EMQ » January – April 2024 » Volume 60 Issue 1
All That Jesus Commanded: The Christian Life according to the Gospels
By John Piper
Crossway, 2023
464 pages
US$39.99
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Reviewed by Randy L. Jackson, PhD, who served 18 years with the International Mission Board. Currently, he is the associate pastor of discipleship and missions at First Baptist Church in Milton, Florida.
Disciple-makers do not fulfill the Great Commission unless they teach others to obey all that Christ commanded. That truth should motivate missionaries and mission mobilizers to read All That Jesus Commanded by John Piper. Piper is the founder of Desiring God, chancellor of Bethlehem College and Seminary, and retired pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Missionaries and mission mobilizers know him for his book, Let the Nations Be Glad, and his influence in mobilizing people to the mission field through his sermons and other books.
The book is a revision and renaming of What Jesus Demands from the World, originally published in 2006. In this edition, Piper includes an appendix explaining his methodology in the updated volume. Another difference between volumes is that this one uses the word command for chapter headings instead of demand. It consists of 50 chapters, each addressing a command, but occasionally with sequences of chapters expanding on aspects of a single command. Therefore, the book does not actually address 50 different commands of Christ.
Missionaries and missions-mobilizers will find the chapters for commands 47–50, which deal with believers letting their lights shine and making disciples of all nations, most useful. Piper explains that the motivation for believers to shine their light is so that others will glorify God. He argues believers’ light shines brightest when they endure suffering for Jesus’ sake. In the final two chapters regarding the various commissioning passages, Piper says that Jesus’ authority is the basis for evangelism and missions. The last chapter offers assurance that the gospel will reach every tribe, people, and language.
Parts are controversial. For example, Piper takes a hard line against divorce. Still, other chapters are inspiring, particularly the chapter, “Command 13: Always Pray and Do Not Lose Heart.” Potential readers who disagree with Piper regarding complementarianism and Calvinism should still find much of the book helpful.
The book is best read one chapter at a time, like one would read a daily devotional. Piper’s writing is typical for him; engaging and easy to understand but occasionally focused on minute details. As in all his books, Piper encourages his readers to make Jesus their greatest joy. For Piper, living a life that delights in God is the key to living obediently to all his commands. This view keeps Christ’s commands from being cold legalism and is one reason to read the book.
Those who own a copy of What Jesus Demands may wonder if they should buy this one. The changes are not significant enough to warrant buying this version, but for those who don’t own the older version, the book is useful. For missionaries and disciple-makers, it provides a list of commands to teach disciples along with scriptural, theological, and contextual background for those commands. However, despite the title, it is not an exhaustive list of all Jesus’ commands.
For Further Reading:
God Is the Gospel: Meditations on God’s Love as the Gift of Himself by John Piper (Crossway, 2011).
Church Multiplication Guide Revised: The Miracle of Church Reproduction by George Peterson (William Carey Library, 2013).
EMQ, Volume 60, Issue 1. Copyright © 2024 by Missio Nexus. All rights reserved. Not to be reproduced or copied in any form without written permission from Missio Nexus. Email: EMQ@MissioNexus.org.
