The Achilles’ Heel of the Next Generation

Piper: I have a concern with what God, I think, is doing in your generation, and how it could so easily be short circuited. I really do believe God is doing a remarkable thing in the young adult generation, in America. There are all kinds of movements. Some of these movements don’t even know the others exist, and they consist of tens of thousands, and hundreds of thousands of young people. It is remarkable. You go from coast to coast, and northwest to northeast to south, and you find these amazing outcroppings of young people who are passionate for the supremacy of God, they’re passionate for doctrine, they’re passionate for biblical truth, they’re passionate for global concerns and world evangelization.

And so, I’m concerned, when I see what could be achilles’ heels, that could break the whole thing open and cause it to just dribble away into nothingness. And one of those things is the disconnect between the majesty of God and – the movies you watch- just to choose an example. There’s an awakening to the majesty of God around the country, there’s a filling of hearts with God centered, Christ exalting Bible saturated songs. It is remarkable that in the contemporary worship awakening, when you leave all the fluff to the side, at the center, the majesty of the God who shines through is most remarkable. Photo via dreamstime.com

There’s the giving of zeal for truth and biblical doctrine, back and forth, among young people and I’m concerned that there are some loose wires dangling, between the majesty of God that is sung about in the services, that causes people to soar with the kind of emotional euphoria about the greatness of God and the wires of our daily practical detailed lives.

• They dangle disconnected between big thoughts about God and big appetites for beer.
• They dangle disconnected between infinite purity of God and the lure of pornography.
• They dangle disconnected between the majesty of Christ and the carelessly attended default weekend movie. No questions asked. It’s just the thing to do.
• They dangle disconnected between white hot all satisfying divine holiness and hip huggers and plunging necklines.

As long as these wires dangle disconnected, the supremacy of God in our songs and the passion for personal holiness in our daily lives are not going to be working the way they’re supposed to. And the whole movement could come apart.

VIDEO by DGJohnPiper from the message “Don’t Waste Your Life” September 19, 2007

Understanding without Transformation

If the lightning bolts of corporate worship don’t strike with shattering power in the details of your life, the whole storm may prove to be a laser show. It wasn’t really lightning after all, it was just man made.

I am jealous for your generation, that the great work God is doing, not being merely flashing on the lightning in the sky. This is the other image I had in my mind, besides the wiring image. It seems to me that when a big group of students get together with great music, with solid lyrics and a solid vision of God, that the singing goes on, and the lightning is flashing in the sky. I mean, genuine spiritual sights of God are flashing and THE BOLTS MAY NEVER HIT THE GROUND. If you’ve ever watched a thunderstorm, there are different types of thunderstorms. Some thunderstorms you watch, there are lights everywhere, but you never see a thunderbolt hit and the lights going out. And if the lightning that is flashing in our worship services at church never strikes the ground you walk on, you probably, within a half an hour after that service will feel zero power. I would so much be jealous for that not to happen. Photo on left via www.mnn.com

God is in the details and it’s a fearful thought (I apply it to my church). It’s a fearful thought, isn’t it? To say, “If the lightning bolts of corporate worship don’t strike with shattering power in the details of your life, the whole storm may prove to be a laser show.” It wasn’t really lightning after all, it was just man made. Laser beams. And we thought it was lightning, and worship felt like lightning in worship, but, from a distance of an hour later, as I cave before this temptation, it looks like a (man made) laser beam, from here, now. And I would, so much, like to be an instrument in God’s hand and say, “Lord, let the lightning fall. Don’t just let it go around up here… let it come down and strike the ground where these students walk.

Do not forsake your mother’s teaching

You can listen to the audio here.

Proverbs 1:7-9

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction. Hear, my son, your father’s instruction, and do not forsake your mother’s teaching; indeed, they are a graceful wreath to your head, and ornaments about your neck.

The book of Proverbs begins, “The proverbs of Solomon, son of David, king of Israel.” He was a great king and the son of a great king. That means he was famous and powerful and supreme in all the realm. People bowed in his presence. They did what he said. He had immense authority and honor.

Even Great Kings Should Bow to Their Mothers

How did he treat his mother in this exalted role? You recall his mother was Bathsheba. She had married his father David under very ugly circumstances—very displeasing to God. But she was his mother, and this is what it says in 1 Kings 2:19,

Bathsheba went to King Solomon to speak to him for Adonijah. And the king arose to meet her, bowed before her, and sat on his throne; then he had a throne set for the king’s mother, and she sat on his right.

Then they had their conversation. He rose for her. He bowed to her. And he called for a throne to be put beside his for their conversation. She was his mother. Even kings should stoop when their mothers enter the room.

Solomon was not a perfect king. He was not a perfect man. None of the writers of the Bible was. But God guided his insights and preserved for us true ones here in the book of Proverbs. And I want us to listen to God’s word through Solomon today.

Six Lessons: The Ultimate Issue Is God

There are at least six things he tells us in Proverbs 1:7–9. They all relate to God. They are not merely the kind of wisdom you might pick up in reading “mindworks” or Parents magazine or Ann Landers. They overlap with the wisdom of the world. But the absence of God in the world’s family-advice is ultimately a fatal flaw. Solomon means for us to hear his counsel as all related to God.

We often think of the book of Proverbs as a book of what you can learn from ordinary earthly life. And much of it is. But the point of the book is to bring all that into relation to God so that he becomes the center of it all.

Just one example. In Proverbs 30:8 it says,

Give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with the food that is my portion, 9 Lest I be full and deny Thee and say, “Who is the Lord?” Or lest I be in want and steal, and profane the name of my God.

Do you see what this says about God? The wise man prays, “Guard me from riches and guard me from poverty.” Why? Because if I’m rich I might say, “Who needs God!” And if I’m poor I might steal. And why is that so bad? Because you might get caught and go to jail? Or because you might lose your reputation? No. He says, Because if I steal, I will profane the name of my God.

Riches are dangerous because the ultimate issue is God. And poverty is dangerous because the ultimate issue is God. The book of Proverbs—the most practical, down-to-earth book in the Bible—is written for God’s sake. That we might not deny God in our prosperity and that we might not profane God in the hour of need.

All six lessons in Proverbs 1:7–9 relate to God, and they are all intensely practical.

1. The Origin of Family

The family is God’s idea.

Solomon takes for granted that there are mothers and fathers and children related in relationship of unique accountability. Verse 8: “Hear, my son, your father’s instruction, and do not forsake your mother’s teaching.” This is just a given with Solomon. It used to be with us too. But perhaps it can’t be taken for granted any more. Families are God’s idea. God’s plan. God’s way. They are not arbitrary evolutionary developments based on instincts. The family is ordained by God in creation.

In the very first chapter of the Bible, Genesis 1:27, it says,

And God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. 28 And God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth . . . “

How are they to do this fruitful earth-filling? By indiscriminate mating and pregnancies? The second chapter of the Bible (Genesis 2:24) gives the answer: A man shall leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave to his wife; and they shall become one flesh.

A profound covenant relationship between one man and one woman—a cleaving to each other alone, in a one-flesh union—is God’s idea of the heart of the family. When this is broken by a tragic death or a tragic divorce, there may have to be single parent families. And God has been faithful to millions of mothers and fathers who have had to raise children alone. But God’s original purpose for the heart of the family was one man and one woman cleaving to each other as husband and wife and becoming one flesh in fruitful sexual union. In that way he meant to fill the earth with humans who image-forth his glory, and with couples whose covenant-relationship shows the world the way that God relates to his covenant people in love and faithfulness.

The family is God’s idea and it is for God’s glory. Solomon assumes that here in Proverbs 1:7–9.

2. The Family as a School

The family is God’s basic school for instructing children how to live in the world.

Verse 8 again: “Hear, my son, your father’s instruction, and do not forsake your mother’s teaching.” The father is an instructor and the mother is a teacher. Therefore the family is a school.

God ordained the family not just to be fruitful and fill the earth with people, but to fill the earth with instructed people and taught people. The family is the place where the next generation is born and where the next generation learns how to live.

Life does not come naturally for human beings. The sucking reflex comes naturally. The falling reflex comes naturally. The iris of the eye closes naturally in bright light. We don’t have to learn to cry when hungry. But that’s about it. And those skills will not get us very far in this world. Humans have to learn just about everything from the most basic skills of walking and talking and eating, to the moral actions of courtesy and gratitude and respect and faith in Christ.

The family is God’s school for this huge undertaking—teaching the next generation how to live in this world and be ready for the next.

And if a mother and a father seek help from others through relatives or nannies or day-care or Sunday schools or day schools or primary schools or secondary schools, the responsibility is still the parents’ and we parents will give an account to God for how the minds and hearts of our children were shaped and molded by the educators and care-givers we entrusted them to.

That’s point number two: the family is God’s basic school for instructing children how to live in the world.

3. The Fear of the Lord as the Unifying Theme

The foundation of family instruction is the fear of the Lord.

Verse 7: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.” In other words if we ask, what’s the basis and beginning and integrating theme of the father’s instruction and the mother’s teaching—what is it that runs through all their daily modeling and counseling and explaining and correcting and disciplining that give unity and meaning to it all—the answer is “the fear of the Lord.”

The family isn’t just a place where children learn to hold spoons and walk on two feet and say” please” and tie shoes and read and look both ways and cut grass and put on makeup and drive a car. The family is where all of this and more begins in God, is guided by God’s Word, and is shown to be for the glory of God. The fear of God—the reverencing of God, the standing in awe of God, the trusting of God—is what family’s are for.

The family is God’s idea. The family is a school. And the unifying theme in the curriculum of this school is God.

4. The Responsibility of Both Fathers and Mothers

Under God both fathers and mothers share in the responsibility of this family instruction.

Verse 8 again: “Hear, my son, your father’s instruction, and do not forsake your mother’s teaching.”

It does not say, “Fathers instruct, and mothers change diapers.” It does not say, “Fathers work at the office and so have no responsibility to teach their children.” Nor does it say, “Mothers work at the office and can turn the responsibility of teaching over to a care-giver.” It says fathers instruct, and mothers teach. They share this responsibility.

If it were Father’s Day I would probably trumpet a challenge to you fathers to take fresh initiatives at home. But it is Mother’s Day, and I want to encourage mothers that this responsibility to teach your children is an immeasurably significant privilege.

God has a way of nullifying the greatness of the great and exalting the lowliness of the lowly. In our culture motherhood is, I think, on the upswing. But only after decades of unusual lowliness and bad-press. The last five our six years have abounded with letters and articles like this one to Ann Landers:

I’m so tired of all those ignorant people who come up to my husband and ask him if his wife has a full-time job or if she’s “just a house-wife.” . . . Here’s my job description.

I’m a wife, mother, friend, confidant, personal advisor, lover, referee, peacemaker, housekeeper, laundress, chauffeur, interior decorator, gardener, painter, wall paperer, dog groomer, veterinarian, manicurist, barber, seamstress, appointment manager, financial planner, bookkeeper, money manager, personal secretary, teacher, disciplinarian, entertainer, psychoanalyst, nurse, diagnostician, public relations expert, dietitian and nutritionist, baker, chef, fashion coordinator and letter writer for both sides of the family.

I am also a travel agent, speech therapist, plumber and automobile maintenance and repair expert . . .

From the studies done, it would cost more than $75,000 a year to replace me. I took time out of my busy day to write this letter, Ann, because there are still ignorant people who believe a housewife is nothing more than a baby sitter who sits on her behind all day and looks at soap operas. (Ann Landers, May 1988, quoted in Mom, You’re Incredible, by Linda Weber, Focus on the Family, 1994, pp. 23–24)

That’s true. And it is good to have it said. But vastly more can be said. Let me give one great illustration from the New Testament: the effect of Timothy’s mother and grandmother.

Paul says in 2 Timothy 1:5,

I am mindful of the sincere faith within you, which first dwelt in your grandmother Lois, and your mother Eunice, and I am sure that it is in you as well.

Then in 3:14–15 Paul says,

You, however, continue in the things you have learned and become convinced of, knowing from whom you have learned them [that is, your mother Eunice and through her from your grandmother Lois]; and that from childhood you have known the holy scriptures [because your mother taught them to you] which are able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.

Now that’s a remarkable testimony. Timothy’s father was a Greek (Acts 16:3). He probably didn’t know the Scriptures. So Paul celebrates the great heritage that Timothy has through his mother and his grandmother. They did what his father could not or would not do. They filled him with the Scriptures, and the Scriptures brought him eventually to faith in Christ, and faith in Christ brought him salvation.

Timothy will live forever and ever because his mother and his grandmother were faithful to Proverbs 1:8.

5. The Submissiveness of Children

God calls sons and daughters to be submissive to their mothers and fathers.

Verse 8 again: “Hear, my son, your father’s instruction, and do not forsake your mother’s teaching.”

These two commands warn against the two common temptations of rebellion. One is when a child is home; and the other is when he is away from home. If he is home, the temptation of rebellion is not to listen when his parent speaks. So Solomon says, “Hear your father’s instruction.” If he is away from home, the temptation is to forsake what he was taught. So Solomon says, “Do not forsake your mother’s teaching.”

Young people, when you are at home, listen to your parents. Do not write off what they say. Do it for God’s sake. This is so important in God’s eyes that he made it part of the Ten Commandments that sum up the whole law. Exodus 20:12, “Honor your father and mother.” Honor your father by listening respectfully when he speaks. And honor your mother by remembering what she taught you about right and wrong—about the fear of God—when you are away from home and no one can see but you and God.

6. The Promise of Reward

Finally, God ordains a reward for sons and daughters who do not forsake the teaching of their mother and father.

Verse 9: “Indeed [literally, "because"], they [hearing your father's instruction and not forsaking your mother's teaching] are a graceful wreath to your head, and ornaments about your neck.”

What this verse makes plain is that the instruction of fathers and the teaching of mothers, rooted in the fear of the Lord, is good news. Kids don’t always feel that. Sometimes parents have never grown up into grace enough to feel it either. But that’s what the verse says: hearing a father’s instruction and not forsaking a mother’s teaching will be a wreath of grace and glory and joy; it will be like gifts and prizes around your neck. In other words it will mean triumph and celebration and joy.

The apostle Paul said in Ephesians 6:2 that “honor your father and mother” is “the first commandment with promise.” All the commandments are full of promise, but God goes out of his way to make this explicit for sons and daughters. There is great promise in honoring your mother and father and embracing the fear of the Lord which they taught.

• “In the fear of the Lord there is strong confidence . . . The fear of the Lord is a fountain of life” (Proverbs 14:26–27).
• “The fear of the Lord leads to life, so that one may sleep satisfied, untouched by evil” (Proverbs 19:23).

This is the wreath on your head and the ornament on your neck for embracing the fear of the Lord that your mother and father taught you—a fountain of life and strong confidence and deep satisfaction.

A Mother’s Crown of Joy

But since today is Mother’s Day, perhaps the way we should end is by reminding ourselves as sons and daughters—whether old or young—that the fountain of life, and the strong confidence and the deep satisfaction that come from honoring all the truth that our mothers taught us also comes back to them as a crown of joy and honor and blessing in their later years. “Do not despise your mother when she is old” (Proverbs 23:22). “Let your father and your mother be glad, and let her rejoice who gave birth to you” (Proverbs 23:25). Do not forsake the teaching of your mother. It will be a wreath of grace to your head and a crown of joy upon hers.

By John Piper. ©2013 Desiring God Foundation. Website: desiringGod.org

Honoring the Biblical Call to Motherhood

Read the entire article here- http://www.desiringgod.org

In this message, John Piper directs a word of honor and encouragement to mothers from 1 Timothy 3 and he also recounts the impact his mother, Ruth Piper, had on his own calling:

2 Timothy 3:14-15

But as for you [Timothy], continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it [mark those words] ¹⁵ and how from childhood [this signals to us who it was that taught him these things] you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.

1. From Whom Did Timothy Learn the Word?

want you to see two things. First, who is Paul talking about in verse 14 when he says, “. . . knowing from whom you leaned it”? He is talking about Eunice and Lois, Timothy’s mother and grandmother. There are three clues that lead us to this conclusion. First, Paul refers (in v. 15) to this learning as happening “from childhood.” Second, we see in 2 Timothy 1:5 these words, “I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and now, I am sure, dwells in you as well.” So Paul has already connected Timothy’s faith with what he got from his mother and grandmother.

The third clue is the answer to the question why Paul did not refer to Timothy’s father. The answer is found in Acts 16:1 where Luke tells us about how Paul chose Timothy in the first place as missionary partner. “Paul came also to Derbe and to Lystra. A disciple was there, named Timothy, the son of a Jewish woman who was a believer, but his father was a Greek.” So Timothy is the product of a home with a believing mother and an unbelieving father. That’s why Paul did not say that Timothy learned the scriptures from his father. He didn’t. His father didn’t believe them. But his mother and grandmother did. That is who Paul is referring to in 2 Timothy 3:14.

2. Remembering the Character of Your Godly Mother Is a Great Incentive to Holding Fast the Scriptures She Taught You

Now the second thing to see in this verse is that remembering the character of your godly mother is a great incentive to holding fast to the scriptures she taught you. Let’s read it again so you can see this. Verse 14: “But as for you [Timothy], continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed”—that is, don’t give up your faith, don’t give up the scriptures, don’t give up your salvation. Then comes these crucial words referring back to Eunice and Lois: “knowing from whom you learned it.”

In other words, Timothy, one of the ways—not the only way—one of the ways to strengthen your faith and persevere through hard times and not give up on the scriptures is to remember who introduced you to word of God and the way of salvation. Remember your mother, and your grandmother.

So let’s make very clear: the apostle of Jesus Christ in this text bestows on motherhood and grandmotherhood a great honor. You have a calling that can become the long-remembered ground of faith, not just for your children—mark this—but for the untold numbers who will be affected by your children. And that’s in addition to all the other thousands of ripple effects of faith in your life.

and here’s a couple of memories Piper had of his mother:

God’s honor was paramount for my mother. I wrote:

“I never got spanked for makin’ mess in my pants,
but I did for skippin’ church;
which goes to show mama cared more about keeping; God’s name
and my soul clean
than she did her own hands.”

she took right and wrong very seriously and held me accountable to the highest standards so that I knew in all the conflict I mattered a lot to my mother. I wrote:

And I seldom felt worse than when mama cried:
I got a speedin’ ticket one night
and mama wept like I’d shot somebody.
All the way to the station at midnight she cried
and made me pay it off right then and there.
One thing was for sure:
I mattered a lot to mama.

What I owe my mother for my soul and my love to Christ and my role as a husband and father and pastor is incalculable.

Read the entire article here- http://www.desiringgod.org
By John Piper. ©2013 Desiring God Foundation. Website: desiringGod.org

Is it ever right to be angry at God? John Piper responds

photo via www.123rf.com

“Is it right to express anger at God?”

The question usually arises in times of great suffering and loss. Disease threatens to undo all your dreams. Death takes a precious child from your family. Utterly unexpected desertion and divorce shake the foundations of your world. At these times people can become very angry, even at God.

What is anger? The common definition is: “An intense emotional state induced by displeasure” (Merriam-Webster). But there is an ambiguity in this definition. You can be “displeased” by a thing or by a person. Anger at a thing does not contain indignation at a choice or an act. We simply don’t like the effect of the thing: the broken clutch, or the grain of sand that just blew in our eye, or rain on our picnic. But when we get angry at a person, we are displeased with a choice they made and an act they performed. Anger at a person always implies strong disapproval. If you are angry at me, you think I have done something I should not have done.

This is why being angry at God is never right. It is wrong – always wrong – to disapprove of God for what he does and permits. “Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?” (Genesis 18:25). It is arrogant for finite, sinful creatures to disapprove of God for what he does and permits. We may weep over the pain. We may be angry at sin and Satan. But God does only what is right. “Yes, O Lord God, the Almighty, true and righteous are Your judgments” (Revelation 16:7).

But many who say it is right to be angry with God really mean it is right to express anger at God. When they hear me say it is wrong to be angry with God, they think I mean “stuff your feelings and be a hypocrite.” That’s not what I mean. I mean it is always wrong to disapprove of God in any of his judgments.

But if we do experience the sinful emotion of anger at God, what then? Shall we add the sin of hypocrisy to the sin of anger? No. If we feel it, we should confess it to God. He knows it anyway. He sees our hearts. If anger at God is in our heart, we may as well tell him so, and then tell him we are sorry, and ask him to help us put it away by faith in his goodness and wisdom.

When Jesus died on the cross for our sins, he removed forever the wrath of God from our lives. God’s disposition to us now is entirely mercy, even when severe and disciplinary (Romans 8:1). Therefore, doubly shall those in Christ turn away from the terrible specter of anger at God. We may cry, in agony, “My God, My God, where are you?” But we will follow soon with, “Into your hands I commit my spirit.”

READ ENTIRE ARTICLE HERE- http://crossmap.christianpost.com

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John Piper – Advance ’13 Conference Message – Nobody will sustain authentic love for the world who is not profoundly satisfied in Jesus

The Christian Post: One of the most popular re-tweeted statements from Piper’s message found under the conference Twitter hashtag #advance13 was “Nobody will sustain authentic love for the world who is not profoundly satisfied in Jesus.”

Having your own hunger for God is an essential foundation for ministry work, well-known pastor and theologian John Piper told those attending and watching the Internet livestream of a Christian leadership conference held in Raleigh, N.C. on Tuesday.

“The foundation of your ministry is a hunger for God,” said Piper at the Advance 13 conference. “Above that, the foundation for your ministry is being satisfied in all that God is for you in Jesus. The goal of that ministry is to help people go there. All your life, give yourself to that – to bring those people from loving the world, being satisfied in the world, until they put all that to death and to praise Jesus as their all satisfying treasure. That’s the goal in ministry, to help them get there.”

Piper, whose last sermon as the lead pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis will be on Easter Sunday, said he believes that ministry leaders should have the joy of Christ inside them in order to lead well.

“Whether or not a hunger for God is an essential foundation for a faithful and effective ministry will depend on what you believe the goal of ministry is,” he explained. “If you believe, as I do, that the goal of ministry is the all satisfying gladness of your people’s hearts in the glory of Christ, or in all that God is for them in Christ, then it will follow that your joy in Christ is an essential foundation for that ministry.”

The theme for the Advance13 conference, which is being held at the Duke Energy Center, is “Building Faithful and Effective Churches.” The conference is hosted by Advance the Church, a partnership of local churches in Raleigh/Durham that focus on the planting and revitalization of Gospel-centered churches.

Piper said the foundation of his message on Tuesday is centered on 2 Corinthians 1:24, which reads: “Not that we have lorded over your faith, but we work with you for your joy, for your stand firm in your faith.”

“It is so helpful to have crystal clear, apostolic statements about what you are supposed to try to do in ministry because there are just a thousand things you are told to do as you read magazines and books – it just becomes very overwhelming and discouraging at times,” he said.

“That was Paul’s clear apostolic goal in his ministry – ‘I am working with you so that you will have joy.’ That’s what I think pastors should do. That’s what a faithful and effective ministry inspires to,” he added.

Piper said there must be a hunger for God because “when there is no hunger for what you are eating there is no pleasure for what you are eating.”

Read more at http://www.christianpost.com/news/john-piper-to-christian-leaders-foundation-of-your-ministry-is-hunger-for-god-92205/#iwvZUkgrm5OPf9dQ.99

from Advance 13 Conference - http://www.advance13.com/

A hunger for God

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How far is too far, to go, for an engaged couple?

photo via christiandatinggateway.com

listen to the Podcast via DesiringGod.org (length 11 minutes)

I would say to the women, don’t entice a man to touch you thinking that this is the way to keep a man. He is not worth keeping if that is the way he is kept. And feel free to say to any man, “No, please don’t take us there.” And you can discern what kind of a man you are dealing with by how sensitive he is to that dimension of purity.

“Blessed are the pure in heart, they will see God” [Matthew 5:8]. That is what we want. We want to see God. . . . If a single person is listening to this saying, “Oh, all very nice. I’m not married, and there is nobody on the horizon. What am I supposed to do?” I just want to say one thing. Don’t feel second class. Jesus Christ is the most complete human being whoever lived and he never had sex. Not to be married and not to have sex is not to be an incomplete human being.

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Essentials of Good Counseling

From DesiringGod.org via the Christian Post

This paper was written by John Piper when his church was searching for a Pastor of Biblical Counseling. As Piper notes

It is not intended to say everything that needs to be said in defining Biblical Counseling, but rather to establish some of what is essential to the way we hope counseling will be done at Bethlehem Church.

Some Essentials of Good Counseling

God-centered, Christ-exalting, cross-cherishing, Spirit-dependent, Bible-saturated, emotionally-in-touch, culturally-informed use of language to help people become God-centered, Christ-exalting, joyfully self-forgetting lovers of people who spread a passion for the supremacy of God in all things for the joy of all peoples.

1. Use of language - (1 Thessalonians 4:13, 18; 5:11; Hebrews 3:13; Romans 15:14): Almost all counseling is talk. There is, of course, essential and heart-engaged listening and understanding; but counseling proper is speech. It is remarkable that people will pay $95 an hour for talk. But that is the power of speech, and God has designed it to be so. Therefore, the major issues surrounding counseling are about the worldviews that inform the talk.

2. God-centered - (1 Corinthians 10:31; Acts 17:28): A God-centered person treats God as central to all of life’s concerns, from the most simple and mundane to the most weighty and personal. God-centered language is speech that does not marginalize God or treat him as irrelevant or unnecessary. It makes explicit that all issues that matter are related importantly to God. All counseling issues are related to God at crucial levels, and counseling that tries to lead toward healing without dealing with God explicitly is defective.

3. Christ-exalting - (John 16:14; 17:5): Christ-exalting counseling is explicitly Christian and not merely theistic. All counseling issues involve the exaltation or the denigration of Jesus Christ. Either our attitudes and feelings and behaviors are making much or making little of Christ. We were created to make much of Christ. There is no true success in counseling if a person becomes socially functional without conscious dependence on and delight in Jesus Christ. This is the means and goal of all health.

4. Cross-cherishing - (Galatians 6:14): It is not enough to say that our counseling honors Christ. Some non-Christian systems, even Muslims,1 say this. Biblical Counseling must go to the heart of our problems and the heart of God’s solution, which always means going to the cross where the depths of sin and the heights of grace are revealed. There is no true exalting of Christ or honoring of God that does not cherish the cross. The decisive severing of pride and despair is the cross of Christ. It is the ground of humility and hope. There is no true mental health without understanding the desperate condition we were in without the cross, and without feeling the joy of deliverance from that condition through the death of Christ on our behalf.

5. Spirit-dependent - (Romans 8:6, 14; Galatians 3:5; 5:22-23; 1 Peter 4:11): Spirit-dependent counseling knows and feels that it is helpless to speak wisely and lovingly and to bring about true wholeness apart from the decisive work of the Holy Spirit in the counselor and the counselee. This implies a significant, explicit presence of prayer in the process of counseling. Counseling serves in the strength which God supplies so that in everything God will get the glory.

6. Bible-saturated - (Matthew 4:4; Romans 15:4; Hebrews 4:12): Bible-saturated counseling does not treat the Word of God as an assumed foundation which never gets mentioned or discussed or quoted. “Foundations” are in the basement holding up the house, but they seldom get talked about, and they are usually not attractive. That is not an adequate metaphor for the role of Scripture in counseling. The Bible has power and is the very truth and word of God. Even saints most familiar with the Scriptures need to hear the Word of God. It has a power to rearrange the mental world and waken the conscience and create hope.

7. Emotionally-in-touch - (Deuteronomy 32:2; Romans 12:15; Hebrews 4:15; 13:3): Biblical Counseling is done by a person who has a healthy awareness of his own emotions and those of others and what is being felt, even if not expressed, by himself and others. Counsel takes into account what people are experiencing and not merely what the Biblical truths are that come to bear on the problem. Good Biblical Counselors feel appropriate feelings and know when their emotions are out-of-sync with the situation. They sense what others are feeling and know how to adjust the way they speak the truth so that it fits the moment.

8. Culturally-informed - (Act 17:23, 28; Proverbs 6:6-8; Job 38-41): Biblical Counseling is aware of the historical, social, cultural, and family factors that shape the sin and righteousness of our lives. Biblical Counseling does not estimate cultural, social, or family factors above spiritual ones relating to the power of sin and grace, but it does know that theshape of sin and righteousness is influenced by family, social, cultural, and historical things that may help people distinguish between what is sin and what is not, and what is virtue and what is not. Believing that the root of every emotional and relational problem is sin profoundly affects the conception of how to heal, but it does not lead to simplistic estimations of how easy healing is.

9. To help people become - (1 Thessalonians 3:12; Philippians 1:9): Biblical Counseling is directed at changing people – the way they see and understand and feel God and Christ and sin and right and wrong and the world and other people. Biblical Counseling is about helping people change. It has goals. It is not neutral or disinterested. It has Biblically-shaped aims for people’s lives and relationships.

10. Joyfully self-forgetting lovers of people - (Philippians 1:25; 2 Corinthians 1:24; 1 Corinthians 16:14; 1 Timothy 1:5; Galatians 5:6): The aim of all health is God-centered, Christ-exalting love for people. Love is not possible where self-preoccupation holds sway in a person’s life. So self-forgetfulness is a part of true mental health. This is not possible to create directly, but only as one is absorbed in something worthy and great. The aim is to be absorbed in God and anything else for God’s sake. The truly healthy person is passionate for the supremacy of God in all things for the joy of all peoples.

Notes

1For example, the Chicago Tribune reported that Muslim Fisal Hammouda said in an interview with Bill Hybels, pastor of Willow Creek Community Church, “We believe in Jesus, more than you do in fact.” (Sean Hamil, “Willow Creek Welcomes Muslim Cleric’s Perspective: Pastor, Imam Have Dialogue at Suburban Church, Chicago Tribune October 12, 2001)

December 12, 2001 | by John Piper

By John Piper. ©2013 Desiring God Foundation. Website: desiringGod.org.

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John Piper – On Querying the Biblical Text

By John Piper. ©2013 Desiring God Foundation. Website: desiringGod.org (photo via julianfreeman.ca)

If the Bible is coherent, then understanding the Bible means grasping how things fit together. Becoming a Biblical theologian means seeing more and more pieces fit together into a glorious mosaic of the divine will. And doing exegesis means querying the text about how its many propositions cohere in the author’s mind.

If we are going to feed our people, we must ever advance in our grasp of biblical truth. And to advance in our grasp of biblical truth we must be troubled by biblical affirmations.

It must bother us that James and Paul don’t seem to jibe. Only when we are troubled and bothered do we think hard. And if we don’t think hard about how biblical affirmations fit together, we will never penetrate to their common root and discover the beauty of unified divine truth. The end result is that our Bible reading will become insipid, we will turn to fascinating “secondary literature,” our sermons will be the lame work of “second-handers,” and the people will go hungry.

“We never think until we have been confronted with a problem,” said John Dewey. He was right. And that is why we will never think hard about biblical truth until we are troubled by its complexity.

Habitually Disturbed

We must form the habit of being systematically disturbed by things that at first glance don’t make sense. Or to put it a different way, we must relentlessly query the text. One of the greatest honors I received while teaching at Bethel was when the teaching assistants in the Bible department gave me a T-shirt which had the initials of Jonathan Edwards on the front and on the back the words: “Asking questions is the key to understanding.”

But there are several strong forces which oppose our relentless and systematic interrogating of biblical texts. One is that it consumes a great deal of time and energy on one small portion of Scripture. We have been schooled [quite erroneously] that there is a direct correlation between reading a lot and gaining insight. But in fact there is no positive correlation at all been quantity of pages read and quality of insight gained. Just the reverse. Except for a few geniuses, insight diminishes as we try to read more and more. Insight or understanding is the product of intensive, headache-producing meditation on two or three verses and how they fit together. This kind of reflection and rumination is provoked by asking questions of the text. And you cannot do it if you hurry. Therefore, we must resist the deceptive urge to carve notches in our bibliographic gun. Take two hours to ask ten questions of Galatians 2:20 and you will gain one hundred times the insight you would have attained by reading 30 pages of the New Testament or any other book. Slow down. Query. Ponder. Chew.

Another reason it is hard to spend hours probing for the roots of coherence is that it is fundamentally unfashionable today to systematize and seek for harmony and unity. This noble quest has fallen on hard times because so much artificial harmony has been discovered by impatient and nervous Bible defenders. But if God’s mind is truly coherent and not confused, then exegesis must aim to see the coherence of biblical revelation and the profound unity of divine truth. Unless we are to dabble forever on the surface of things (content to turn up “tensions” and “difficulties”) then we must resist the atomistic (and basically anti-intellectual) fashions in the contemporary theological establishment. There is far too much debunking of past failures and far too little construction going on.

A third force that opposes the effort to ask the Bible questions is this: Asking questions is the same as posing problems, and we have been discouraged all our lives from finding problems in God’s Holy Book.

Rightfully Respecting God’s Word

It is impossible to respect the Bible too highly, but it is very possible to respect it wrongly. If we do not ask seriously how differing texts fit together, then we are either superhuman (and glance all truth at a glance) or indifferent (and don’t care about seeing more truth). But I don’t see how anyone who is indifferent or superhuman can have a proper respect for the Bible. Therefore reverence for God’s Word demands that we ask questions and pose problems and that we believe there are answers and solutions which will reward our labor with “treasures new and old” (Matt. 13:52).

We must train our people that it is not irreverent to see difficulties in the biblical text and to think hard about how they can be resolved.

I do not accuse my 6-year-old son, Benjamin, of irreverence when he cannot make sense out of a Bible verse and asks me about it. He is just learning to read. But have our abilities to read been perfected? Can any of us at one reading grasp the logic of a paragraph and see how every part relates to all the others and how they all fit together to make a unified point? How much less the thought of an entire epistle, the New Testament, the Bible! If we care about truth, we must relentlessly query the text and form the habit of being bothered by things we read.

Reading for Reverence

This is just the opposite of irreverence. It is what we do if we crave the mind of Christ. Nothing sends us deeper into the counsels of God than seeing apparent theological discrepancies in the Bible and pondering them day and night until they fit into an emerging system of unified truth. For example, a year ago I struggled for days with how Paul could say on the one hand, “Have no anxiety about anything” (Phil. 4:6), but on the other hand say (with apparent impunity) that his “anxiety for all the churches” was a daily pressure on him (2 Cor. 11:28). How could he say, “Rejoice always” (1 Thess. 5:16), and “Weep with those who weep” (Rom. 12:15)? How would he say to give thanks “always and for everything” (Eph. 5:20) and then admit, “I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart” (Rom. (9:2)?

More recently I have asked, What does it mean that Jesus said in Matthew 5:39 to turn the other cheek when struck, but said in Matthew 10:23, “When they persecute you in one town, flee. . .”? When do you flee and when do endure hardship and turn the other cheek? I have also been pondering in what sense it is true that God is “slow to anger” (Ex. 34:6) and in what sense “His wrath is quickly kindled” (Ps. 2:11).

There are hundreds and hundreds of such seeming discrepancies in the Holy Scripture, and we dishonor the text not to see them and think them through. God is not a God of confusion. His tongue is not forked. There are profound and wonderful resolutions to all problems. He has called us to an eternity of discovery so that every morning for ages to come we might break forth in new songs of praise.

In 2 Timothy 2:7 Paul gave us a command and a promise. He commanded, “Think over what I say.” And he promised, “God will give you understanding in everything.”

How do the command and promise fit together? The little “for” (gar) gives the answer. “Think . . . because God will reward you with understanding.”

The promise is not made to all. It is made to those who think. And we do not think until we are confronted with a problem. Therefore, brothers, let us query the text.

Why is God just to punish Jesus for our sins John Piper

The following is an edited transcript of the audio.

Why is God just to punish Jesus for our sins when doing a similar thing would be so unjust for a human judge to do?

Very good question.

When Jesus died, he said, “Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son and glorify yourself.” And the Father came back and said, “I have glorified it [my name], and I will glorify it again.”

The way to understand Jesus’ substitutionary death under God’s wrath is that he is doing it in such a way as to glorify or magnify the infinite worth of the glory of God.

God’s glory has been trampled by people like us. Every time we prefer something to the glory of God, we demean the glory of God. And we do it every day.

Since his glory has been impugned and belittled, he has to exalt his glory by punishing sinners and saying, “My glory is infinitely valuable. If you trample my glory, you lose glory. And I restore my glory by your losing glory.”

Jesus enters in and he is able to do what no human could do. This is why there is a difference. No human ever could do this in a court of law. He is so perfect and he suffers so much, and his motives are so Godward, that when he dies on the cross, what is manifest is, “Look how valuable the glory of God is!”

If a mom stepped forward in a courtroom and said, “Let me take my son’s place. Let me take my son’s place, please.” We all know that would be unjust. She goes to the electric chair, and this son goes on to sin more.

The two differences are

1. She’s not doing that to magnify the worth of the state—God. She’s doing it to magnify the worth of her son, and that’s not what’s happening at the cross.
2. She’s freeing the son, untransformed, to go into the world and sin some more.

And those are the very two things that are different about the death of Jesus.

1. Jesus dies not to magnify the sinner’s worth, but to magnify God’s worth.
2. And he dies and changes those who escape from hell. He doesn’t just release more sin upon the world. He puts the Holy Spirit in our lives and begins to transform us into the image of Christ so that we bring more glory to the Father than if we had been left in our sin.

By John Piper. ©2013 Desiring God Foundation. Website: desiringGod.org

Tope Koleoso – Spiritual Warfare from the Desiring God Pastor’s Conference

photo from a message- The Resurrection by Tope Koleoso on Vimeo

Spiritual Warfare

from David Mathis at Desiring God - http://www.desiringgod.org
If you think spiritual warfare is irrelevant to you, you may already be losing the battle… At least you’re ripe for Satan’s picking.

Demons have a notorious way of acclimatizing to where they are, warns Tope Koleoso, pastor of Jubilee Church in London. And in secular Western society, this means playing right into our neglect and diminishing of the supernatural.

But Ephesians 6, and the rest of the Scriptures, would have us stay aware of the unseen realm, and remember that “we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against . . . the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 6:12). It is not Christian to suppress the supernatural.

Read more here - http://www.desiringgod.org
Subscribe to Theology Refresh in iTunes and watch more podcasts from pastors such as David Platt, D.A. Carson, John Piper, Russell Moore, and more. You can also read Tope Koleoso’s story - Light for a Dark World: The Story of Tope Koleoso from Tony Reinke at Desiring God here- http://www.desiringgod.org