This one cuts deep and I tried not to see it for years. I came to faith 18 years ago, and was instantly hungry for knowledge and wisdom from a biblical source. “How Then Shall I Live” was a key question for me. I was a husband and a dad and had not been leading my family. Suddenly I needed to know what this even looks like.
“Desiring God” by John Piper was the first book anyone recommended to me. I devoured the book along with a friend online. I blogged through it, parsing contexts and words as I went. I developed my own Christian Hedonism, based entirely on John Piper. I attended pastors conferences to see him. I travelled to the Twin Cities to visit his church and see what he was like when the big event wasn’t on. I defended him when there was controversy, such as when he wrote “God is the Gospel” or welcomed men such as Douglas Wilson or Mark Driscoll to speak.
In recent years, he handed over his pulpit to a woke culture warrior who has all but imploded the entire ministry. Bethlehem Baptist is a mere shadow of what it once was. I assumed this was just a mistake. He then spoke out in favor of organizations like BLM. I thought it could be a misstep based on his upbringing in the South and a tenderness that was greater than it should have been.
Now he is mishandling the very concepts that made me love to hear his voice for years. Telling us that violating our conscience, ignoring the results that do NOT support getting vaccinated, bastardizing scripture by explaining that loving your neighbor is the same thing as being jabbed with a substance for the ultimate sake of convenience.
Get jabbed and get your life back? Jesus had a thing or two to say about both loving and losing your life.
It hurts to mark and avoid John Piper. I used to think I could refer to his books as long as they were written before a certain date. But the Piper of those dates matured into the BIg Eva Piper that we have before us today. I may as well compost “Desiring God” at this point. At least then it would provide some good for something.
The Jab is NOT my only reason for this either. The trajectory of John Piper is. Do not follow in the footsteps of fools who are running the wrong race.
Piper Article discussion starts 17:00 in.
John Piper wrote a very confusing article reinforcing the necessity of getting the jab for Christians who feel the peer pressure not to. This is an odd article on a few levels. One of the most unusual things is the way in which Piper, a seasoned pastor, stretches scriptures to support his point.
https://tv.gab.com/channel/adrobles/view/farewell-john-piper-a-616f0f88c6a846de10c848f9