John Piper draws on key biblical texts to argue that the ultimate goal of the church is the worship of God among all peoples, and that missions is both driven by that worship and aimed at it. He works through the supremacy of God in the whole of life, the place of prayer and suffering in the missionary task, the question of whether the unevangelised may be saved apart from hearing Christ, and what Scripture means by the nations that are to be reached.

Now in a third edition, this has sold well over 185,000 copies and is used widely as a missions textbook, in part because it grounds the practical task in theology rather than in statistics or technique. Piper writes with the same conviction that runs through his preaching, and the book is as likely to be read for devotion as for coursework by students, pastors, missionaries and sending churches.