A Quest for More: Living for Something Bigger Than You

The best personal discipleship book I've read in five years. With some of Tripp's better know titles out there I think this one may have gotten missed. We were made for transcendence (to experience God's glory) and anything we allow to take the place of it (even good things) causes us to shrink our lives to something less than the more that we all quest for. I highly recommend this book and will put it on my yearly read list.

Reviewed by Vicki Landes for Reader Views (1/08) "A Quest for More" strives to show our lives as `little kingdoms' in relation to God's kingdom in hopes that we realize we need more than just a busy jumble of daily activities to be satisfied. Instead, Tripp focuses on transcendence - to rise above ourselves for something much greater. "This desire for transcendence is in all of us because God placed it there. He constructed us to live for more than ourselves." He urges us to use this God-given drive for something other than gaining material possessions or personal success. Paul David Tripp imparts some very weighty points for consideration and contemplation throughout his book. Further, he makes it easy to see how his information can be applied in a myriad of situations in everyday life. "A Quest for More" is extremely thorough and organized in examining a transcendent lifestyle while backed with plenty of biblical scriptures. Like his other books, Tripp writes with the gentle tone of fatherly authority. "A Quest for More" is encouraging and uplifting while holding firm to its heavenly principles of service to God. "A Quest for More" is more than just an inspiring read; it's a catalyst for action and inner scrutiny. I especially liked his points he makes in regard to today's `Jesus is my BFF' mentality: "In our comfortable, meet-my-needs, God's-my-best-buddy form of Christianity, [fear of the Lord] is a very timely call." I see "A Quest for More" as a jarring reality check for anyone who feels their method of worship has hit a plateau or gotten too easy. Looking for more out of life? Paul David Tripp offers more in his appropriately titled new book, "A Quest for More," but it's not what our society views as the typical path to a bigger, better life. Scriptural foundations still have modern day applications and Paul David Tripp makes it easy to learn the how's and why's of living for something much bigger than yourself.

Let me first say that if you are a Christian this is one of those books that you think you should read but really don't want to. Let's face it, most of us do not enjoy being confronted, challenged, and shown that we are wrong. It is much more appealing to our fallen natures to be affirmed and pacified rather than admonished and exhorted. However, for the believer we should be pursuing a life that is centered on the glory and exaltation of God rather than the shameful preservation of self. A Quest for More, by Paul Tripp, is a tool to deflate your pride, recalibrate your life, and increase your love for the God of grace. The book pivots on a universal problem, we are living for the glory and kingdom of ourselves rather than the transcendent glory and kingdom of God. [Let me just say to all of my dispensationalist friends, he is not talking about the literal physical kingdom but the universal, sovereign reign of God over all things. So, please don't check out and dismiss this book because of terminology, the blessing far outweighs personal preferences here.] Tripp writes, "In a fallen world there is a powerful pressure to constrict your life to the shape and size of your life. There is a compelling tendency to forget who you are and what you were made for. There is a tendency to be short-sighted, myopic, and easily distracted. There is a tendency to settle for less when you have been created for more. There is something expansive, glorious, and eternal that is meant to give direction to everything you do. And when you lose sight of it, you have effectively denied your own humanity." He goes on to caution against a wrong mindset that this is all about adding more stuff to your list and instead says it is about injecting your list with transcendent purpose: "It is about living for a greater kingdom than the kingdom of my life, my family, and my job. And where do I live for this greater kingdom? In my life, in my family, and in my job! This book was not written to call to you to stop doing everything you have been doing or to start doing a bunch of new things. Rather, it is a call to do what God has called you to do with a vision that is as broad and deep as the glory of God." With these marching orders, Tripp sets out dissect the readers' lives by demonstrating ways that we "shrink our lives to the size of our lives". He couches the discussion in biblical theology, starting with the fall (which is worth the price of the book), and working through the horrific implications of being self-consumed, pursuing self-righteousness in accordance with self-authority and at the end of the day, claiming self-worship. I was thankful for Tripp's penetrating analysis into `church life' where, regrettably, small kingdom living too often prevails. His antidotes that open each chapter and fill the book are extremely practical, well-suited, and very understandable. Additionally, Tripp's fluid, clear, and descriptive writing style make this book a double blessin

This book is well laid out in bite size chapters. I have found it to be challenging to my comfortable,complacent christianity. That said, it is not another "get busy for christ" book. If it was, I would have thrown it in the trash. Instead, I would describe it as a book that invites you to know and love God and to be part of his larger purposes out of your love for Him. This is an amazingly inspirational book, you'll be glad you took the time to read it.

There are few writers whose star seems to rise and rise as they turn out book after book. Paul David Tripp is one of those writers. Tripp has been positively prolific in the last few years, with three books either authored or co-authored in 2006 and 2007 alone. Every Paul Tripp book has become an instant classic in Reformed biblical counseling circles, and each release is anticipated more than the last. Tripp is not only a prolific writer, but a prolific worker. The various hats he wears include faculty member for both the Christian Counseling and Educational Foundation and Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, pastor of Tenth Presbyterian's Center City initiative in the same city, and sought-after conference speaker under the banner of Paul Tripp Ministries. And this list only takes account of current activities; in the past he co-founded a church and a Christian school, as well as conducting a thriving, decades-long biblical counseling ministry. Did I mention he is a gifted, prolific writer? A Quest for More is his latest effort, and while it lives up to its expectations, it is bound to raise some eyebrows along the way. It is rife with quotable words and phrases, not to mention life-altering, paradigm-shifting observations. The challenge is therefore to select representative parts of the book for comment, and to let the actual book do the rest of the work. Tripp is spot on when he says the book defies categorization. Some reviewers may be tempted to allocate this book to the purpose-driven category, and it is, in the best sense of the word. But "it is not enough to determine to have purpose," says Tripp. Not simply a book of practical principles founded upon truth propositions, it bares Paul Tripp's heart for authentic kingdom living. He labors long and hard to mark out the borderline between the `big sky kingdom' of God and the personal, destructive, little kingdoms we build to rival the big kingdom, intentionally or not. Astute biblical counselor that he is, Tripp says no-man's land doesn't exist between the two kingdoms. You are either living for God or for yourself. Frighteningly, you can think you are living for God when you are in fact living for self. Throughout the book Tripp unpacks many practical (`functional,' in Tripp's terminology) ways in which we live for one kingdom or the other. After setting up the controlling idea of big kingdom (God) versus little kingdom (self), he weaves in analogies of civilization, costume, shrink wrap (believe it or not), jazz, and romance, just to name a few. It takes a gifted communicator to translate these concepts into productive illustrations, but Tripp accomplishes what he has set out to do in every instance. The chapter colorfully entitled `The Costume Kingdom' is the highpoint of the book, in which Tripp relentlessly exposes ways and means Christians use to conduct little kingdom business under the guise of big kingdom living. This scrutiny of this chapter leaves no place to hide,