality in the preacher’s exultation over the word he is clarifying. Preachers should think of worship services not as exultation in the glories of God accompanied by a sermon. They should think of musical and liturgical exultation (songs, prayers, readings, confession, ordinances, and more) accompanied and assisted by expository exultation—preaching as worship. Music is one way of raising and carrying the heart’s exultation. Preaching is another. I will argue that preaching is worship. And preaching serves worship.

Expository Exultation

John Piper

Revealing insights from over 30 years of experience, John Piper shows pastors how and what to communicate from the pulpit in a way that takes seriously the God-appointed task of preaching.

This book, Piper explains, is the result of his two most recent titles. He says:

This book is an organic outgrowth of two previous books. Together they form a kind of trilogy. The first volume, Peculiar Glory (2016), focuses on how we can know that the Bible is God’s word and is completely true. The second volume, Reading the Bible Supernaturally (2017), focuses on how to read the Bible—specifically, how to read it in the pursuit of its own ultimate goal that God be worshiped with white-hot affection by all the peoples of the world. This third volume, Expository Exultation, now asks, If the Bible is completely true and is to be read supernaturally in the pursuit of worship, what does it mean to preach this word, and how should we do it?

Learn more about Expository Exultation: Christian Preaching as Worship today!