John Piper (@JohnPiper) is founder and teacher of desiringGod.org and chancellor of Bethlehem College & Seminary. For 33 years, he served as pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church, Minneapolis, Minnesota. He is author of more than 50 books.
I plan to begin a short series of messages on new birth this Sunday. It will take us at least through Christmas, maybe longer. The title of the series will be “You Must Be Born Again” taken verbatim from John 3:7.
We will begin with “What Is Regeneration?” The other messages will deal with: Why is it necessary? How does it happen? What are the evidences that it has happened?
Christian Smith, professor of sociology at Notre Dame, wrote in the most recent Books and Culture a review of six books that deal with the new phenomenon of “adultolescence”—that is, the postponement of adulthood into the thirties. I want to relate this phenomenon to the church. But first here is a summary from Smith’s article of what it is and how it came about...
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The exhortation is a good one that we not minimize the sacrifice of the American women who have died in combat, even if we think their presence on the front lines is a powerful commentary on the cowardice of our male military and political leaders. It is not a commentary on the cowardice of women. I do not commend women in combat. But I commend the sacrifices of love in a cause of truth and justice.
My whole position assumes that competencies and character are not the criteria for who fights the enemy. Women may be more courageous than men in any given situation. They may have nobler vision. They may be smarter. That is not the issue. What God has written on our hearts and designed for ou…
If I were the last man on the planet to think so, I would want the honor of saying no woman should go before me into combat to defend my country. A man who endorses women in combat is not pro-woman; he’s a wimp. He should be ashamed. For most of history, in most cultures, he would have been utterly scorned as a coward to promote such an idea. Part of the meaning of manhood as God created us is the sense of responsibility for the safety and welfare of our women.
Back in the seventies, when I taught in college, feminism was new and cool. So my ideas on manhood were viewed as the social construct of a dying chauvinistic era. I had not yet been enlightened that competencies, not divine wir…
A couple years ago, the Fundamental Baptist Fellowship passed the following resolution, “On the Ministry of John Piper.” I mention it here just so I can use the occasion to say something good about fundamentalists.
While recognizing much that is commendable in the ministry of John Piper, including his emphasis on a passionately God-centered life and his identity as a theological conservative, the FBFI has some genuine concerns about his doctrine and practice. John Piper teaches in his local ministry that miraculous sign gifts are continuing. Piper has also failed to separate from the Baptist General Conference which has deliberately chosen to tolerate the heresy known as open …
I have recorded a section of Jonathan Edwards' sermon on Romans 2:10. It lasts about seven minutes. The reason I recorded it is that I regard this section as the best thing I have ever read on the issue of varying degrees of reward and happiness and holiness in heaven. It is vintage Edwards. He has thought this through in an amazing way. It opens our eyes to the possibilities of heaven that we have never thought of before. If you want to read and ponder it for yourself, it comes from page 902 of the second volume of The Works of Jonathan Edwards.
O that more and more pastors and people would linger over the glorious truths of Scripture until they open like this.
When Jesus sends us to bear witness to him in the world, he does not send us out as dominant and strong, but as weak and seemingly defenseless in ourselves. The only reason I say “seemingly” defenseless is that it is possible that, since “all authority” belongs to Jesus, he might intervene and shut the mouths of the wolves, like he did the mouths of the lions that surrounded Daniel.
But that does not appear to be his intention...
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Last week at a lunch for pastors, I gave a message you can listen to called "Some Sweet Blessings of Masculine Christianity." I drew out eleven benefits of valuing biblical manhood. Here is my outline:
By “masculine Christianity,” I mean (though words are inadequate):
The theology and the church and the mission are marked by over-arching male leadership and an ethos of tender-hearted strength and contrite courage and risk-taking decisiveness and readiness to sacrifice to protect and provide for the community—the feel of a great, majestic God making the men lovingly strong and the women intelligently secure.
In this ethos…
1. Men are freed to have feminine traits w…
The October issue of Christianity Today carried an astonishing article on divorce and remarriage by David Instone-Brewer. What makes it especially amazing is that CT simply published it as if it were faithful to Scripture, with no counterpoint, and used the phrase on the cover “when to separate,” not “whether to separate”—even though Jesus said, “What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate” (Mark 10:9).
To put it bluntly, the implication of this article is that every marriage I am aware of could already have legitimately ended in divorce. I knew I disagreed with Instone-Brewer’s position. I wrote three chapters on marriage and divorce and remarriage in What Jesus Demand…
Today, October 10, 2007, is the 50th anniversary of the publication of the novel Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. As I write this on October 9, 2007, the book is ranked 237 at Amazon. That is phenomenal for a 1,200-page novel that contains philosophical speeches, one of which stretches to 90 uninterrupted pages. The book has sold over six million copies. In one survey from 16 years ago, Atlas Shrugged was ranked second only to the Bible as the book that influenced people most.
My Ayn Rand craze was in the late seventies when I was a professor of Biblical Studies at Bethel College. I read most of what she wrote both fiction and non-fiction. I was attracted and repulsed. I admired and cri…
