Tag: John Piper

Lectures on ‘The Pastor as Scholar, and the Scholar as Pastor’

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On Thursday, April 23, 2009, at Park Community Church in Chicago, IL, the Carl F. H. Henry Center for Theological Understanding of Trinity Evangelical Divinity School hosted Dr. John Piper ofBethlehem Baptist Church and Dr. D. A. Carson of Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. Titled “The Pastor as Scholar, and the Scholar as Pastor: Reflections on Life and Ministry with John Piper and D.A. Carson”, the evening featured hour-long lectures by Drs. Piper and Carson offering reflections of a theological and personal nature on the work of the pastor and the scholar, respectively. Below are video links to their talks.

Carson talk

Pastor as Scholar


News books coming from John Piper

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Currently, John Piper is on a writing leave at Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis. This update was posted today on the progress he’s making five weeks into it. Here is where he’s at:

I have completed a manuscript titled Seek It Like Silver: The Place of Thinking in the Pursuit of God. It’s the same length as Finally Alive.

To explain the title, here’s the last paragraph of the introduction:

If you…raise your voice for understanding, if you seek it like silver…then you will…find the knowledge of God” (Proverbs 2:3-6). I need all the help I can get to love the knowledge of God more than the profits of silver. I assume you do too. So I wrote this to remind myself of the place of thinking in the pursuit of God. As a little echo of Calvin and Augustine, I say with them, “I count myself one of the number of those who write as they learn and learn as they write.” If you join me, I hope you find it helpful.

I put the finishing touches on the fifth book of The Swans Are Not Silent series, Filling Up the Afflictions of Christ: The Cost of Bringing Christ to the Nations in the Lives of William Tyndale, Adoniram Judson, and John Paton.

I tweaked the endings of the four narrative poems on Ruth with a view to producing a new artistic book on Ruth like the big Job book. This will go with a new book on Ruth that will be out in about a year titled, A Sweet and Bitter Providence: Sex, Race, and Sovereignty in the Book of Ruth.

And there are more projects he’s working on that you can read about here. Continue to pray for John, his family and his church as he works for another three weeks on this leave.

Fear not, trust God and act

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I have read and heard this story before, but it is a great example of how we should not be quick to proclaim what spiritual gift we have before we understand what a great God we serve.

John Piper, who preaches before thousands of people each year, was once absolutely terrified to do public speaking. He describes the terror that gripped him from grade 6 to the summer between his sophomore and junior years at Wheaton College:

(I)t wasn’t funny. It wasn’t like when you get butterflies in front of a group or your knees shake or whatever. It was never funny. It was blood earnest because I simply couldn’t do it.

And it was absolutely humiliating when I was forced to try. Like when we had this training union thing in church where you had to give parts that lasted one minute. And I would hold a card, and it would shake so bad. And everybody would start to look at their laps. They would feel so tense. And I would go home and cry, and my mother would try and…

His breakthrough came when he let go of his deep fear and trusted God to help him. And, as he pleaded with God, he made a vow that he would never let his fear master him. I love this story because, first of all, it shows what kind of God we serve. After all, who could listen to a passionately speaker like John Piper and imagine him being afraid? This is how God works. And I appreciate how Piper always points to God’s merciful hand on his life. That is humility and that honors God.

So, when I hear a story like this it brings hope to my life. What am I so afraid of that God is willing to handle better than I ever could? Am I perhaps nursing fears that are keeping me from really enjoying a closer relationship with God? We serve a great God, and he never ceases to amaze how he works powerfully in our lives for His glory.

Why was George Whitefield so passionate in his preaching?

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The annual Bethlehem Conference for Pastors is going on this week and there are loads of great messages from speakers and resources available, even for those not attending. A highlight every year, in my opinion, is the biographical message that John Piper gives about a hero from the faith. This year’s message is on George Whitefield, who preached to thousands in the 18th century as part of a great spiritual revival in England and our country.

Whitefield, who was known for his great energy and display of style during his sermons, has come under criticism in some circles. However, Piper explains that Whitefield was not about show but rather about believing what is real.

John Piper on ‘Finally Alive’

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John Pipers latest book is Finally Alive, due for release Feb. 2
John Piper's latest book is Finally Alive, due for release Feb. 2

John Piper’s new book Finally Alive is due for release next week. Today at the Desiring God Blog is a Q&A with Piper about why he decided to write this book at this time. Of note, he voices a concern that he sees in the church today:

I am deeply concerned that there are many church members in America and beyond who think they are saved when they are not. Part of the reason for this nominalism is a failure to teach and understand the true meaning of the new birth.

You must be born again. It is a miracle. Many, I fear, don’t even want to think in terms of “being saved” as being in the category of a miracle that only God can perform. They want it to be a decision based wholly on human power involving no necessary miracle. That is deadly.

Who really was behind the crash of USAir Flight 1549

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USAirFlight1549So, earlier here at this blog we’ve seen how a child from a broken home and difficult circumstances grew up to be the first African American President of the United States. Just days before, we saw something truly incredible happen when USAir Flight 1549 made a crash landing in the Hudson River and all 155 people aboard survived. Two spectacular events, each remarkable in its own right.

John Piper writes about just how remarkable the story of Flight 1549 is:

Picture this: The Airbus A320 is taking off at an angle—maybe 30 degrees. It’s not flying horizontal with the earth. Not only that, it is flying fast—not full speed yet, but perhaps four times as fast as your car would go at top highway speeds.

The geese are flying horizontally with the ground, more or less. They are not flying in a cloud like a swarm of bees. They fly level with the ground, often shaped like a V. In view of all that, what are the odds that, traveling at this speed and at this angle, this airplane would intersect with the flight of those geese at that very millisecond which would put a bird not just in one of those engines, but both of them?

Two laser-guided missiles would not have been as amazingly effective as were those geese. It is incredible, statistically speaking. If God governs nature down to the fall (and the flight) of every bird, as Jesus says (Matthew 10:29), then the crash of flight 1549 was designed by God.

He continues, pointing to the significance of this spectacular event:

If God guides geese so precisely, he also guides the captain’s hands. God knew that when he took the plane down, he would also give a spectacular deliverance. So why would he do that? If he means for all to live, why not just skip the crash?

Because he meant to give our nation a parable of his power and mercy the week before a new President takes office. God can take down a plane any time he pleases—and if he does, he wrongs no one. Apart from Christ, none of us deserves anything from God but judgment. We have belittled him so consistently that he would be perfectly just to take any of us any time in any way he chooses.

So, as much as some of us want to complain, we should stop and remember God’s mercy to all of us and repent. Piper gives good counsel for all of us:

As much as I reject Obama’s stance on abortion, I am thankful to the bottom of my soul that an African-American can be President of United States. The enormousness of it all is unspeakable. This is God’s doing. The geese were God’s doing. The landing of Flight 1549 was God’s doing. And the Obama presidency is God’s doing. “He removes kings and sets up kings” (Daniel 2:21).

And I pray that President Obama has eyes to see. The “miracle on the Hudson” and the “miracle in the White House” are not unrelated. God has been merciful to us as a nation. Our racial sins deserved judgment a thousand times over. God does not owe America anything. We owe him everything. And instead of destruction, he has given us another soft landing. We are not dead at the bottom of the Hudson.

A Christmas warning: Learn to love (the world) less

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To me, it seems awesome when you can take the truths of God’s word and the preaching of John Piper and somehow put it in a rap song. And it really works. This, of course, is through the artistry of Shai Linne and the the grace of God. This is a powerful message, especially this time of year when we start to turn the things that we love in this world (family, friends, what we love to eat, play, our hobbies) into little idols. Love the things of this world less. Love God more.

As Shai says: I don’t want to go to Heaven if God is not there.

Shai Linne on iTunes

HT: Tim Brister

Four reasons why premarital sex isn’t worth it

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What would you tell a young man who said he wanted to have sex with his girlfriend? What would you tell the young woman? Pastor John Piper gives four answers (and a fifth, for the girl) in the Ask Pastor John podcast from Desiring God.

Click on the image to see the video
Click on the image to see the video

Momentary Marriage

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A Parable of Permanence
This Momentary Marriage: A Parable of Permanence

In the first half of 2007, John Piper preached a series of messages at Bethlehem Baptist Church on marriage. They were powerful and inspiring and now have been summarized in a new book called “This Momentary Marriage: A Parable of Permanence.”

As usual, Piper does an outstanding job, this time explaining that marriage is much more than what we think is about. From the Desiring God Web site:

Romance, sex, and childbearing are temporary gifts of God. So is marriage. It will not be part of the next life. And it is not guaranteed even for this life. It is one possible path along the narrow way to Paradise. It passes through breathtaking heights and through swamps with choking vapors. With marriage comes bitter providences, and it makes many things sweeter.

There never has been a generation whose view of marriage is high enough. The chasm between the biblical vision of marriage and the common human vision is now, and has always been, gargantuan. Some cultures in history respect the importance and the permanence of marriage more than others. Some, like our own, have such low, casual, take-it-or-leave-it attitudes toward marriage as to make the biblical vision seem ludicrous to most people.

Reflecting on his forty years of matrimony, Piper explains:

Most foundationally, marriage is the doing of God. And ultimately, marriage is the display of God. It displays the covenant-keeping love between Christ and his people to the world in a way that no other event or institution does. Marriage, therefore, is not mainly about being in love. It’s mainly about telling the truth with our lives. And staying married is not about staying in love. It is about keeping covenant and putting the glory of Christ’s covenant-keeping love on display.

“If you are married, this is why,” says Piper. “If you hope to be, this should be your dream.”