John Piper, Battling Unbelief: Defeating Sin with Superior Pleasure (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2026), 151 pp.
In 1995, I read John Piper’s epic work, Future Grace. I was a young pastor, wrestling with theology and the implications of the gospel on the Christian life. That book was life-changing as it shone the spotlight on God’s invincible grace and the necessity of clinging to it as an all-sufficient treasure.
Over twenty years later, John Piper has gifted the church with a shorter, more accessible version of his earlier work. Battling Unbelief: Defeating Sin with Superior Pleasure is more than a mere synopsis or run of the mill cut and paste. The author has synthesized Future Grace into a manageable and inviting treatise that invites readers to join him on a quest of “living by faith in future grace.”
Battling Unbelief focuses on seven fronts: battling anxiety, pride, misplaced shame, impatience, covetousness, bitterness, despondency, and lust. Each chapter is a sort of treasure chest that alerts readers to the seriousness of a given sin and the solution for “defeating sin with superior pleasure.” Gratitude for past grace undergirds the battle plan in this book. Piper defines gratitude “a humble, happy response to the goodwill of someone who has willed to do us a favor.” He adds, “Only if we trust God to turn past calamities into future comfort can we look back with gratitude for everything.” But the author also urges a forward look, what he refers to as “future grace … which is so utterly crucial in God’s great plan to glorify himself and satisfy his people.”
Battling Unbelief should be required reading for every Christian. It is packed with gospel encouragement that will train the mind, engage the heart, and move hands and feet in a Godward direction.
I received this book free from the publisher. I was not required to write a positive review.