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John Knight

John Knight is a Donor Officer at Desiring God. He is married to Dianne, and together they parent their four children: Paul, Hannah, Daniel, and Johnny. Paul lives with multiple disabilities including blindness, autism, cognitive impairments, and a seizure disorder. John writes on disability, the Bible, and the church at The Works of God.

Real Freedom in Jesus

John Knight writes, “On this Independence Day, I am grateful to Jesus for my real freedom in him and for giving me my boy to help me see it.”

Is God Sovereign Over Human Disability?

Yes he is. He tells us so in Scripture Then the Lord said to (Moses), "Who has made man's mouth? Who makes him mute, or deaf, or seeing, or blind? Is it not I, the Lord?" (Exodus 4:11) As he…

Bob Kauflin's "Song for Those with Disabilities"

God is worthy of our highest, purest, and strongest emotions – Bob Kauflin* Disability, at least for me, easily draws out the strongest emotions. For a season, my emotions were ugly, bitter, self-righteous and angry—certainly not the "highest and purest"…

John Piper Interviews John Knight (Part 1)

Disability and the Sovereignty of God

In this interview, John Knight shares how his journey with a blind, disabled son transformed his faith from bitterness to trust in Jesus.

The Glory of God in the Gift of Disability

In last week's sermon on John 9:1-23, John Piper makes this bold statement: Jesus says that the purpose of the blindness is to put the work of God on display. This means that for our suffering to have ultimate meaning…

John Piper Interviews John Knight (Part 2)

Disability and the Sovereignty of God

How does Leviticus 21 offer hope to a father with a disabled son and a wife battling cancer?

John Piper Interviews John Knight (Part 3)

Disability and the Sovereignty of God

In this interview, John Piper and John Knight discuss disabilities and God’s sovereignty and goodness in light of John 9, and offer wisdom for pastors seeking to engage with the disabled community.

Does It Really Mean What It Says?

For most of my life I sailed right through the healing passages in the Bible. They were all great stories, but with little actual impact on my life or my conception about God: The healing of the paralytic who was…

Pastors, Help Your People: The Ministry of a Letter in Suffering

Pastors, Here's a Scenario You're a pastor and ‘the call’ comes. One of your families has welcomed a child into the world – and that child is significantly disabled. They are crushed. What do you do? You haven’t experienced this…

Hurting People Need to Know the Character of God

During a recent interview, Pastor John pointed out that most people recoil at the thought of God’s sovereignty over things like making babies who are born blind, or ordaining deadly diseases. He asked me why the healing accounts that…

Let Us Glorify God for the Greater Thing

People often gave glory to God when Jesus healed their disabilities: When Jesus healed many: And they glorified the God of Israel (Matthew 15:31). When Jesus healed a blind man: And all the people, when they say it, gave praise…

The Church's Indispensable Members

We say, “useless!” God replies, “on the contrary — indispensable!” Our churches are filled with people who don’t realize how the culture has made a negative impact on their perception of disability. For those of us with loved ones who…

Disability Helps Protect the Church from Lukewarmness

Rarely does disability elicit an indifferent response: Joni Eareckson Tada wanted to kill herself.1 I entirely rejected God as good, kind, merciful and purposeful. Even families who fully embrace God as sovereign over all things must now deal with…

How Do We Know the Words to Speak?

A brother offended is more unyielding than a strong city, and quarreling is like the bars of a castle (Proverbs 18:19). The language around disability is constantly changing. Even using the word ‘disability’ can be controversial. Recently, I was talking…

Our Weakness and God's Strength: Disability Ministry in the Local Church

For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men (1 Corinthians 1:25). If you have or are considering a disability ministry at your church, Paul’s exhortation to remember God’s infinite capacities…

Will We Protect the Little Ones?

Consider the following about babies with Down syndrome: Of women who choose to have prenatal testing, approximately 90% of those who discover their child has Down syndrome choose to abort. Two companies are racing to provide new prenatal diagnostic tests…

What About When the Hurt Comes from Your Church?

This is a plea to parents of children with disabilities — if you are in a faithful, Bible-saturated church, hang in there with them while they figure things out. Even when they don’t “get it.” Even when they hurt you…

Jesus "Saw a Man" — Do We?

The man born blind had gifts. This is an underlying lesson in John 9 that we tend to forget in the midst of Jesus amazingly giving him physical and spiritual sight. The disciples saw him and asked about what caused…

The Sufficiency of Jesus in Shameful Memories

I was returning to the place of my greatest single offense against God. In 1995, in the Intensive Care Unit of Children’s Hospital, I took a look at my 3-month-old son and concluded that God was strong, cruel, capricious, wicked. …

One Way to Serve Families with Disabled Children

Disability looms over families. By definition a life-long disability is unrelenting; there isn’t a day I wake up that my oldest son isn’t significantly disabled and needing care. Frequently that care includes an army of people who are serving our…

Children Are a Blessing from God — All Children

Burdensome. Sad. Relentless. Hopeless. These words are attached to disability. And often they are used to "justify" aborting babies with disabilities. The perceived low quality of life of the child and the unknown-but-assumed hardships that would be placed on the…

Hitler Killed Disabled Children and So Do We

His name was Gerhard Herbert Kretschmar – the first person killed by official order of Adolph Hitler. He was born blind and missing some limbs. He was five months old. And he was not the last. Immediately following this illegal…

A Worse Kind of Blind

The Bible is full of references to disease and disability — more than 350 verses in 40 of the 66 books. Some references to disability are metaphors for something else. For example, Paul writes to the Corinthians: In their case…

I Want to Be More Like My Disabled Son

Several months ago my son badly bruised his heel while having a seizure. As he walked around the house before school, it was a pattern of grimace, smile, grimace, smile, grimace, smile, grimace, smile. Then when he found his special…

Questioning Our Hope and Refocusing Our Wonder

The topic of the new heaven and new earth is a popular one with some of the people we hang out with. As you can probably guess, they also have children with severe disabilities. There is comfort in thinking about…

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