Earlier this Spring, Christianity Today invited me to write a review of John Piper’s latest book, Providence (Crossway, 2020) and this week they published the review here.
The time I had to write the review overlapped with my teaching a masters level online course, “Survey of Historical Theology,” comprised of 25 students from all over the country. Thus, I took the opportunity to use the review both as a teaching exercise for the students and to enlist their help in editing it–and the review was better for it!
As a part of the class one week, I recorded this video to explain how I wrote the review to convey, in brief:
- Why did I agree to write the review
- How did I plan to read the book and other supporting sources
- Who was my audience or for whom was I writing
- What kind of review did I think I could write
- What kind of help did I still need to finish the review
You can “join the class” and watch that video here or below:
- The book: Providence by John Piper
- The review: “John Piper Goes Further Up and Further Into the Doctrine of God’s Providence,” by Jason G. Duesing
- Key sources mentioned:
- Gregg Allison, Historical Theology
- Duesing & Finn, Historical Theology for the Church
- Justin Taylor, “John Piper the Making of a Christian Hedonist”
- Primary Source Quotes & Citation Information:
- John Calvin, “[W]e make God the ruler and governor of all things …. the plans and intentions of men, are so governed by his providence that they are borne by it straight to their appointed end,” (Institutes 1.16.8).
- Thomas Aquinas, “God therefore neither wills evil to be done, nor wills it not to be done, but wills to permit evil to be done; and this is good” (Summa Theologica, 1.19.9).
- John Calvin, “when the world appears to be aimlessly tumbled about, the Lord is everywhere at work” (Institutes 1.17.11).