Perhaps My Favorite Interview: An Hourlong Conversation with John Piper and John MacArthur

I think my favorite sit-down conversation was with two men I deeply admire: John Piper and John MacArthur. The interview took place on September 28, 2007, at the Desiring God 2007 National Conference in Minneapolis. (You can listen to the audio or read an edited transcript here.)

The conversation was noteworthy to me in how, despite some similarities, God calls and uses very different people to accomplish his purposes. Whether God has wired you more like Piper or more like MacArthur, I hope this encourages you.

Here are the 10 questions I asked them:

Do you remember when you met each other for the first time or when you became aware of each other’s ministries?
I was looking this morning at the dates for both of your fathers: Dr. Jack MacArthur, 1914-2005; Dr. Bill Piper, 1919-2007 — almost the exact same lifespan. They both had honorary doctorates from Bob Jones. They were both Baptists, and both traveling evangelists. Tell us about their examples, the lessons that you both remember from your dads on faithfulness and endurance, or particular things that stick out to you that have impacted your ministry and life.
Did your fathers both want or expect you to be pastors? If so, did they ever express that desire to you?
Dr. MacArthur, do you remember the conversation you had when you told him you felt called to gospel ministry?
Dr. Piper, can you tell us about the time when you wrote a letter to your father telling him about your decision to go into pastoral ministry?
If you could go back now to when you started pastoral ministry and talk to the thirty-four-year-old John Piper and the twenty-nine-year-old John MacArthur, knowing what you know now, what do you think would be the most important thing to tell them on the front end of their ministries?
You both receive a tremendous amount of praise — and a tremendous amount of criticism. How do you personally handle both the reception of praise and the reception of criticism? How do you keep from being prideful on the one hand, and overly discouraged on the other hand? How do you process that when a high praise comes in or a harsh criticism so that you’re responding biblically?
So many young pastors and missionaries look up to both of you and read your books. As you counsel young men and women on the mission field, it seems like one of the truisms is that circumstances often confirm our calling. And if you’re good at something, fruit often comes with that. You’ve both had incredibly fruitful ministries. How do you think through the issues of faithfulness and fruitlessness? Take someone out there is who is in a small church, or on the mission field, and a year goes by, two years go by with no converts, no apparent fruit. How should they think through the possibility that this might not be their gifting, they need to pull back from that, there’s no fruit being produced, versus the perspective that they need to stick it out for another ten years, twenty years, thirty years?
When you personally get discouraged and want to throw in the towel, where do you go biblically? Is there a particular passage or book that you find yourself returning to over and over again? And where do you go outside the Bible? Is there a particular author or book that you return to over and over again when you’re discouraged or downcast?
How do you want to be remembered? What do you want people to say about you when you die? What do you want to be known for?