Reading the Bible Supernaturally: Seeing and Savoring the Glory of God in Scripture

by John Piper

Does it take a miracle to read the Bible?Does it take a miracle to read the Bible?

God wrote a book, and its pages are full of his glory. But we cannot see his beauty on our own, with mere human eyes.

In Reading the Bible SupernaturallyReading the Bible Supernaturally, John Piper aims to show us how God works through his written Word when we pursue the natural act of reading the Bible, so that we experience his sightgiving power--a power that extends beyond the words on the page.

Ultimately, Piper shows us that in the seemingly ordinary act of reading the Bible, something miraculous happens: we are given eyes to behold the glory of the living God.

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Hardcover, 432 pages

Published April 30th 2017 by Crossway Books

tags: theology, scripture, unfinished, faith, christianity, christian non fiction, religion, nonfiction, christian living, christian

Book Quotes

“Genuine love is the glad effort to make others glad in God forever. Genuine love is being willing to suffer and die to draw as many people as we can into the pursuit and enjoyment of God.”

― John Piper

“Which means, therefore, that our Bible reading is never just for seeing, never just for learning and doctrine. It is not even just for savoring, if that savoring is thought of in a private way that leaves us unchanged in our relationship with others. No. We read the Bible—we always read the Bible—for the kind of seeing and savoring Christ that transforms us into his likeness.”

― John Piper

“This is how God has designed the Scriptures to work for human transformation and for the glory of God: the Scriptures reveal God’s glory. This glory, God willing, is seen by those who read the Bible. This seeing gives rise, by God’s grace, to savoring God above all things—treasuring him, hoping in him, feeling him as our greatest reward, tasting him as our all-satisfying good. And this savoring transforms our lives—freeing us from the slavery of selfishness and overflowing in love to others. This joy-sustained, God-exalting transformation of love is then seen by others, who, by God’s grace, glorify God because of it.”

― John Piper

“What this means for our reading the Scriptures is that seeing the glory of God may not always awaken, first, the sweetness of his worth and beauty. It may awaken the sorrows of remembered sin and remaining corruption in our hearts. “Savoring” this painful truth would mean welcoming it rather than denying it or twisting it. It would mean being thankful and letting the rebuke and the correction have their full effect in contrition and humility. And it would mean letting it lead us to the mercies of God and the sweet relief that comes from his saving grace in Christ.”

― John Piper

“We were made to find our deepest pleasure in admiring what is infinitely admirable, that is, the glory of God. The glory of God is not the psychological projection of human longing onto reality. On the contrary, inconsolable human longing is the evidence that we were made for God’s glory.”

― John Piper

“True worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth” (John 4:23). Truth matters. There is no real worship without it. Intense affections for God, when we do not know God, are not truly affection for God. They are affections for a distortion of God in our imagination.”

― John Piper

“No man can have the least ground of assurance that he hath seen Christ and his glory by faith, without some effects of it in changing him into his likeness. John Owen”

― John Piper

“To hear the gospel faithfully and fully presented is to be responsible to see divine glory.”

― John Piper

“Emotions for God that do not spring from seeing God cannot honor God.”

― John Piper

“The Bible itself shows that our ultimate goal in reading the Bible is that God’s infinite worth and beauty would be exalted in the everlasting, white-hot worship of the blood-bought bride of Christ from every people, language, tribe, and nation.”

― John Piper

“God did not create the world to keep his glory invisible, and he did not re-create Christians to keep our passion for his glory invisible”

― John Piper

“God reveals more or less of his glory in different times and settings. But it is always his glory! It is never minor. Never insignificant. Never negligible. It is always some measure of the infinite excellence. It is always worthy of seeing and knowing and loving.”

― John Piper

“Lukewarm affection for God gives the impression that he is moderately pleasing. He is not moderately pleasing. He is infinitely pleasing. If we are not intensely pleased, we need forgiveness and healing.”

― John Piper

“If we are attracted by the desirability of something God promises, and hope to enjoy it without enjoying God in it and by it, then we are turning God’s promise into a summons to idolatry.”

― John Piper

John Piper

John Piper (1946 - Present)

is a Calvinistic Baptist Christian preacher and author currently serving as Pastor for Preaching and Vision of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota. His books include ECPA Christian Book Award winners Spectacular Sins, What Jesus Demands from the World, Pierced by the Word, and God's Passion for His Glory, and bestsellers Don't Waste Your Life and The Passion of Jesus Christ. The evangelical organization Desiring God is named for his book Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist (1986).

In 1980, after what he described as an "irresistible call of the Lord to preach", Piper became Pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where he has been ministering ever since. Piper hit the evangelical scene after the publication of his book Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist (1986) and has continued to publish dozens of other books further articulating this theological perspective. In 1994, he founded Desiring God Ministries, which provides all of Piper's sermons and articles from the past three decades, and most of his books online free of charge, as well as offering for sale books, CDs, and DVDs and regularly hosting conferences.

John Stephen Piper is a Reformed and Baptist theologian, preacher, and author, currently serving as Pastor for Preaching and Vision of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He is the author of numerous books.

Piper's motto in ministry, preaching, and teaching is: "God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him." He calls those who live out this motto Christian Hedonists. Piper places a heavy emphasis on the objective and absolute nature of truth and is confident in the Christian's ability to grasp that truth through the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
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