My wife Tammy and I have gone to several Ligonier Ministries theology conferences over the years. One thing we always look forward to are the “Question and Answers” sessions, which are some of our favorite sessions of each conference. I also enjoy the Ask Ligonier podcast as well as the Friday edition of The Briefing, when Albert Mohler takes listener questions.
I have listened to the Ask Pastor John podcast (I listen on the app), since it began in 2013. Tony Reinke is the host of the podcast. He asks questions submitted by listeners to pastor John Piper. Through the end of the first decade of the podcast, 1,881 episodes were released, which had been played over 230 million times, or about 125,000 times each. I was able to attend two Ask Pastor John live sessions at the 2019 and 2022 Sing! Conferences. In fact, at the 2019 conference, Reinke asked Piper a question that I had submitted for the session.
Recently, Reinke released the book Ask Pastor John: 750 Bible Answers to Life’s Most Important Questions. Reinke states that the book is a guided tour, a narrated synthesis of the 750 most popular episodes, mostly on situational ethics, published in the Ask Pastor John audio podcast over the course of its first decade. Reinke writes that the purpose of the podcast is to disciple Christians into mentors who can better serve the people around them. The podcast doesn’t subvert local churches; it fortifies them.
I have just started reading the 712-page book, and I assume it will take me some time to get through it as I read a few of the selections each day. The book reminds me of R.C. Sproul’s 1996 book Now, That’s a Good Question! which took about three hundred of the questions and answers from his radio program Ask R.C. and put them in book form, an excellent resource that I have turned to many times since the book was published.
A look at a sampling of the contents of the Ask Pastor John book reflects the wide-reaching nature of subjects that the book addresses:
- On Politics, Patriotism, and Culture Wars
- On Careers, Calling and Overworking
- On Cussing, Lying and Gossip
- On Married Sex, Bedroom Taboos, and Fading Attraction
- On Hard Marriages, Divorce, and Abuse
- On Alcohol, Tobacco, and Pot
- On Lust, Porn, and TV Nudity
- On Trials, Sorrow, and Chronic Pain
- On Retirement, Snowbirding, and Finishing Well
- On Suicide, Euthanasia, and the Will to Live
One of the hopes of Reinke and Piper for the book is that it will draw readers to the audio podcast, which I heartily recommend to you. To that end, here is a link to the Ask Pastor John podcast.
