Days 53-58 – 52 Books in 52 Weeks

I just finished John Piper’s Don’t Waste Your Life. This is the first book I’ve ever read by Piper. I’ve heard him preach and I know a lot of people who think he’s an amazing pastor. However, I was extremely disappointed in this book.

First of all, for someone who is as well-known in Christian circles as John Piper is, and for someone who has written numerous books, I would have expected him to be a good writer.

He’s not.

I can’t tell you how many typos and grammatical errors I found. He uses very difficult phraseology. There was no continuity. I’m a pretty well-read person and I had to re-read nearly every other sentence to figure out what he was saying.

The 190 pages of this book were a struggle to get through…

Besides the issues with his writing style, there’s the whole problem with the theme of the book. “Don’t Waste Your Life” is the title but it seems like all he talks about is that we must live to glorify God. That’s true. I have no problem with that whatsoever. But until the last chapter or so, that’s all this book is. There isn’t any information on how to live your life so that you’re not wasting it. You’ve got about 160 pages of him telling you over and over that you shouldn’t waste your life, that you should live to glorify God… then the only glimmer of how to do that is on the last 30 pages – and that is all about missions.

This also was frustrating. He seems to wave off the fact that people in one’s own area still need to hear the Gospel. His entire focus is on overseas missions; there’s maybe two paragraphs about tending to those at home, and again, he seems to just brush that aside in how he talks about it.

Anyway, of those thirty pages about missions, a good chunk of it was the history of a couple missionary organizations.

Then in the middle of this chapter he says: We Will Not Know Him (Christ) Fully Outside His Mission.

What? Wait? I can’t fully know Christ unless I become a missionary (or give at my ‘treasure’ to support missions).

I have no problem with missions, but the fact is – God did not call every single person to travel overseas and be a missionary. If He had, there would be no one left here to evangelize. And I have no trouble with giving to missions. I support my church’s missions program. But I also know that the church needs money to pay the bills and to spread the Gospel in our own city.

I came away from this book wondering why Piper is so well-liked in the Christian community. If this book is indicative of his writing, he’s not very good at it. On top of that, I didn’t like his theology about the whole missions thing. Don’t get me wrong, I believe we need missionaries – however, I don’t believe that everyone is called to go overseas to be one.

As I told my boss, this is the first and probably last book by Piper I’ll ever read.