John MacArthur and Strange Fire // Ask Pastor John

[Music] last month John McArthur hosted a conference titled strange fire the conference which was critical of all things continuationist generated for us a pile of email questions from our listeners as you can imagine and most of them just wanted to know your general thoughts Pastor John but probably the most specific question we received most frequently was related to things said about you publicly at the conference allegedly it was said that while you do have a category for prophecy in tongues today and that you're personally open to them this is an anomaly to your overall theology and you don't seem exegetically convinced enough to advocate others pursue prophecy and tongues for themselves what are your thoughts when you hear something like this well the last thing I want to do is in any way diminish or obstruct John MacArthur's incredibly fruitful expository ministry I love John I love that ministry I have an app on my phone called downcast which is for gathering and managing your audio podcasts and I listen to very few people and John MacArthur is one of them and that's because his attention to the text and his love of the Bible and his ability to apply it in forceful and relevant ways is incredibly helpful to me and I don't hesitate to tell people go there and grow so anything I say by way of disagreement is not in any sense a diminishment of that and I continue to benefit from John's ministry to this very hour so what should I say then in response to the thought I suppose he expressed I don't even go check this out so but if you say so that I don't seem to exegetically convinced enough on the gift of prophecy say to advocate others pursue these gifts well I think what I should say is I advocate I do advocate obedience to first Corinthians 1231 earnestly desire the higher gifts and I advocate obedience to 1st Corinthians 2:14 1 earnestly desire the spiritual gifts especially that you may prophesy and 1st Corinthians 14 39 I advocate obedience to verse 39 earnestly desire to prophesy and do not forbid speaking in tongues I I want Christians today to obey those and I not only advocate obedience to earnestly desiring to prophesy and not forbidding speaking in tongues but I try to obey those texts every time I preach I pray for the gift of prophecy almost as often as I pray for anything before I stand up to speak and here's what I mean we can talk about more about this later if you want to but here's what I mean I mean God while I'm preaching would you so anoint me with the gift to say things agreeable to the Scriptures and subject to the scripture that are not in my manuscript necessarily or in my head as I walk into the pulpit nor a thought of ahead of time which would come to my mind which would pierce in an extraordinary way some heart so that first Corinthians 1425 happens or it says the secrets of the heart are disclosed so falling on their face they will worship God and declare that God is really among you so that's what I pray for and I know John doesn't think that's what the gift of prophecy is and and other folks don't either but that's my answer I do have unanswered questions about these things I won't go into all of them now and my effort to prioritize what I preach on whether I preach on tongues or preach on prophecy or other spear - guess I my effort to prioritize may be imperfect but my answer is that I try to live up to what I see in the text and advocate for it as I see it in relation to all the other things that I that I preach on I do have reasons for understanding the gift of prophecy that way that I think our exegetically valid today but maybe we can save that for another time so some what my answer is John may think that I would preach on it and teach on it differently if I were really persuaded of it but all I can say is I'm trying to make judgment calls about proportion of importance and I'm trying to obey those texts yes amen think about Sir John and next time we'll follow up and talk more about modern-day prophecy but until then thank you for listening to this podcast email your questions to us at a semester John at desire and guide org visit us online at desiring God org to find thousands of books articles sermons and other resources from John Piper all free of charge I'm your host Tony ranky thanks for listening you

Channel: Desiring God

Views: 43,408

Rating: 4.7672281 out of 5

Keywords: Desiring God, John Piper, God, Jesus Christ, Christianity, Christian Hedonism, Prophecy, John MacArthur, Strange Fire, Cessationism, Continuationism, Conference

Id: -HQKTRN5tiI

Length: 5min 48sec (348 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 04 2017