Savor the Taste

In Taste and See: Savoring the Supremacy of God in All of Life (Colorado Springs: Multnomah, 2005), John Piper notes:

Boston pastor John Cotton, who died in 1652, had spiritual tastes that are unintelligible to the average modern person. In his declining years he was asked why he read late into the evening. “Because I love to sweeten my mouth with a piece of Calvin before I go to sleep,” he replied.

There are bad reasons to turn to other writers besides the Bible. And there are good ones. One of the bad reasons we turn to other writers is that we find the Bible tame and tasteless. It is anything but tame and tasteless. One of the good reasons we turn to other writers besides the Bible is that we savor the taste of God not only in the Bible, but also in the way others savor him. The best writers intensify our taste for the Bible, and especially for God himself. (p. 11)

The way others articulate God according to the Bible and interpret the Bible in order to know God has been encouraging me to move on in the Kingdom of God. It’s so easy to be self-content and stop. It’s okay to pause for a minute. But it’s a great sin to stop. As the author of Hebrews says, “Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us” (Heb. 12:1, ESV). Because of the example of Christ, it’s certainly not okay to “grow weary or fainthearted” (Heb. 12:2-3) in the race.

Eugene Peterson has had this effect on me in the area of spiritual and pastoral theology; Walter Brueggemann, on the interpretation of the Old Testament; John Calvin, on Reformed Theology; John Stott, on Evangelical Theology; and Roy Ciampa and Scott Hafemann on the interpretation of the New Testament. All of them savor the taste of God in Christian theology and ministry, and they intensify my taste for the God of the Bible and the revelation of God as Scripture.

“Because I love to sweeten my mouth with a piece of Calvin before I go to sleep.”