The complete title of John Piper’s book is Think: The Life of the Mind and the Love of God. Here are some commendatory blurbs from the book:
“We cannot feel like Christians or act like Christians if we don’t think like Christians. As his writing and preaching attest, John Piper is convinced that the heart cannot embrace that which the mind does not recognize as good, true, and beautiful. This wise book not only makes that point well, but does so by exhibiting in its style and grace the beauty of holy thoughts. This is a timely missive from a seasoned pastor.”
Michael S. Horton, J. Gresham Machen Professor of Systematic
Theology and Apologetics, Westminster Seminary California
Since Piper and Horton count as believers those who believe the damnable heresy that Jesus Christ died for every sinner without exception, perhaps Horton should have written this instead:
” … the heart cannot [consistently] embrace that which the mind does not recognize as good, true, and beautiful.”
Or this:
” … the heart cannot embrace that which the mind does not recognize as good, true, and beautiful [except by a “felicitous inconsistency”]”
The aforementioned universal atonement advocates recognize Christ’s efficacious atonement as horrific, false, and grotesque. But this is my ad hominem against Piper and Horton since the
“Bible makes no distinction between heart knowledge and head knowledge. Many false religionists like to say that Arminians ‘have it wrong in their heads but have it right in their hearts.’ Or someone could accuse a Christian of having a ‘head knowledge of gospel doctrine without having heart knowledge.’ The fact is, according to the Bible, the heart is what thinks, plans, devises, imagines, etc. The heart includes the mind or the intellect, which many call the ‘head.’ Everyone who knows something knows it in his heart. What an unregenerate person knows, he knows in his heart. What a regenerate person knows, he knows in his heart.”
Check out the following passages to see what the heart does: Genesis 6:5. Genesis 24:45. Genesis 27:41. Exodus 35:35. Exodus 36:2. Deuteronomy 15:9. 1 Kings 3:9. Psalm 14:1. Psalm 15:2. Psalm 49:3. Proverbs 14:10. Ecclesiastes 7:22. Isaiah 33:18. Matthew 13:15. Luke 2:19. Acts 8:22. Romans 10:9-10. Hebrews 4:12. These verses clearly show that the heart is what thinks, understands, knows, and believes, in both believers and unbelievers.
So to say that someone has a ‘head’ knowledge with no ‘heart’ knowledge is a false distinction. All knowledge comes from the intellect, which is included in the heart. True faith is a matter of the intellect, just as false faith is a matter of the intellect.” http://www.outsidethecamp.org/efl141.htm
Packer plumes the depth of Piper’s Edwardean feathers:
“Thinking — the alert, meticulous, probing, logical, critical use of the mind — will be a highway either to godliness or to its opposite, depending on how it is done. Taking leads from Jonathan Edwards, John Piper surefootedly plots the true path here. His book should be, and I hope will be, widely read.”
J. I. Packer, Board of Governors’ Professor of Theology,
Regent College
Two more:
“Do you ever wish you could feel more deeply about things you know are true? Has it been a while since you were moved to tears at the thought of Christ’s death for your sins? It’s not mysterious: those who feel deeply about the gospel are those who think deeply about the gospel. In these pages John Piper will convince you that thinking is the sturdy foundation for our easily misguided affections. If you want to feel profoundly, learn to think carefully. And start by reading this book!”
C. J. Mahaney, Sovereign Grace Ministries
“Think is a bracing gust of fresh air in a stale and musty room that hasn’t been aired out in a generation or more. In this book, the love of God and the life of the mind are passionately connected in the way the Scriptures require, and the result is a direct challenge to the intellectual sloppiness and disobedience that is so characteristic of our time.”
Douglas Wilson, Pastor, Christ Church, Moscow, Idaho
Think’s contents include:
Foreword by Mark A. Noll 11
Introduction 15
Clarifying the Aim of the Book
11. My Pilgrimage 25
12. Deep Help from a Dead Friend 33
Clarifying the Meaning of Thinking
13. Reading as Thinking 41
Coming to Faith through Thinking
14. Mental Adultery Is No Escape 59
15. Rational Gospel, Spiritual Light 69
Clarifying the Meaning of Loving God
16. Love for God: Treasuring God with All Your Mind 83
Facing the Challenge of Relativism
17. Jesus Meets the Relativists 95
18. The Immorality of Relativism 105
Facing the Challenge of Anti-intellectualism
19. Unhelpful Anti-intellectual Impulses in Our History 119
10. You Have Hidden These Things from the Wise 131
and Understanding
11. In the Wisdom of God, the World Did Not Know God 143
through Wisdom
Finding a Humble Way of Knowing
12. The Knowledge That Loves 157
13. All Scholarship Is for the Love of God and Man 167
Encouraging Thinkers and Non-thinkers
Conclusion: A Final Plea 179
Appendix 1 185
“The Earth Is the Lord’s”: The Supremacy of Christ in Christian Learning
(Biblical Foundations for Bethlehem College and Seminary)
Appendix 2 205
The Student, the Fish, and Agassiz
Acknowledgments 211
Agrammatos 