Tag Archives: Barnabas Piper

The Curious Christian, by Barnabas Piper

I remember a relative in the family of one of my college friends telling me about his bright young son (maybe grandson) before going to school. He was inquisitive about everything and was encouraged to love learning. But after a year in first grade he shut down; he didn’t ask questions or chat about his observations anymore. His father (or grandfather) blamed it entirely on the school system, took the boy out, and taught him at home. I think he said it took a few months for the little guy to regain his curiosity. A nurturing environment was all he needed.

I remembered this story while reading Barnabas Piper’s book, The Curious Christian: How Discovering Wonder Enriches Every Part of Life. His premise is as simple as that subtitle. We need curiosity in our lives to worship the Lord fully, engage our world courageously, and live together as God directs. We may call it by another name: invention, devotion, problem solving, hospitality, or even perseverance; Piper draws all of those things together into curiosity. That’s what we need.

By having curious minds we will take interest in others and in the culture around us. We will share stories and listen to others share theirs. Too many of us believe we have resolved the answers to the big questions and fear the answers or exploration others have found if they differ significantly from our understanding. Our school system presses us into this mold: know what’s being graded and repeat that answer for the test. If you ask too many questions (particularly the wrong sort of questions), you’ll get shamed or possibly kicked out.

From behind our overprotective hedge, we don’t have anything like this passage in mind:

All of creation resonates with God’s voice, sometimes only as echoes faint, distant, and indistinct. It reflects Him in some way, blurry or clear. Nothing exists that was not created by God and sustained by God. Sustained means that every day He keeps it existing. We have a hard time imagining the opposite of this, so we take it for granted. But without God’s sustaining power, we would cease to exist. We would not fall down dead. We would not crumble into dust or ashes. We would not melt like wax. We would be erased, all of our matter simply gone. Just as God spoke the world into existence–out of nothing, a total void–with His word, so He keeps it in existence daily with His word. And so the world continues to bear God’s mark and echo His divine voice.

Piper encourages us to lean into God’s mark on the world by asking questions and taking an interest in what’s around us. How is the Holy Spirit active in our community? What new avenues can we take in love, joy, peace, and the rest that will worship our Lord more wholeheartedly and love our neighbor more selflessly?

This review may come too late in the season, but I think The Curious Christian would make a great graduation gift. It’s a short, well-written book that could light a fire under people who feel a little hemmed in by undefinable cords. Its message is easily one of those that seem obvious at first blush but need to be repeated and applied in various ways to truly stick. It’s easy, enjoyable reading, though it could be improved by adding some stories.

Go Read, Young Man

Barnabas Piper recommends reading stories more than guidebooks, saying, “If men read fewer books on manhood and more really good stories they’d be much better for it.” He offers six reasons for this, one of them is on expressing emotions.

Men are often (not always) inhibited in our expressions of emotion. We can struggle to know when and how to give voice to our passions, both positive and negative. Stories give both example and lessons in how to do this. They show the benefit to being open and the harm that comes from locking feelings and passions away. But they do so in a palatable way by showing it in the lives of others.

Many of us define productivity in a way that rules out stories. We think reviewing a line of argument or series of purported facts accomplishes more than simply entertaining ourselves with a story, but as Piper says, we change, we influence ourselves, by the environment in which we live. Stories are part of that environment just as dinners with friends, serving our community, and riding horses may be.

If life is about learning, what do we learn from our environment? Who loves us and how do we know? Is it because they’ve said so or because we’ve understood their love from being around them, their actions, tones, and expressions? We know all manner of things without direct expression, not necessarily in the absence of such expression but more through living in the light of them. The Lord tells us repeatedly of his faithfulness, but how do we really know he is faithful? It’s when we see it in our lives–in our own story.

Reading fiction and non-fiction stories from others helps us understand ourselves and how other people think. If we ever ask, “How could anyone think that way?” stories will help answer that question. I remember a friend saying he thought a character in Lewis’s Great Divorce was unrealistic because he’d never known someone like him. The man didn’t want to know the truth; he only wanted to talk about issues and offer his opinion. Settling on an established truth meant the conversation and his contribution to it would be over. My friend thought this was ridiculous until he met someone who actually thought this way. His understanding of human nature was stretched before he knew it was possible.

But life isn’t about learning, is it? That’s only a part of it. Perhaps I’ll write about that another time, though it would be better to write a story about it.

Bless Me with Virality

Barnabas Piper offers this thoughtful, relevant prayer for many people all over the Interwebs.

Lord, make me viral,
Because despite public opinion publishing isn’t all that lucrative.

I know fame is fleeting and often harmful,
But I’m pretty sure I’m the exception to the rule.

That’s like almost from 3 Peter that. Read the rest through the link.

What Makes Good Writing?

Barnabas Piper offers the one key component to good writing: playing baseball. (Double-check me on that.)

On that topic, Stephen King says in his widely praised book On Writing, “If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot. . . . If you don’t have the time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write.”

He also says, “Description is what makes the reader a sensory participant in the story. Good description is a learned skill, one of the prime reasons why you cannot succeed unless you read a lot and write a lot. It’s not just a question of how-to, you see; it’s also a question of how much to. Reading will help you answer how much, and only reams of writing will help you with the how. You can learn only by doing.”

On Doubt, Piper Says Just the Right Thing

Scholar John Frame reviews Barnabas Piper’s latest, Help My Unbelief: Why Doubt Is Not the Enemy of Faith, saying a book on doubt is suited for “the work of a sophisticated theologian.”

“Searches on Google and Amazon reveal that a number of books have been written on this subject by mature writers like Alister McGrath and Lesslie Newbigin. What does Piper bring to the table?”

“I think Piper often says exactly what needs to be said.”