Book Review - Let The Nations Be Glad
One of my hopes is to get good books on Global Missions into your hands and so in addition to ‘Mission’, by Andy Johnson, here’s another good one for you: ‘Let The Nations Be Glad’, by John Piper. Here’s what Leo Parris, our US Global Missions Coordinator, has to say about it…
Of the many wonderful contributions that John Piper has made for the Church, his emphasis on global missions is a primary lasting legacy. The Cross Conference and many books stand as artifacts of the culture that he has grown by God’s grace for decades. But if you are going to read one book on global missions by John Piper (there are many!), you should read Let the Nations be Glad. It contains some practical insights, but its salient virtue is its deep and inspiring theology.
“Missions exists because worship doesn’t.” These are some of the opening words of the book. This pithy, brilliant statement captures the heartbeat behind what he’s after: to root our global mission in its proper theological foundations. Working from Psalm 67 and many other passages, he shows that the primary motivation for our global mission is God’s glory in the delight of peoples from all nations.
In his initial chapter, he argues for the supremacy of God in global missions through worship. Essentially, he examines biblical passages that declare the supremacy of God’s glory. And in similar lines to Desiring God, he shows that God “is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him.”[1] In a refreshing way, Piper uses this to remind us of the glory of the message we share. We are not merely giving a message that deals with people’s sin, but we are “summoning people to God,”[2] the only God who can truly satisfy them.
In subsequent chapters, Piper works out how the supremacy of God functions in different aspects of mission. In Chapter 2, he distinguishes prayer from the work of global missions but shows that the necessity of prayer gives God all the glory in our international efforts. In the next chapter, he dives deeply into the role of suffering in this work. All who follow Christ will suffer persecution, but those who are sent internationally especially need a theology of suffering. He argues that the death of Christ is our substitute and our pattern for living, and urges Christians to fight apathy and leverage their lives for Christ.
After arguing for the supremacy of Christ in the gospel we proclaim, Piper makes his case for the targeted pursuit of the unreached in global missions in Chapter 5. Rather than pouring our resources into the same location, the New Testament displays a special prerogative. We are to especially initiate and support work that takes the gospel to the less reached parts of the world.
Piper closes his book with a few practical thoughts for how the worship of the nations functions. After drawing from Jonathan Edwards to underscore the relationship between God’s glory and his people’s delight in him, he urges us towards compassion for the lost (Ch. 6). He also reminds us that the Bible allows for freedom in a diversity of cultural expressions of worship (Ch. 7).
In Sovereign Grace, we have a rich legacy of emphasizing the glory of God and the joy of his people. This emphasis has led us in recent years to an increase in global activity. It’s my prayer that God will use this book to sharpen our convictions, prepare us for costly mission, and propel us into even more global activity with his glory at the center of our ambitions.
[1] John Piper, Let the Nations be Glad: The Supremacy of God in Missions, 3rd ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2010), 50.
[2] Piper, Let the Nations be Glad, 56.