THE JOY PROJECT by Tony Reinke: Updated and Expanded
A new edition of The Joy Project by Tony Reinke is now available.
Last fall I wrote about how much I liked Tony Reinke’s book The Joy Project. The book tells the story of what God has done to bring us joy—forever.
The Joy Project was recently re-released. Tony Reinke, Desiring God, and Cruciform Press teamed up to improve the book. It now has a new subtitle (“An Introduction to Calvinism”), a foreword by John Piper, expanded and clarified content, and a new study guide.
And because The Joy Project now has its own study guide, I retired the study guide that I wrote for the book. It’s no longer available for purchase. Thank you to everyone who bought a copy and found it helpful.
I feel prividgled that Reinke included my endorsement with the new print version, which goes like this:
The Joy Project is a celebration of reformed theology, and in this way it’s more in keeping with the Bible’s treatment of the subject—behold the beauty before bemoaning the controversies. We cover this topic briefly in our church membership class, and for those who want to pursue it further, this book, for its accessibility and warmth, is the one I’ll recommend first.
If you’d like to pick up the book, you can do so on Amazon.
RELATED POSTS
God’s Joy Project: A Small Group Discussion Guide
I’ve written a discussion guide for Tony Reinke’s book The Joy Project: A True Story of Inescapable Happiness. You can get it here free of charge.
[Update June 29, 2018: Tony Reinke published an updated edition of The Joy Project with it's own study guide, which means mine is now longer for sale.]
I’ve written a discussion guide for Tony Reinke’s book The Joy Project: A True Story of Inescapable Happiness, which can be downloaded free of charge in three digital formats at desiringGod.org. Reinke is senior writer for desiringGod.org, host of the popular “Ask Pastor John” podcast, and the author of several books, including 12 Ways Your Phone Is Changing You, which was published in the spring.
My workbook for The Joy Project includes a short introduction to Reformed theology as well as a 7-week discussion guide. This companion guide is ideal for personal study and small group discussion. It provides questions for each chapter of Reinke’s book and discussion questions related to Christian songs that share the themes of each chapter.
We are all looking for joy. The Joy Project, however, is the story of how joy finds us. It’s the story of how God has worked, and is working, to save his people and love them forever.
Reinke tells this story through the theological framework of Calvinism, or more specifically the acronym TULIP (total depravity, unconditional election, limited atonement, irresistible grace, and perseverance of the saints). In one of my favorite quotes from the book, Reinke writes,
Anticipating unending joy in the presence of Christ changes everything. It means we can relinquish control over our lives. It means we have no fear of the future. It means all our pressing toward personal holiness is not in vain. God elects so that we will be conformed to the image of Christ, in his holiness and in his happiness. It will be done, and we strive and obey in this inescapable hope.
You can download electronic versions of the workbook free of charge here (PDF, Kindle, iBook).
{Special thanks to Ben Bechtel, Stacey Covell, Jason Abbott, and Alexandra Richter for their editorial assistance on the workbook.}
9 Quotes from THE JOY PROJECT by Tony Reinke
The Joy Project by Tony Reinke was released earlier this week. You can download the book free of charge at Desiring God. Here are nine of my favorite passages in the book.
Yesterday I rode my bike past a church sign that said,
Happiness is not
the absence of difficulties
but the presence of God.
Typically, church signs are nothing more than clichés and sentimentality. Blah. But this one is pretty good. Yet we must ask, “If happiness comes from God’s presence, how do we get God’s presence?”
Tony Reinke wrote The Joy Project: A True Story of Inescapable Happiness to answer this question. The book was released earlier this week, and you can download the book free of charge, in three digital formats, at desiringGod.org/thejoyproject.
The book explores—no, celebrates!—God’s mission to bring his children infinite joy. And it does so through the theological framework called Calvinism or the doctrines of grace or the acronym TULIP (total depravity, unconditional election, limited atonement, irresistible grace, and perseverance of the saints). In fact, these five points serve as the scaffolding for the five central chapters of the book.
The Joy Project, however, is not a polemical fight. Rather, as I said above, it’s a celebration, and in this way it’s more in keeping with the Bible’s treatment of the subject—behold the beauty before bemoaning the controversies.
In the spring I read Five Points: Towards a Deeper Experience of God’s Grace by John Piper. It was a good book (and Reinke quotes from it a few times and Piper more than a few times), but I think The Joy Project is the book that I’d be more likely to give to the people in our church. I’m not saying it’s necessarily better, just perhaps more suited.
Reinke wrote on his blog, “The Joy Project…fulfills of a dream of mine to write and publish a full book free of charge to the world.”
Thanks, Tony, for livin’ the dream. And thanks, Desiring God, for making it happen. And now may God use this book as a means to completing his joy project.
* * *
Below are a few of my favorite passages.
We conclude that the barriers to abiding joy are the unhealthy choices that clog our lives. The root problem, we think, is that we’re stuck in a rut of predictability and laziness, so we must unstick ourselves. We turn to self-improvement... We buy productivity apps for our phones. We resolve to become more “chill” parents, sexier spouses, better friend-winners, and more purposeful people-influencers. We need to sit less and walk more. We need to sleep more and eat less… We drink more water, less coffee, less soda. We buy organic, fair trade, rBGH-free, gluten-free, free-range. We pay off credit card debt and build our savings… We commit to staying on top of our e-mails, checking our phones less often, watching less television, visiting the library more, and reading our neglected stacks of books. (p. 2*)
Simply put, the driving motive in history is the desire for happiness. All sin, from slavery to prostitution to racism to terrorism to extortion to the sparks that ignite world wars—all are driven by a desire for happiness apart from God. (p. 13)
The greatest hazard we face is not intellectual atheism—denying that God exists. Our most desperate problem is affectional atheism—refusing to believe God is the object of our greatest and most enduring joy. This is the heart of our foolishness. The fool speaks from the depths of his affections and longings and declares: God is irrelevant (Ps. 14:1). (p. 13)
Even if we don’t feel them, the consequences are real. Our idols misshape our souls like drugs alter the facial features of a meth addict. Unlike a drug-ravaged face, whose degeneration can be captured by time-lapsed photos, we don’t see the drastic changes to our souls quite so readily, but this soul-distortion afflicts everyone who follows after the pleasures of sin. (p. 22)
We are dying sinners in desperate need of a spiritual double bypass surgery, but we spend our pocket change on double cheeseburgers. We get happy again with a momentary food buzz, but the temporary buzz is slowly killing us. (p. 25)
Left to ourselves, we are stuck in our total depravity. The centripetal force of our affections keeps us gazing at ourselves. We turn away from God for our joy, and turn toward all we have left: money, sex, power, personal affirmation, Facebook friends, Twitter followers, and Instagram “likes.” We use these old technologies (and we will use new technologies in the future) to tabulate our approval and then to use those metrics of approval to compare our popularity with others. When we do, we trade authentic glory for residual sludge. It’s like drinking mud. And we choke. (p. 33)
The cross did not merely make salvation possible. The cross is not like a single who secures a wedding date and reserves an elegant church years before finding a mate, hoping they will find someone in the meantime. No, Christ’s death secured salvation for the elect individually, by name. In his death, Christ effectually pursues a bride by entering the brothel of idolatry to grab hold of the elect, one by one, by name, and pulling them out from the bondage of sin. (pp. 55-56)
Anticipating unending joy in the presence of Christ changes everything. It means we can relinquish control over our lives. It means we have no fear of the future. It means all our pressing toward personal holiness is not in vain. God elects so that we will be conformed to the image of Christ, in his holiness and in his happiness. It will be done, and we strive and obey in this inescapable hope. (p. 99)
But of course you and I know better than to say we found joy. Rather, joy found us—sometimes slowly, sometimes at warp speed. That is the story of TULIP. Calvinism is the story of a long-planned, sovereign joy that finds you before you even see it coming. (p. 121)
* All pages numbers from the PDF version.
#thejoyproject
MOM ENOUGH edited by Tony and Karalee Reinke (FAN AND FLAME Book Reviews)
Becoming a mother is to enlist in a war. And what makes this war so difficult, is that the enemies are not always obvious. MOM ENOUGH is written by women that know much about the difficulties of this war, but who also know about how to win.
Tony and Karalee Reinke (editors). Mom Enough: The Fearless Mother’s Heart and Hope. Minneapolis, MN: Desiring God, 2014. 120 pp. $7.99.
Being a mom is a wonderful but difficult job. Too often Pinterest does in subtle ways what Victoria Secret does overtly—crush women under the weight of airbrushed unrealities.
But it’s not only Pinterest and Victoria Secret that can inflict damage. Sometimes damage comes from other moms. Innocent playgroups turn into competitions over who has the perfect, God-ordained way of preparing organic, gluten-free, low-carb snacks. And sometimes damage can even come from the Bible, or, at least, from the mishandling of it. For example, Proverbs 31—a chapter that celebrates women and mothers—can be (mis)taught so that it becomes just another crushing airbrushed unreality.
This is why I’m so thankful for books like Mom Enough: The Fearless Mother’s Heart and Hope edited by Tony and Karalee Reinke. It doesn’t make this mistake. Mom Enough doesn’t crush; it gives wings.
When I bought Mom Enough, I knew it was a collection of short essays from various women, all published authors. However, when I received the book and read in the preface that each entry was originally a blog post for Desiring God, I was a little disappointed. I love the ministry of Desiring God, but at first I was annoyed because the last book I read like this (blog posts turned into a book) was lousy. Mom Enough, however, is not lousy. It’s excellent. As soon as I finished the book, I bought three more to give away. And with Mother’s Day coming next month, there is still plenty of time for you to get several copies to do the same (here).
The title Mom Enough is taken from one of the book’s essays of the same name, which in turn, is a callback to the Time magazine article from the summer of 2012 that had those words on its cover. If you saw that cover, you’d remember it; it pictured a woman breastfeeding a toddler that looked like he was about a year away from kindergarten.
In the book, author Rachel Pieh Jones pointedly describes the “mom enough” battle.
From television, Facebook, blogs, and Pinterest, the message screamed at moms is this: unless you are fit to run marathons, breastfeed into the preschool years, own a spotless and creatively decorated home, tend a flourishing garden, prepare three home-cooked meals per day, work a high-powered job, and give your husband expert, sensual massages before bed, you are not mom enough. (Rachel Pieh Jones, Mom Enough, 19, emphasis original)
But Jones is waving the white flag.
From my perspective, however, the Mommy War is over. Done. Finished. Kaput. And I lost. I am not mom enough. Never was, never will be. (19-20)
Yet quitting the “mommy war” does not mean she is ceasing to fight.
But I am on the frontlines of another war. The battles are raging and the casualties could be my children, my husband, or myself. This war isn’t about me being mom enough. This war is about God being “God enough.” (20)
And this war—the fight of faith to believe that God is an all-satisfying fountain of joy and big enough and caring enough to help us in our daily lives—is a war that began long ago. This war started in a garden when a serpent implied that God wasn’t God enough and when Adam and Eve believed they would be happier if they went their own way.
Right now, my wife is pregnant, which I know is a difficult season for all women, but it is especially so for my wife. No, she won’t spend the entire time in the hospital (Lord willing), but during past pregnancies, we have certainly made a few visits for extreme dehydration because of constant vomiting. My wife is a warrior, that’s for sure. I try to help her as best as I can, but what Mom Enough reminded me is that what my wife needs most—and what I believe all Christians need most (mothers or not)—is to know that in the midst of the battle, God is always God enough.
LIT! by Tony Reinke (FAN AND FLAME Book Reviews)
There was a time when I hated to read and write. Today, all of that has changed. But with this change came questions. For example, how do I pick which books to read, and once I do read them, how shall I make the most of them? Tony Reinke wrote a helpful book called LIT! to answer these questions.
Tony Reinke. Lit!: A Christian Guide to Reading Books. Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway, 2011. 208 pp. $15.99.
A few years ago, Tony Reinke wrote a great book about reading called, Lit!: A Christian Guide to Reading Books. But let me say at the start: the thought of reading a book written about the topic of reading books was a strange thought. But an even stranger thought was writing a book review of a book about how to read books. That proposition made me feel like I was standing in front of a mirror—holding another mirror. So, I’m not going to do a long review here. Instead, I’d like to offer a “miniature memoir” about why I found Lit! tremendously helpful and why I think other people will too.
From Blended Wheatgrass to Strawberry-banana Smoothies
In college, I studied Mechanical Engineering. I chose this major for three reasons. First, my father is an engineer, and so it was familiar. Second, I was pretty good at math and science. Third—and this might be the most important reason why I chose engineering—I hated to read and write. Hated it!
But maybe this feeling isn’t so uncommon. Reinke writes, “For most, reading is like trying to drink down a huge vitamin” (15). Imagine that!—drinking a tall, chalky glass of Flintstones. And, with only a few exceptions, that is what reading was like for me.
Then things changed. God took hold of my life in a powerful way. The specifics of why and how the change occurred I will leave for another day, but I should say this part now: when I began to understand God’s love for me through Jesus, I also began to realize something else, namely, Christians read the Bible, and they read lots of other books too.
This, as you can imagine, was a difficult transition for me, especially as I began to feel called into full-time ministry. For instance, when I started seminary, I struggled with the demands to read and write. I think that is true for most seminary students, but I know that I certainly felt behind. And, if I am honest, not only did my enjoyment of reading lag, but also my ability. I just wasn’t very good at it. And, even today, I wouldn’t say that I’m great at it.
However, after lots of practice—much of it forced upon me by seminary and pastoral ministry—I can honestly say my frustration with drinking down vitamins has grown into love.
A Little Summary
Now enter Reinke’s book. The subtitle, A Christian Guide to Reading Books, was just the type of thing I needed. I bought it on a table at The Gospel Coalition’s national conference in 2013, but unfortunately, as books tend to do, it sat on my shelf for a year and a half before I read it. Now, however, I wish I had read it sooner.
Lit! is set up in two parts. The first section is a theology of books and reading. In the opening chapter, Reinke explores the fundamental distinction in literature. He writes:
Somewhere around 1450 BC, on a remote Egyptian mountaintop called Mount Sinai, an author wrote something so earth-shaking that the publishing industry has never recovered. It never will. (23)
Reinke is talking about the Ten Commandments, and, of course, the author is God. Using this moment in history as a starting point, Reinke goes on to argue that there are really only two genres of literature: Genre A: The Bible, and Genre B: All Other Books (27). Borrowing words from Charles Spurgeon, Reinke frames the distinction pointedly: there is the gold bar (the Bible) and the gold leaf (everything else). Only the Bible is—in the most ultimate sense—“inspired,” “inerrant,” “sufficient,” “supreme,” and “offers us a coherent worldview” (25).
Some people, because of their high view of the Bible, are tempted to conclude that we should never read anything but the Bible. This makes some sense, right? We all have limited time, so why not make the most of our time: read the best and forget the rest?
Reinke disagrees, however. Those “other books,” the gold leaves, matter too; they have much to offer. I do not think Reinke actually uses this phrase, but we might say there is a feedback loop between the Bible and other books, especially the good ones. This feedback loop works in such a way that by reading both (the Bible and other good literature) our reading of both is enhanced.
This is where the second half of Lit! comes in, namely, practical advice on reading. Reinke is asking questions like this:
If we are going to read things other than the Bible (which he says we should), then how do we maintain the primacy of the Bible?
And if we read other books, how do we know which books? There are so many. As Solomon said, “Of making many books there is no end” (Ecclesiastes 12:12).
And once we have picked which books, then what steps can we take to read them well?
These are good questions, and Reinke gives good answers to them.
So Why Not Launch a Book Club?
As I read though Lit! in the fall, I was encouraged to try something we’ve never done at our church before. This year, I’m teaming up with my co-pastor to lead a book club. For this first year, we picked eight novels, books like Of Mice and Men and Pride and Prejudice. Our first meeting was last weekend—The Great Gatsby.
I suppose I probably should have already read most of these books, perhaps even in high school. But this is what I’m trying to say; I’m playing catch up. And as I attempt to make up for lost time, books like Lit! have been so helpful.
* * *
A Few Favorite Quotes
“In non-Christian works we discover what is so close, and yet so far away, from what we read in the Bible. The challenge is to make use of the ‘so close’ for our edification and for the glory of God while being aware of the ‘yet so far.’” (Reinke, Lit!, 77)
“The imagination-stretching images [especially in books like Revelation] are God’s way of sliding the spiritual defibrillator over the slowing hearts of sluggish Christians. The images are for Christians who are growing lazy and beginning to compromise with the world, Christians who are allowing their hearts to become gradually hardened by sin. The answer is a spiritual shock. It is God’s way of confronting worldliness and idolatry in the church. When idolatry begins to lure the Christian heart, God reaches into our imagination with images intended to stun us back to spiritual vibrancy … [Thus] to view imaginative literature as a genre fit only for the amusement of children is an act of spiritual negligence.” (Reinke, Lit!, 88-9)
“The rewards of reading literature are significant. Literature helps to humanize us. It expands our range of experiences. It fosters awareness of ourselves and the world. It enlarges our compassion for people. It awakens our imaginations. It expresses our feelings and insights about God, nature, and life. It enlivens our sense of beauty. And it is a constructive form of entertainment.” (Reinke, Lit!, 128)
Related Post
In my first blog post I interacted with Reinke’s podcast Authors on the Line. You can read that post here, Fresh Words, Fresh Language, Fresh Blood.
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Two Favorite Sermons on the Biblical View of Sex
Why did God make us sexual beings? And what difference does the knowledge of God make to our sexuality? Find the answers here.
I've listened to a lot of sermons. In the last decade, I estimate 3-4 per week. That makes for 1,500-2,000 sermons. Along the way, there have been many good ones. The other day, something reminded me of 2 sermons that are in my ‘Top 10.’ And both of them happen to be by John Piper, and both just happen to be on sex.
The sermons come from the Design God National Conference a few years ago. The title of the conference was, “Sex and the Supremacy of Christ.”
WARNING: Do not confuse the order of this title. Our culture does.
Dr. Piper opened and closed the conference with these two messages (here and here). This month is the 10th anniversary of the conference, and the messages are more relevant, not less, today.
Below is a favorite quote from each:
Sex and the Supremacy of Christ, Part I
[God’s] goal in creating human beings with personhood and passion was to make sure that there would be sexual language and sexual images that would point to the promises and the pleasures of God’s relationship to his people and our relationship to him. In other words, the ultimate reason (not the only one) why we are sexual is to make God more deeply knowable. The language and imagery of sexuality is the most graphic and most powerful that the Bible uses to describe the relationship between God and his people—both positively (when we are faithful) and negatively (when we are not).
Sex and the Supremacy of Christ, Part II
As Abraham Kuyper used to say, “there is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry, ‘Mine!’” And rule with absolute supremacy. And though it may not seem so now, it is only a matter of time until he is revealed from heaven in flaming fire to give relief to those who trust him and righteous vengeance on those who don’t.
This second quote is the crescendo of 10 minutes of sustained exultation of the supremacy of Christ. Wonderful stuff. Again, the messages are more relevant today, not less.
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A reminder that Christian ministry must always be about Christ.