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by
John Piper
Read between
April 21 - May 17, 2020
levity.
The real battle in life is to be as happy in God as we can be, and that takes a very special kind of earnestness, since God threatens terrible things if we will not be happy.
And only the sick soul fails to laugh. But we live in a day when, it seems to me, few pastors are falling off their horse on the side of excessive seriousness.
Quipping and jesting about God—or in an effort to point to God—simply means a person is oblivious to reality.
Sin’s outcome is eternal misery.
Rev. 14:10–11
Jesus spoke of “outer darkness” (Matt. 18:12), and “weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matt. 13:50), and a place where “their worm does not die” (Mark 9:48), and “unquenchable fire” (Mark 9:43), and a “place of torment” (Luke 16:28).
“the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruc...
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There is not an earnest sermon for evangelism when the souls of the lost are at stake, and then a less serious and less critical message for the saints to simply add a few stars in their crown.
“I endure everything for the sake of the elect, that they also may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory” (2 Tim. 2:10).
“I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: preach the word” (2 Tim. 4:1–2).
It is momentous not because it is done by great men but because it is tethered to a great book—the Bible.
The entertainment-oriented preacher seems to be at ease talking about many things that are not drawn out of the Bible.
They are entertaining. But they don’t give the impression that this man stands as the representative of God before God’s people to deliver God’s message.
He knows that the only way he can deliver God’s message to God’s people is by being rooted in it and by saturating his sermon with God’s own revelation in the Bible.
He is hesitant to go too far toward points that are not demonstrable from the Bible.
Entertainment is not what our people need.
Sometimes we hear it said that ten minutes on your knees will give you a truer, deeper, more operative knowledge of God than ten hours over your books. “What!” is the appropriate response, “than ten hours over your books, on your knees?”
Becoming a biblical theologian, which every pastor should be, means seeing more and more pieces fit together into a glorious mosaic of the divine design.
If we are going to feed our people, we must ever advance in our grasp of biblical truth.
It must bother us that James and Paul don’t seem to fit together.
“Think over what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding in everything” (2 Tim. 2:7).
“wondrous things out of your law” (Ps. 119:18).
“People only truly think when they are confronted with a problem,”
Insight diminishes as we try to read more and more.
This kind of reflection and rumination is provoked by asking questions of the text.
Asking questions is the same as posing problems, and we have been discouraged all our lives from finding problems in God’s Holy Book.
If we care about truth, we must relentlessly query the text and form the habit of being humbly bothered by things we read.
“What does it mean that Jesus said in Matthew 5:39 to turn the other cheek when struck but
‘When they persecute you in one town, flee’?
in what sense it is true that God is “slow to anger” (Exod. 34:6) and in what sense “his wrath is quickly kindled” (Ps. 2:12).
Not Paul. He commands cogitation. And he promises illumination.
“This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night” (Josh. 1:8).
To all the commands to meditate and think about God’s Word, the Bible adds the promise, “The Lord will give you understanding.” The gift of illumination does not replace meditation. It comes through meditation.
The more a theologian detaches himself from the basic Hebrew and Greek text of Holy Scripture, the more he detaches himself from the source of real theology!
The original Scriptures well deserve your pains, and will richly repay them.
Light on the Path.
I mean cherished, promoted, and sought.
Sometimes this is evident in outright denunciation of exposition as pedantic and schoolish.
Acts 20:28 charges us to take heed for the flock and guard it from wolves who rise up in the church and speak perverse things. But we look more and more to the linguistic and historical specialists to fight our battles for us in books and articles.
One of the greatest tragedies in the church today is the depreciation of the pastoral office.
I now studied much, about 12 hours a day, chiefly Hebrew . . . [and] committed portions of the Hebrew Old Testament to memory;
“If the languages had not made me positive as to the true meaning of the word, I might have still remained a chained monk, engaged in quietly preaching Romish errors in the obscurity of a cloister; the pope, the sophists, and their anti-Christian empire would have remained unshaken.”
John Newton, the author of “Amazing Grace” and former sea captain, was a pastors’ pastor with a winsome, gentle love for people who, nevertheless, thought it important to pursue the languages. He once counseled a younger minister, “The original Scriptures well deserve your pains, and will richly repay them.”
Through what human agents does God give us vision and direction and inspiration? For me, one of the most important answers has been great men and women of faith who, though dead, are yet speaking (Heb. 11:4).
I have devoted more time to the life of Jonathan Edwards (great biography by Iain Murray1) than to any other nonbiblical person.
When I look at Calvin and Edwards and their output, it is hard for me to feel sorry for myself in my few burdens. These brothers inspire me to break out of mediocre plodding.
There was also a season in my pastoral ministry when I was greatly encouraged in my work by Warren Wiersbe’s Walking with the Giants and Listening to the Giants.
Spurgeon, who weighed more than three hundred pounds and smoked cigars.
“If I ever find myself smoking to excess, I promise I shall quit entirely.”
