What does "complementarian" mean?
In this short video, John Piper explains that affirming the glorious differences of men and women locates Christians between two lamentable errors.
This excerpt begins at the 2:29 mark of this week's sermon.
“When it comes to human sexuality,” John Piper begins, “the greatest display of God’s glory, and the greatest joy of human relationships, and the greatest fruitfulness in ministry come about when the deep differences between men and women are embraced and celebrated as complements to each other.”
This is a way of life shaped by Scripture and thus it rejects two kinds of errors: One side is chauvinistic, harsh, and abusive under male domination. It is rejected. The other side is sex-blind, gender-leveling, and neutered under a unisex culture. It also is rejected.
Examining key biblical texts, John Piper explains what it means to be “complementarian” — that is, the way we understand God’s …
Dear Friends,
I’m excited to tell you about a new free eBook for Advent from Desiring God. It’s called Good News of Great Joy, organized specifically for this Advent, 2012.
Advent is just around the corner. It starts the fourth Sunday before Christmas — this year, that’s December 2 — and is a season of preparation for Christmas Day.
The team here at Desiring God did a deep dive into our thirty-plus-year reservoir of sermons and articles, and selected brief devotional readings for each day of Advent. Our hope is that God would use these readings to deepen and sweeten your adoration of Jesus this Advent.
These daily devotionals correspond to the daily readings in our devotiona…
Most people don’t feel the need to struggle with Descartes over how they can be sure that they exist. And most don’t doubt the existence of the sun. These things are self-authenticating when one sees them.
And so is Jesus Christ.
He is the supreme I am (John 8:58). He is the “sunrise from on high” (Luke 1:78). He is the most self-authenticating Reality that exists.
But he must be seen. And he must be seen with true eyes, for which the eyes in our heads are but copies and shadows. Paul calls them the eyes of the heart in Ephesians 1:18 or the eyes of the mind in 2 Corinthians 4:4. These eyes are designed to see reality, what we call the truth. And they either see truth or, if the god…
The full media from our recent conference on disability is now available!
"The Works of God: God's Good Design in Disability," hosted Novemeber 8, featured four messages, a speaker panel, and a special testimony on God's sovereignty and goodness in disability. The audio and video of each resource can be streamed or downloaded by going to the respective links:
John Piper
"When Jesus Meets Disability: How a Christian Hedonist Handles Deep Disappointment"Nancy Guthrie
"Thinking Like Jesus About Disability"Mark Talbot
"Longing for Wholeness: Chronic Suffering and Christian Hope"Greg Lucas
"Parenting When Your Heart Is Continually Crushed"John Piper, Nancy Guthrie, Greg Lucas, Mark Talb…
If you could step back from the noise and busyness — if you could, even for just a moment, get a panoramic snapshot of the Christian life — it would look like 2 Thessalonians 1:11–12.
John Piper explains the picture,
Everything [in the Christian life] flows from the free grace of God in Christ. And everything is moving toward the fullest glory of God in us and through us. And between the foundation of grace and the goal of glory there is the power of grace daily arriving in our lives through faith, turning daily resolves and plans and purposes into deeds of faith, fitting us for glory.
Having preached this passage first in 1985, Piper freshly engages these truths again and des…
The Church is Jesus's bride — a fascinating subject of study, and angle from which to learn more about our glorious Groom. She is also "a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession" (1 Peter 2:9), "the household of God," and "a pillar and buttress" of his gospel (1 Timothy 3:15).
In this new episode of Theology Refresh (recorded at the Evangelical Theological Society meetings in Milwaukee, Wisconsin), Gregg Allison provides a substantive summary about this vital doctrine.
Allison is professor of Christian theology at The Southern Baptist Theology Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, and an elder at Sojourn Community Church. He is author of a new and sign…
America is the most affluent nation in the history of the world. And affluence is at once wonderful and perilous in its potential. Listen to what Michael Ramsden has to say:
Our affluent culture looks for ease in everything. Comfort is prized more than anything else. In his book, The Challenge of Affluence, Professor Avner Offer makes the observation that moral prudence is required in order to build up affluence and wealth. However, affluence gives rise to temptation. Temptation, if not morally recognized and resisted, gives rise to indulgence. Indulgence eats up wealth. Hence, the “rewards of affluence produce the disorders of affluence.” (Finish the Mission, 79)
The rewards of affl…
A reality we don't deserve (eternally enjoying God) affords a price we're not able to pay (appeasing God's just wrath against our sin). But then there's Jesus.
As John Piper explains, "The gospel is the good news that God in Christ paid the price of suffering, so that we could have the prize of enjoying him forever."
Jesus died for us sinners to remove every barrier between us and the highest, fullest, deepest good, which is God himself. This truth is profoundly biblical and has characterized the theology of Bethlehem Baptist Church these past thirty years.
Considering two Scripture texts and a snapshot from church history, Piper shows that the "gospel-love of God" is the gift of himse…
I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd. (John 10:16)
Jesus Christ is hard at work gathering the rest of his sheep that he “bought with his own blood” (Acts 20:28) and that are “scattered abroad” (John 11:52). This is the main thing that is happening in the world. All the great geopolitical shifts in the world are connected to this mission. The world doesn’t know it.
But the church on earth, the sheep that are in the fold already, must remember this. It’s what history is all about and it’s why they are still here. It’s why God installs and removes rulers. It’s why economies surge …
