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About the Book
In 1742 Yale College expelled David Brainerd.
A spiritual awakening had been sparked on the campus in months prior. As it began to grow and draw in more zealous students, tensions arose among the skeptical faculty such that the college trustees passed a code prohibiting students from even insinuate that any of the faculty were “hypocrites, carnal or unconverted men.”
Before long it was reported that Brainerd had made some uncharitable comments of this kind and, though he was at the top of his class academically, they booted him. Add to this that in order to be an established minister in Connecticut you had to be a graduate of Yale, Harvard, or a European university. Brainerd’s dreams (and obedience!) to become a pastor came crashing down. It was very difficult, as John Piper explains, “Brained felt cut off from his life calling.”
This is a hard fact to swallow. Tragic, it might seem, considering that David Brainerd died at the young age of 29. But here we are looking at his life, admitting there’s a good story to be told, and retold. One that’s not about the expulsion, but about what God did through him in that handful of years between the expulsion and his death.
Originally delivered as a message at the 1990 Conference for Pastors, John Piper tells Brainerd’s story in this short ebook, “David Brainerd: May I Never Loiter on My Heavenly Journey!”
An EPUB file is formatted for readers like the Nook, Sony Reader, and Apple iBooks (iPad, iPhone, iPod). A MOBI file is formatted for Kindle applications (this option works well on some mobile devices, and not so well on others).
About John Piper
John Piper is Pastor for Preaching and Vision at Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, MN. He grew up in Greenville, SC, and studied at Wheaton College, where he first sensed God’s call to enter the ministry. He went on to earn degrees from Fuller Theological Seminary (B.D.) and the University of Munich (D.Theol.). For six years he taught Biblical Studies at Bethel College in St. Paul, MN, and in 1980 accepted the call to serve as pastor at Bethlehem. John is the author of more than 40 books including Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist and Bloodlines: Race, Cross, and the Christian. John and his wife, Noel, have four sons, one daughter, and twelve grandchildren.