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With 2025 on its way, Pastor John Piper is using his platform to encourage his listeners to read their whole Bible this year. A listener named Mike reached out to Piper, stating he was hoping to read through the Bible for the first time this year. “I feel a little excited and a lot intimidated and enormously unprepared for the year ahead,” said Mike. “I’ve never done anything like this before. What’s your advice for me? And what obstacles must I expect to overcome to pull this off in 2025?”

Piper praised God for Mike’s decision to read the Bible for 2025, and noted that “you should be excited, and yes, you should be intimidated. You are in significant ways unprepared. Me too. That’s why we’re reading.” He shared with Mike that there would be three major challenges to reading the whole Bible this year, with the first being that Mike should “expect opposition.” “Satan hates the word of God and will disincline you, blind you, distract you, bore you,” warned Piper. He encouraged Mike to “pray and fight” and that the tools of the devil would backfire.

In addition to facing opposition, Piper also encouraged Mike and his listeners to “expect to be shocked.” “The Bible is stunningly graphic in its description of both our outrageous sin and God’s breathtaking judgment on sin.” Indeed, many who have “deconstructed” from their Christian faith have cited some of the more graphic stories in the Bible as something that turned them off from the faith. One of Piper’s own sons, Abraham Piper, cited several stories that impacted his own deconstruction. “While other kids are learning to read with comics or whatever normal parents have around the house, here fundie (fundamental) kids are…6,7,8 years old devouring stories of Jezebel being defenestrated and then eaten by dogs, or Judas‘ bowels bursting out, or Noah’s sons laughing at him when he was passed out drunk and naked,” he said in one video criticizing parents making their children read their Bible. He called the Bible “‘Game of Thrones‘…except if you don’t read it you go to hell.” Piper seems to be preparing his listeners, who may be more used to “family-friendly” sanitized Bible stores for the actual rawness of the Bible.

A third negative, according to Piper, was that new readers need to be prepared to be confused. He cited three reasons why this is: God continues to conceal certain things, certain revelations are hard to understand, and oftentimes a teacher is needed to offer illumination. “Do whatever digging in study helps you,” Piper suggested. “Put things together that you can put together, and what you can’t figure out, put on the shelf for later attention and keep on moving. If you get bogged down with what you can’t understand, you’ll never finish the reading for the day.”

Despite the challenges, Piper offered nine positives to Bible reading. He stated that Bible reading leads to a “deepened and strengthened” faith, which would lead to “serious liberating work in your life.” And, despite the challenges the devil would put in the way, Piper noted that a third benefit of Bible reading would be “new power in war with Satan.” He cited Jesus’s temptation in the wilderness and how he used the Bible to defeat Satan’s temptations. Fourthly, Piper said Bible reading would create a “deep sanctifying work in your life,” that would also lead to becoming “a more loving person to those around you.” “So you’re going to find love for people growing in your heart as you immerse yourself in the whole sweep of Scripture,” said Piper. He also said the being grounded in the Scriptures would ground him in salvation, and that Bible reading would lead to “unshakable joy.” He rounded out the benefits by pointing out that Bible reading helps the reader to meet God and to “see the glory of Christ.”

Piper finished his admonition by saying he would pray for Mike. He also exhorted him to hold fast to his plan to read the Bible in 2025. “Be valiant,” he said. “Make a vow to the Lord to keep it, and you won’t regret it.”

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