He Came to Give You New Appetites

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Getting Old is a Gift From God

So good:

John Piper Wants You to Get Ripped

JP on How to Love Prayer

Willing to Live With the Mystery

Seriously, Piper?

Dr. John is now a Twitterer (Tweeter?)

Calm Me Down, John

Watch a longer version where Piper discusses womanhood (his interesting take on Sarah Palin), race, and abortion.

Suffering Leads to Evangelism

John Piper recently responded to some Q&A on suffering at the Together for the Gospel conference. Listen to him talk about suffering and how it leads to evangelism:

I don’t think Christ is glorified anywhere more than when suffering people rejoice in him as their treasure. If everything is going rosy for all my people, the possibilities of us making a name for Jesus in the city is smaller than if things are going hard for our folks. Then the possibility of making a name for Jesus is greater. What the world wants to see is not for you to tell them, “Jesus makes things go well for me.” Things are going well for them, too, probably better than for you, and it is money and doctors that are doing it for them. So that argument has teeny-weeny effectiveness.

Rather, when neighbors know that the baby in your womb has a liver outside his body, no spinal column, and you have carried this baby to the end and they watch you, the possibilities of making much of Jesus are staggering.

Read the whole thing here.

Piper Doesn't Care for TV

John Piper, in 1995:

It is not necessary for relevance. And it is a deadly place to rest the mind. Its pervasive banality, sexual innuendo, and God-ignoring values have no ennobling effects on the preacher’s soul. It kills the spirit. It drives God away. It quenches prayer. It blanks out the Bible. It cheapens the soul. It destroys spiritual power. It defiles almost everything. I have taught and preached for twenty years now and never owned a television. It is unnecessary for most of you, and it is spiritually deadly for all of you.

When I saw this quote about five years ago, my wife and I got rid of cable for six months. Perhaps I shoudl consider doing that again...

HT: AN

Piper on Dependance on the Gospel

How to Prepare for Suffering

John Piper has some wise words on how to prepare for sudden suffering:

Repentance

Suffering is a call for us and others to turn from treasuring anything on earth above God.

Luke 13:4-5 - Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them: do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.

Reliance

Suffering is a call to trust God not the life-sustaining props of the world.

2 Corinthians 1:8-9 - For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead.

Righteousness

Suffering is the discipline of our loving heavenly Father so that we come to share his holiness.

Hebrews 12:6, 10-11 - The Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives.... He disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.

Reward

Suffering is working for us a great reward in heaven that will make up for every loss here a thousand-fold.

2 Corinthians 4:17 - This light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison.

Matthew 5:11-12 - Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven.

Reminder

Suffering reminds us that God sent his Son into the world to suffer so that our suffering would not be God’s condemnation but his purification.

Philippians 3:10 - ...that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings.

Mark 10:45 - The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.

"Though He Cause Grief"

I was struck as I read last night these verses from Lamentations:

For the Lord will not cast off forever, but, though he cause grief, he will have compassion according to the abundance of his steadfast love; for he does not willingly afflict or grieve the children of men, (31-33).

This is substantial. Jeremiah tries to explain the immense complexity of God and those who suffer at his hand by saying two things: (1) God causes grief, and (2) He does not willingly do it. So this means that God does see fit to bring about some suffering. However, he never does so joyfully. Or, as Ezekiel records from God, "As I live, declares the Lord GOD, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked," (33:11). What are we to make of this? I think John Piper is correct when he writes in Suffering and the Sovereignty of God,

Jeremiah gives us a glimpse into the mysterious complexity of the mind of God in Lamentations 3:32-33, “Though he cause grief, he will have compassion according to the abundance of his steadfast love; for he does not willingly afflict or grieve the children of men.” Literally: “He does not from his heart [millibbô] afflict or grieve the children of men.” He ordains that suffering come— “though he cause grief”—but his delight is not in the suffering, but in the great purpose of creation: the display of the glory of the grace of God in the suffering of Christ for the salvation of sinners, (p. 86).

So when I stand outside my daughter's room and listen to her scream herself to sleep, I do not do so willingly, "from my heart." I do so that she might find a deeper joy than would have been available had she not gone through her little trial. God looks upon the world same way, for his glory and our good (salvation).

See also the article by Piper, "Are There Two Wills in God"?

People Who Live Without TV

Clara Moskowitz writes today in Live Science about people who do not watch TV. Her findings, while interesting, should not be shocking. This passage was particularly striking:

"Non-viewers had a greater variety of things that they did with their free time than viewers did," Krcmar said. "It's not just that they were reading instead of watching TV. They were hiking and biking, and going to community meetings and visiting with friends. Overall, they tend to do more of everything."

My childhood was consumed with TV. Every day after school for hours. And, of course, that is habit for me now. I don't watch nearly as much as I used to, but when I do, I do so for the same reason: to escape. From hard work, from thinking too hard, from dealing with the harder things in life. Yes, for entertainment, but more deeply than that, to escape reality. And this has led to a decreased ability to concentrate, to comprehend and to work long stretches without getting distracted.

This, consequently, is now a front and center issue in our household since the baby came home. Can I properly raise her with a TV in the home? I am not sure. Boundaries can be set (e.g. only at certain times, no TV in bedrooms, etc.). But I fear even an hour a day could be detrimental. So the question I keep on coming back to is, What harm will it do by removing it from our lives completely? And more profoundly, does TV watching increase our love and affection for Christ, or does it lessen it? Listen to these words from John Piper from Pierced by the Word:

If all other variables are equal, your capacity to know God deeply will probably diminish in direct proportion to how much television you watch. There are several reasons for this. One is that television reflects American culture at its most trivial. And a steady diet of triviality shrinks the soul. You get used to it. It starts to seem normal. Silly becomes funny. And funny becomes pleasing. And pleasing becomes soul-satisfaction. And in the end, the soul that is made for God has shrunk to fit snugly around triteness. This may be unnoticed, because if all you’ve known is American culture, you can’t tell there is anything wrong. If you have only read comic books, it won’t be strange that there are no novels in your house. If you live where there are no seasons, you won’t miss the colors of fall. If you watch fifty TV ads each night, you may forget there is such a thing as wisdom. TV is mostly trivial. It seldom inspires great thoughts or great feelings with glimpses of great Truth. God is the great absolute, all-shaping Reality. If He gets any airtime, He is treated as an opinion. There is no reverence. No trembling. God and all that He thinks about the world is missing. Cut loose from God and everything goes down.

My sense is that insofar as TV is an escape from reality, it is also an escape from those things that should make us great. When we enter into fake reality, we are escaping from the difficulties of life: suffering, hardship, grief, pain, failure. But those, the scriptures say, are the things that would have made us the wisest, the holiest, the most compassionate, the happiest. Romans 5:3-5 "More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us."

So I suppose I could say use TV wisely. But I can't help but think the wisest move would be to throw the thing to the curb. I'll keep you posted.