Sex and the Supremacy of Christ

 (13 customer reviews)

It is always big news when a new book is released under John Piper's name. Sex and the Supremacy of Christ, while listing Piper as a co-editor, contains only a few pages of Piper's writing, with the rest being written by eleven other authors. The book is divided into five parts and eleven chapters. Allow me to provide a brief overview of each of these.

The first part is entitled "God and Sex." The first two chapters comprise John Piper's contribution to the book. Piper asserts two weighty points. First, that sexuality is designed by God as a way to know God in Christ more fully. Second, that knowing God in Christ more fully is designed as a way of guarding and guiding our sexuality. Essentially he wants the reader to believe that sex was given to us so that God could use the language of sex as metaphor so we could know Him more fully. He makes quite a weak attempt at proving this assertion with passages from Ezekiel and Hosea. Unfortunately he is far from convincing and...Read more

This book grows out of the 2004 Desiring God National Conference with it's theme of "Sex and the Supremacy of Christ". It is a collection of essays by various authors--including John Piper, Al Mohler, Mark Dever and Ben Patterson--on subjects relating to the proper Christian view and use of the God-given gift of sex. The essays are grouped into five categories: God and Sex, Sin and Sex, Men and Sex, Women and Sex, History and Sex.

As one might expect with any book that is a collection of essays by different authors, Sex and the Supremacy of Christ is a little uneven because the quality of the essays varies. Unfortunately, the two chapters by John Piper at the beginning of the book--chapters that seemed to be intended to be the backbone of the book as a whole--were the two chapters I found to be the most unconvincing. Piper's first premise is that "sexuality is designed by God as a way to know God in Christ more fully." I suppose this may be true, but I don't think...Read more

Last Spring, Justin Taylor of Between Two Worlds Blog (and Desiring God Ministries) put out a call for bloggers to review a book he had a part in - Sex and the Supremecy of Christ. I was one of the lucky few who got in early enough to be blessed with the opportunity, and below entails my thoughts on the book.

First, I would like to comment on how appropriate the subject for the book is for Christians today. As Christians, we are called to glorify God in all that we do, and within that fall our sexuality. This is often directly opposed by how the world that surrounds us views sex and sexuality. As yet to be perfected Christians we are impacted by the graphicness and pervasiveness of the inappropriate and negative message that society showers us with on a daily basis. This book serves to begin to balance that out by giving us a clear explanation on God's design for sex.

What I liked best in the book:

First, I greatly appreciate the readability of this...Read more