Nielsen’s Nook

Recently my church has compiled a list of books that different pastors here felt were instructive on prayer or helped them to pray better. I have added a few of my own to the list and would love to hear from you, if you have suggestions. Please leave those suggestions as comments here from which all may benefit. Each listing is linked and will take you to the book on Amazon.com if you would like to purchase it:

• Answering God: The Psalms as Tools for Prayer
• So Amazing, So Divine: A Guide to Living Prayer
• Augustine on Prayer/No.171/04
• The Practice of the Presence of God: Writings and Conversations
• Purpose in Prayer: Library Edition
• Dangerous Duty of Delight: The Glorified God and the Satisfied Soul (LifeChange Books)
• A Journey to Victorious Praying: Finding Discipline and Delight in Your Prayer Life
• Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire: What Happens When God’s Spirit Invades the Hearts of His People
• Fresh Faith: What Happens When Real Faith Ignites God’s People
• When God’s People Pray: Six Sessions on the Transforming Power of Prayer (Zondervangroupware(tm) Small Group Edition)
• The Valley of Vision: A Collection of Puritan Prayers and Devotions
• Effective Prayer
• Praying the Savior’s Way: Let Jesus’ Prayer Reshape Your Prayer Life
• Lord Teach Us: The Lord’s Prayer & the Christian Life
• Lord and His Prayer
• The Lord’s Prayer for Today (New for Today) (New for Today)
• The Transforming Power of Prayer: Deepening Your Friendship With God
• Prayers from The Confessions
• Pray With Your Eyes Open: Looking at God, Ourselves, and Our Prayers
• Prayer That Works
• Madame Jeanne Guyon: Experiencing Union with God Through Inner Prayer & the Way and Rescues of Union with God (Pure Gold Classics)
• A Call to Spiritual Reformation: Priorities from Paul and His Prayers
• Praying: Finding Our Way Through Duty to Delight
• Calvin: Institutes of the Christian Religion (2 Volume Set) [Book III]
• On Prayer: Conversation with God

Piper, John.� The Supremacy of God in Preaching.� Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1990.

This very brief little book is a treatise on the substance of preaching.� The substance of preaching is set forth as threefold: 1) the goal of preaching as the Glory of God, 2) the ground of preaching as the cross of Christ, and 3) the gift of preaching as the power of the Holy Spirit.� The book is divided into two parts.� In part one, Piper seeks to outline what this Trinitarian substance of preaching would look like.� In part two, he seeks to help the reader learn how to incorporate it into their own preaching by venturing briefly into the preaching life of Jonathan Edwards.

The strengths of the book are many.� The stuff of the preaching that Piper articulates comes quite dissonantly into the contemporary American Evangelical culture.� Nevertheless, Piper does not hesitate to remind us that ultimately even those who would prefer sermons on better self-esteem cannot escape that their true and unquenchable thirst is for God.� “Our people are starving for God.” (p 11)� We would do well as preachers to incorporate more of the elements that Piper delineates in chapter 7, to the end that our parishioners are convicted of sin and fleeing to Christ.

While very much enjoying the book there is one suggestion this writer would make by way of preference.� The second plank of Piper’s thesis is that the ground of preaching is the cross of Christ.� Depending on how this is preached, it can be myopic.� I would have preferred that he focus on the person and work of Christ and in this way not run the risk of short changing aspects of Christ that are largely ignored in contemporary American Evangelical circles (e.g., the Incarnation).�

Overall, this book is a read that will exhort preachers to greater faithfulness in the preaching and might even help cultivate the palettes of parishioners who receive Christ and His benefits communicated through the preaching of the Word.

William J. Nielsen
Park Cities Presbyterian Church
Dallas, Texas

In The Supremacy of God in Preaching, John Piper has a chapter on the marriage of gravity and gladness in God glorifying preaching.� Often there is an imbalance, according to Piper, in pulpits today.� “Gladness and gravity,” Piper writes, “should be woven together in the life and preaching of a pastor in sch a way as to sober the careless soul and sweeten the burdens of the saints” (p. 52).� Later in the chapter he suggests seven practical suggestions for cultivating this warp and woof in our preaching.

1. Strive for gladhearted-holiness.� “You can’t be blood-earnest in the pulpit and habitually flippant at deacons’ [= elders' in the Presbyterian world] meetings and church dinners.”
2. Make your life and especially your study one of constant communion with Christ.� May we spend ten hours on our knees over our books as B. B. Warfield urges.
3. Read inspiring edifying books.� Read works written by authors who bleed bibline and are blood-earnest about the truths they discuss.
4. Contemplation of death.� Directing our minds to the contemplation of death, reminds us of the gravitas of our depravitas as Dr. Sinclair Ferguson used to tell us in classes at Westminster Seminary.
5. Higher standards.� Scripture teaches us that teachers of Christ’s people will be judged with greater strictness (James 3:1).
6. The Example of Jesus.� Jesus was evidently the most profound and prolific preacher that ever lived.� He wept often, was approachable even by children, was humble and yet boldly preached on things like hell in even horrible terms.
7. Humble yourself.� “Don’t be content to guide people amont the foothills of God’s glory.”� Lead them to the heights of his majestic transcendence (c.f., 1 Pet 5:6).

I would encourage those of us who have the privilege of preaching to cultivate in our own minds a healthy fear of God.� My own thoughts are that we do not fear God as we should.� We do not sense the dangerous business it is to be an instrument in the hands of a holy God when we preach.� We are not the physicians, we are the surgical instruments in the hands of the Great Physician.� O God have mercy that when you come to find this scalpel, that I will not be dull and tarnished but sharp and holy, for Christ’s sake.� Amen.