Speaker Panel with Piper, Anyabwile, Chan, and Mohler

thank you for joining us for this panel with our plenary speakers as you know pastor Piper is on the far end and the BT and al we heard from earlier today to my immediate left here is Francis Chan who will address us this evening Lord willing Francis would you open our session here in prayer sure let's pray father we thank you so much just that we can even speak to you right now all because of the blood of Jesus god I thank you so much for everything you've done in our lives thank you for these brothers and sisters in this room God may we see ourselves as a family before you and love each other that even as we speak even during this time in the panel gaudí I pray for us as we answer questions Lord that we we don't just talk about Jesus but that we would we would talk like him have the love that he had that he has for us God and we just emulate him and become more like him and when this is all over God may his name be lifted up and may we just love him even more and be more amazed by you and your love for us in Jesus name I pray amen amen well perhaps the greatest object to which we can turn our thinking is the fullest richest deepest revelation of God in the person and work of a son Jesus the btu talked about the gospel we ended last night's panel with the gospel and we thought it might be fitting to turn our minds there at the outset of this panel would you lead us in rehearsing the great good news first a question for the audience let me just get if you would those folks who know the gospel and believe the gospel and have been saved through faith in Christ let me just get you to raise your hands now if your hands not rec eat them up for just a second if your hands not raised I'm I'm going to try and walk through the gospel hopefully clearly but briefly but around you are what looks like a couple thousand people who know what I'm talking about and can help you think more about this message okay so look at that the gospel is literally good news it's a it's an announcement it's it's a Sahara that's a joyful message a happy message sent from the courts of heaven to our subjects below one way of summarizing a popular way of summarizing is in four categories god man Christ response some things that are announced in this news about God about man about Jesus and about the response we all must make to this news it's not like news on a six o'clock television show this is news that demand something of us and so what's announced to us in the gospel is that there is a God he's the only God as none like him he is holy and righteous infinite all-powerful all-wise he is creator I love the way Greg Gilbert puts into this little book what is the gospel he says we are created therefore we are owned so as creatures we owe this Creator worship and love and adoration honor and praise and this holy God who has made us in His image for fellowship with him is actually angry with us in his righteousness and his holiness because we all man now are sinners we all have disobeyed God we all have dishonored God we all have turned away from God I was talking about so wonderfully from Romans chapter 1 we all have been darkened in our own minds and we are hostile toward God as sinners God is not only holy and righteous but he's also God of love and so God sent His Son Jesus Christ His only Son who took upon himself our flesh our likeness and lived a perfectly righteous life before God to satisfy the holy requirements of God and who died an agonizing death suffering the wrath of God to pay the penalty for our sins on Calvary's cross so that the the wrath of God would be a swage turned away satisfy he was buried and resurrected three days later was ascended into heaven and he's coming again and Christ in His righteousness supplies all the righteousness that sinners will ever need and his death satisfies the demands of the gospel and demands of God against sinners so that now for response everyone who repents of sin and trust in Christ's half Jesus's righteousness credited to their accounts and has their sin nailed to the cross with Christ so that they bear it no more they are forgiven they are cleansed a miracle happens they are made new creatures and and through Christ they are they are joined together with Christ and all of the benefits of Christ become theirs through faith including the promise of everlasting life and everlasting fellowship with God and and the joy of basking in his love and his glory for all eternity that's the happy news and and so the appeal we all would make the appeal that God is making through us to you if you have not yet trusted Christ is that you would hear this message understand it trust yourself to Christ call upon his name for everyone who calls upon his name shall be saved and that's our hope for you that's our si loving hope for you and I pray that you would not leave this day without discovering more but it means to trust in Jesus to repent of your sins and to follow him in the obedience of faith and so be say thank you brother Francis as you've been with us and taking the conference in and meeting with these speakers how has God been stirring on you this weekend as you've been walking through the conference with us and as you approach this evening I am sick to my stomach right now I am and a lot of it is a lot of it is my own sin you know I'm honest right now I mean after hearing Al speak I was just hoping someone on my level would speak you know and and I'm listening and I'm going gosh I mean this is honestly what I'm going through there and and I just so thank God for what you explained in all the research and everything else and and but you just realize okay I thank God for on the one hand I feel more courageous than ever because I have my brothers striving side-by-side for the sake of the gospel with me on the other hand I'm sitting there praying going God what else is there to say these they've said everything they've said things I didn't know I would never know to say I could never do that I could never do that never do that I think you know pastor Piper made it so he said it so well last night after Rick was done even even you know John just goes wow I couldn't do that and and so with each person you're seeing how God uniquely created them and so I've been wrestling honestly one I'm so encouraged and and I'm so thrilled that I'm on a team with these guys because you just you just feel stronger I mean I mean don't you just go I am so glad that they can think at that level I'm so glad that they can help me defend because there are certain people you just go I don't know that I can argue with them I don't know no matter what they could be wrong and still win B you know what I mean because you just calm not there but there's this comfort where you go oh that's so good that these guys are on my sides like a guy you can't beat up you go I'm just glad he's here to protect me you know rather than that maybe I mean so so there's that encouragement there but there's this other side where I'm sure some of you guys are struggling and I struggle to where I go Lord why do I have to offer and yet I trust your word I know your word tells me that you created me so I'm not a I'm not a screw-up you know you you know it's like Moses when he says oh I I don't speak it and God says we know who made your mouth and so you know humility is not saying oh I can't offer anything to this conference humility is saying no God you made me so I know there and you've gifted me and you filled me with your spirit so there's something I have to offer and and that's been a wrestle and it's a fight to believe the truth of God's Word when you're battling your own flesh on your own insecurities and so I've loved this conference I wish I was just sitting here just to learn and and I wish I was not the last speaker you know you know but honestly those are the thoughts that are going through my head and that are distracting me but nonetheless I I love the graciousness of these men because for a while I did look back and there was a period of my life when I was almost anti scholarship if because after seminary and and after studying and I've been around a lot of brilliant people and and I'm almost made to feel worthless like I have nothing to offer and maybe and there been times I've even thought about quitting ministry and go maybe I need to go back to school and study some more because I'm not at that level and and and and what I've loved is you the way that the graciousness the the way you bring out and help the rest of us who maybe don't think as well or as deeply in that area you go no you have a part of the body of Christ and we need you and and and don't try to be me don't try to be him you be you and and you're really pushing that freedom applause and I think we really appreciate that a lot of us that go thank you so you don't even want me to be like you and you know that I can't be like you because I didn't feel that before I didn't I didn't get that from people who were more intelligent than I am and and and that's where that that love that I've really appreciated in that sense of no you're a creation of God - and he's gifted you in different ways and and and and for everything rick warren said about you know why i'm free to imagine and believe that god can do great things through me so those are those are all the things where i'm so grateful for this conference and it a lot of your writings your thoughts over the last few years have really renewed my attitude towards scholarship because i go no you know what there is a way to study that can help other people and build them up and lift them up there is a way to think that will actually make you more passionate about jesus rather than just cold and arrogant you know it's going to make you have affections for him for people and for the body of christ thank you so bt you are a formidable thinker and local church pastor and it's a fairly recent pastored last four years is that correct in your context how have you or would you if this were to come up counseled those who would come to you and say to bt you're just you're too deep you're too organized I can't follow not that you would need to change your preaching style we talked about that on the panel here last night but how would you counsel hunger get to stay with you and grow in the life of the mind I think it's a good question it's going to get me in trouble back home I did I was so ministered to last night as these brothers talked about that same question last night it was really helped in my own soul about that because at the end of the day I don't know how to do anything but be me and and I'm trying to remember that in preaching I'm certainly preaching for an audience of one to glorify Christ but I'm also trying to serve his people so one of the things I pray for in my own preaching is clarity I don't feel like I'm a particularly good illustrator for example which can help clarity if done appropriately done well I think there is there's power and clarity and simplicity and and yes thought force will thaw and so I just invite my people to give me feedback as to that so so when they say that am i hearing you weren't clear or am i hearing bring that particular idea that doctrinal point etc home in terms of application or my hearing yeah actually you're stretching me right now and so I encourage these brothers we're talking last night I encourage folks it's good to be stretched it's okay it's okay to be stretched sometimes I think we're we're quite complacent in our thinking and we can be we have a proxy for what it means to be mature spiritually which i think is a bad proxy many christians think if they've been in a church a long time and they haven't heard something before then the new thing that they're hearing is a novelty and and maybe needs to be discarded because after all I've been in church a long time and and I've got certain habits down and so therefore I'm mature in my thinking as a Christian or living as a Christian and I just want to push back against that I want to be gracious and loving but I actually don't want my people to settle you know I wanted it to love the Lord their God with all their mind heart strength and so forth so I want to think I hope I am able I'm approached that I take on board feedback and critique that helps the preaching and that my preaching isn't about being seen to be clever or something but is being helpful and useful in the right ways as we expand the scripture thank you now thanks for your message you talked about the the shifting ways of thinking from pre modern and postmodern through modernism and you talked here about the the honest confession of our intellectual prejudices prejudices one of the goods that comes with was postmodern thinking you so astutely highlighted for us the dangers would there be other goods other gains or advances or things to to make use of in gospel advance in terms of the postmodern way of thinking indeed and as a matter of fact a lot of what we think about in terms of cross-cultural conversation and communication is very indebted to postmodern insights about the social location of meaning I mean the fact is that meaning is culturally situated it's it's very linguistic that that's why translating language language is never a one-to-one thing and it's a whole conceptual world out there so you know there's another one quite frankly that's a key insight that you know the hard anti-realist post modernist I mean the guys that you're supposed to have up in the you know their profiles in the evangelical post office those guys they were the guys who said all truth is socially constructed in order to serve the interests of people in power we know that's not true we also know it's largely true which is to say we understand that in a sinful world we actually have a theological reason for understanding why that happens we don't just look at it and say oh isn't it awful that that's the way it happens and let's deconstruct it we look at it and say no that's true I mean what the Apostle Paul does is deconstruct alternative worldviews that's exactly what Israel's called to do the Old Testament and and so we're not we can't accept anti-realism we can't accept the hostility to to truth but we can say you know if you've been burned by all of the false claims to truth and all of the racism and ethnocentrism and and all the rest that's been a part of whether it's been Western civilization or some other then it's going to come very very natural to you to believe that all truth emerges from that same kind of sinful claim all truth claims emerge and that same kind of power grab and we got to come back and say no you know this is where the gospel is the great true infinitely true truth claim that gives that that is God's message of grace and you know that's just something where we can understand you know the unregenerate mind as the reformer said can know many things accurately and where it gets it right we need to recognize that's judgment if we've been thinking wrongly in order that we can get to the truth of the gospel and actually be true or truth tellers more accurate truth tellers one of the great challenges for evangelicals and I'll just admit this I don't think there's any expert in this I think one of the great challenges for evangelicals and I mean true evangelicals those who love the gospel is going to be how how to understand the the cross-cultural communication challenges that we're going to live with till Jesus comes and and how to be faithful in the midst of that it's going to take a lot of us thinking all of us thinking as faithfully as the Lord would lead us to think together Thank You John there's been talking this conference like to follow up on that okay there's been talking the conference of the relationship between thinking feeling doing just on the video we saw in to be DS message you've probably talked more about that tomorrow you were significantly honored here today talk talk with us as a model through how to think through being honored there's dangers on either side when the the moment comes of being honored in a handshake or a photo or the book like this how have you learned over the years to walk through that kind of danger to ask that question to you but could you provide help for us as we walk that journey as people who are loved and honored by others oh my probably the first thing to say is that God is in charge of keeping his people humble not us the Bible does say humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God but as in almost all other things command what you will and give what you command so you may I think expect that God will deal roughly with you he has to in order to remind you that you're not God and that you are desperately in need of him and perhaps it's no accident that I received this book of essays in the middle of a leave of absence taken because of pain got an accident and it worked out that way they've been working for three years and that there are issues in my family and my wider family and my soul that are such that I wanted to step back and look at all of them and work on all of them that wasn't my idea to do this it was things that come up I felt as I sat there these folks don't know me well enough and they don't they don't know what goes on in our living room and bedroom and kitchen and so you know your wife knows and your children know and you feel a sense of disjunction between public praise and private imperfections and that's God's doing that he performs that then there are these natural limitations that people closest around me know that I have and I don't know why God has been pleased to release influence through me the way he has when I look at the limitations I can't read faster than I can talk everybody thinks I'm a scholar I'm not a scholar it's just this did so I feel like I'm going to they're going to wake up and say what did we just do you know to give this I I have learned to navigate my limitations and and just do the few things I can do as well as I can and and I'm I'm always thinking about what I can't do I just wake up in the morning think what I can't do so god I think fits us with weaknesses he leads us through the valley of the shadow of death he leads us in his Providence yes even in and out of sin and does what he has to do to to break us so that's the first that's the first principle God is in charge of keeping us humble and he will he loves us so much Hebrews 12 that if you are a child and you are not yet disciplined you may be a bastard those are strong words if you haven't been spanked hard enough to come to blood then maybe maybe you're not even a child so that's the way he works the second thing I would I would say is that I'll just leave it it - let's say it big then let's say it focused we here we leaders here believe in a certain vision of God's sovereign grace there's not a thing in you or me that inclined God to choose you for himself nah there's not a thing in you that incline God to cause you to be born again nothing there's not a thing in you that secures your eternal destiny nothing it is totally free this is our theology unconditional election unconditional regeneration unconditional propitiation conditional justification faith and that's a gift our theology is meant to flatten us 1st Corinthians 1 29 and 30 all these things not many of you were wise not many of you were highborn why so that no one would boast in the presence of God but him who boasts finish it that's weak because not not all of you are there let him who boasts boast in the Lord that no flesh might boast in the presence of God salvation is designed in a way as to cut the legs out from under all human boasting it's designed that way that's what this conference is about that's what the new Calvinism is about it's about smashing human pride and getting glory for God I said that's the big picture that the narrow picture is Christ crucified what the most important event in human history is the death of the Son of God what's the meaning of the death of the Son of God it means I am unspeakably lost it took that much to save me anybody that lives near the cross isn't going to put his thumbs in his armpits and stri not going to brag about his stuff not going to talk a lot about his achievements he's just looking at that incredible horror and saying that's how corrupt I am and the cross has another message and it's good news that's how much I loved and it's free the biggest challenge theological II and experientially for us is to feel loved unworthy they kept in the morning be thrilled to be alive and be thrilled to know God totally undeserving ly that's the challenge because because I'm wired to want to feel thrilled because I got a book or had a conference or gave a message the constant clawing at my ego to find my meaning and my significance in other people's wreck of what I've done so these guys have set me up terribly great but like David said you deal with it so you're watching me you know just process this this thing so those three things God God is going to do it whether you want him to or not he's just going to flatten you your marriage may shatter totally or already did right or your kids are going to just go wacko on you or you're going to get cancer or you're going to lose your job you'll do whatever he has to do just flatten you so that you are desperate before him and then secondly he's going to work through a conference like this and books here and there and movements to get you a theology with him so massively at the center it never occurred to you to put yourself there and then he's going to take you to the cross over and over and over again remind you how unsavable you are apart from that horrific crucifixion and how much you are amazingly loved something like that though now tonight I'll feel really happy about that plot applause all right or will I we just never escape there is no escape from this battle there is no escape and so we just must press pray hard for each other all the time it deserves a say long I'm risking a nap not just that's just so freeing when you talk about being unworthy and loved because when it when it when it's a sense of love attached to our worthiness that's slavery because you just you just on this treadmill trying to keep the worthiness up and trying to keep it at a level where you can fabricate the feeling of love you know and maintain that and and to just be a based to be to be smash the idol of self and and to in that sense rejoice in our unworthiness and know that God loves you that that is that's so freeing that's so liberating that's so wonderful Thank You brothers there's been a lot of talk and rightfully so about the life of the mind it relates to the written word and at this conference we've seen video clips how would you describe the role of audio video especially over the last 10 plus years they're all the videos on the internet audio we hear in different places in as it relates to the life of the mind the development of the life of the mind and sharpening of it well I'm thankful for it I think there are many things that can be extremely well beautifully communicated by means of video account audio in the video because there's a certain power to the image and that's that's biblically understood it's a dangerous power there's a book out a couple years ago entitled the rise of the image and the fall of the word that's devastating it's not we're about but we do understand partly because the image is far more susceptible to manipulation and to lying than is the word actually because it is so easily attached to the emotions in ways that make it make it invisible to us how we I mean we are moved visually by things we don't want to be moved by and we detected in ourselves we see something on television or especially a Hollywood movie that moves us and we feel our emotions being pulled away from the truth and and that's a that's a big danger but this is a visual where we're actually kind of reverting to a pre verbal pre-linguistic certainly literate age in many parts of the society and so if you want to reach an awful lot of the people whom we know and love then that's a powerful way to do it but for Christians just let me please make this this plea it can't replace the printed word because the discipline of the printed word is a discipline of reading that requires a certain concentration certain habits of the mind and habits of the heart that are not required by video and just last week I had to take two days away those are very rare and precious but I had some writing that had to be done and I had an opportunity just literally between two trips to take two days just to do it I I took a complete digital vacation and I just want to say to you the digital natives you're going to have to wean yourself at times off of video and audio and act like you are in a monastic cell cut off from all culture and meaning according to your peers living in living as if you are your own parent and you have grounded yourself because it's going to take that to read certain things much less to write certain thing and your soul needs it the Apostle Paul said bring the books and the parchments I know I know he might have said the DVDs and the iPod in some modern translation but it's not the same thing it isn't the same thing so I think we're living in a time in which it's very safe and important for us in the stewardship of media and communication opportunities to say we need to be good you know I'm I got to tell you the stuff that is produced even the video John of your book it's just outstanding and I saw that even before we came out here and thought you know and before I spoke people need to see that because their people are going to see that be drawn into the book that's the that's what I want I want to see video draw people into deeper the main reason why we must always be a people devoting thought to the written word is because the Bible exists just let it sink in on you that the Bible exists he didn't do it any other way and we're stuck with it till he comes that's the way it is sort of choice nobody has a choice God inspired the Bible the Bible is in Greek and Hebrew and translated into other languages reading is an act of thinking have a whole chapter just to show what I mean by thinking and what I mean is reading reading either poorly or well when you read well you're thinking so the Bible mandates a focus on the written word and it mandates thinking here's the catch the Bible commands preaching which isn't written it's this why why does it say in second Timothy 2:4 preach the word because there is something more something more in this that people need God has wired sheep to be fed not just by distribution of both sheep are to be fed by shepherds who talked to them because shepherds are alive their wives and children and pain feelings and passions and sorrows and and the people live there and they win they need to see truth coming through that that that's why both so we got the Bible ground it'll never go away ever ever ever go away that was God's choice and I think he didn't choose it because they didn't have videos back then he chose because he created this and this learns how to do what he's supposed to do not mainly by listening but mainly by reading now that has huge implications there for preliterate cultures but I'd love to go into that because I've talked to a geez Fernando for example about how he does expository preaching among pre literate non reading peoples and he says the Bible is crucial in doing it there but enough the Bible is a book the book must be read either by the teachers or the students and to be read it must be thought about and the Bible commands more than reading a command speaking kind of said a word to that the scripture principle is so central to us God gave us a word first of all incarnate word we would say supremely and then the written word and our dependence on the written word just John you said is is eternal now there's some interesting studies have been done lately about multiplicities of meaning it's hard enough to nail meaning down let's admit that it's hard but if you compare what it means to try to get people to agree on what a text means versus to agree on what say a movie means there is tremendous documentation out there on the fact that you're not talking about a slight difference you're talking about just think of you and four or five friends going to see a movie and trying to agree what that was about as if your life depended on it versus a text in our fallen state the text is hard enough the video is impossible and and and so I just think it's important for us to understand that in a fallen world these things are have tremendous potential but the potential might be more to make things interesting than to make things clearer and that that's where we've got to be really careful I think thank you the video I wanted to come back to a place in your talk where there was a tension and probably recognize this and see if you could work on it some more for us here with an extra moment maybe you said and I missed it the tension between Islam not being able to be established in this country and they're being freedom of religion fighting for that freedom of religion advocating for the freedom religion yet advocating for that that non-establishment but islam is not a religion that will take the freedom of religion without the establishment is there is there more than that can be said there is it a is Islam stuck well it's a great question um thank you a great question Fred preside over I'm just I'm just glad he didn't ask me well I do think there's a certain sense in which yeah Islam is stuff but it's it's not a sense in which that stuckness is different than the Christian who is stuck or the Jew who is stuck so we don't live in a theocracy you know and and I think the experiment historically of the wedding of church and state or religion and state has just been disastrous for the state and the church I think any any any reading of the history teaches us that and so what I'm led to believe is actually again I think there was a kindness of the Lord in in the framing of our own sort of legal framework that prohibits on the one hand a establishment of religion and guarantees on the other hand the Free Exercise so what does that mean I think it sets a context where you've got to work it out and I think it sets a context where you have to be intelligent about not advantaging or privileges particular perspectives I'm speaking here primarily in religious terms while at the same time not not hindering not not not squashing others insofar as you're protecting basic liberties that are also spoken up in a document so I think yeah I we would be saying to Islam we would be saying to Christianity we've been saying to Hinduism and Buddhism and Judaism and and every other religious system we will not enshrine your point of view your religious practice your religious precepts as the law of the land that then violates what I think is one of the most basic human liberties which is again the freedom of religion to worship God according to conscience but at the same time we will work to protect that Liberty that freedom that ability to worship the Lord worship God according to the dictates of conscience so there's a dance there and I think it's a good dance I think it's the right dance and I think we say to our Muslim neighbors and friends welcome to the country enjoy the freedoms here let us love you as neighbors let us show you hospitality would learn that would loved and learn more and to engage and to talk more would not support the country becoming something other minutes than what it's framed to be and I think it's incumbent upon us to be perhaps I'm certainly me to be a better student of constitutional history law so and so forth that we might be better better stewards of that tension of that balance which i think is at this point at least i think is good and right now francis usually one easy wanted please um you referenced earlier a previous anti intellectual or anti scholarship strain in the past and yet at your previous church cornerstone you founded bible college can you tell us how you went from some anti scholarship strands to the founding of a an institution for scholarship at the church yeah it's when i began to encounter men who love the word of god and i'm so it's still bothering me that you say you're not a scholar job is that like drive anyone else crazy cuz it's like okay if you're not a scholar one the world am i you know anyways um there is an answer for that okay oh I don't sure there is okay I mean I don't know if you remember when I first met you you were speaking as used to Pacific University I had just spoken the day before the couple days before and so I asked the faculty I can I Drive him to the airport you know I just want to spend time with you and and and and I remember in that in the car almost apologizing for not I you know I had tried to write at that time and I couldn't write tonight and and I always felt like anyone who knew this much knowledge about the Scriptures wanted me to know just as much as him or I was failing or not as good and and I remember just saying gosh I've tried to write and I I can't do it and a number you just looked at me and said well maybe you're not supposed to like really I don't have to you know like I don't and and you won't even remember because just came out of your meet you were saying you know I I hear you have great you know gifts was speaking to the youth and you can really communicate to them and so keep doing that and and it was like sorry you're okay with me like I I have something to offer even though I'm not at your level it was like this you used what knowledge you had to build me up and to lift me up and to edify me and and there were other men that came into my life that did the same thing and helped me in some of my shortcomings and and and actually felt like I had something to offer them as you know they said well won't you help me in communicating because every time I talk people sleep and I okay you know let me help you and with this let's work and let's let's do this and and but but the you know it happened today at lunch when we were praying over you and and someone was thanking God for you because they said I love you more God because of the writings of John and his teachings and that was true of me it's like I love Jesus more like I would I would read some of that's embarrass you but it was your writings that I would read and they were deep and they were rich and and I walked away more in love with Jesus and it just it just gave me this confidence okay you know here's how we use the mind to stir on this affection and I want to do that with other young people and you're seeing how there's so many younger people now that are getting it and understanding things and in understanding some of these concepts and it's causing them to love Jesus more not not puff up like the passage I'm going to teach tonight but it really caused them to fall more in love with Jesus and I want to thank you because I I do feel like I I love Jesus more because of your writings and your thinking I love people more because you're right that the main thing I think my wife can attest to this is I just enjoy God more I do I just I love knowing him I the friend and someone that was gone for a while there was there was still that underlying fear there was still that respect and there was there was still a lot of these things that showed this reverence toward the Lord but it was through the writings that of your writings that I just I enjoyed him again I desired him again and and so actually thinking got me to love him more and and I and I think for a while that wasn't happening and so when I saw that I could happen it got me more and more excited to read more to study more and encourage other people to do the same thank you there's the possibility that with our thinking we produce more distinctions more differences with others and yet the Apostle Paul has this charge to think the same thing several times in Philippians and Corinthians he encourages them towards unity to to think the same thing how do you guys understand those passages and how does the life of the mind relate to greater unity rather than only greater diversity in the church you're absolutely right that a devotion to doctrine and especially thinking hard about doctrine causes one to define it and as soon as you define it's not this this and not this and the not this believers are now not believing what you believe and their tensions and the more important issue is the greater the tensions and none of us likes that kind of tension and the first thing I would say exegetically is that word group tends not to be the not a word group at the front of a word group okay sure that means a lot to everybody he was not a scholar there by the way the the command to to be minded a certain way and to think a certain way now I could be wrong there could be exceptions to this but just in general those those commands are a word group in Greek that's very difficult to bring over into English it would be attitude would be as good a translation as think have the same attitude same that this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus doesn't mean in that case even though it should be that we're thinking his thoughts about biology or thoughts about the cross it means he emptied himself took the form of a servant have a servant mind and so usually the call to have one mind is to the call to have one orientational on humbling yourself to be a serb that does not answer the problem it's only toward it the apostle really does want us to think the same thoughts doctrinally he's not in too well to have a couple of views about the cross the more the better that's not the way paul would think at all he would like there to be one pervasive understanding of the atonement in this room and around the world and so the command I think means work at it and and the way to work at that is not to say it doesn't matter for goodness sakes so if the command comes have the same mind or think the same then what would you do well you'd preach and you'd write as persuasively as you can and as kindly and as Winstanley and as lovingly as you can and when there's a pocket in your church that's forming a little clique getting a little different view about something you wouldn't take angular potshots at them from the pulpit you'd call them up right say can I come meet with your group and say tell me what you're thinking where did this come from I can I just doesn't look right to me and there would be an effort so the whole reconciliation you know love your enemy and be slow to anger and be quick to listen all those things that we usually think of only in terms of relational dynamics they're all intellectual dynamics as well and we would do better probably in the evangelical world if there were more phone calls wouldn't we fewer blogs more phone calls now I'm not one of those who says you can't criticize somebody publicly until you've called them on the phone I think that's not true if they've been public in spousal an error but there are a lot of cases when you can there are a lot of cases when you can and we might go a long way to rectifying I write more letters to the editor with a note at the top this is not for publication than I do this is for publication that's why you don't see any letters for me I just gave up on writing letters to editors but I still write when I'm steaming about something to an editor and says look I'm just ticked at what you did I don't want the world to know that I want you to know that okay why in the world would you publish such an article or some something like that and maybe that's not the best tone but I'm a sinner and so I think the two responses I have are one those verbs are generally attitudinal but we should work towards thinking the same about doctrinal issues and the best way is to teach and preach and speak in winsome loving compelling ways the point I want to make the first thing I want to say is that what John just did for us what you just modeled there is actually thinking about thinking in a way that acknowledges what you just did was you said look that that's just them thrown at me but in order to understand it we're going to go back to the text and understand it's not quite so simple as you just presented it which is it was great the way that you set that up and and and and laid it out and I think you're exactly right where the people were the truth people we can't act like truth doesn't matter and the more you talk about truth the greater the risk is you're going to disagree or you're going to find that there's miscommunication or you're going to have to work things out that's the price we're gonna have to pay until Jesus comes because the price of not doing that is turning ourselves into a non thinking non-theological non doctrinal people who will lose the gospel so we've got to be unapologetic about that but it's going to Humble us it's going to Humble us so humbles for a number of reasons is because in the give-and-take of this conversation in the believing church I don't mean with unbelievers and I don't mean with with liberal theologians and skeptics and all the rest was we talk together we're going to find ourselves an error uh-uh we're going to need a lot of Priscilla's and aquila x' to take a lot of the policies aside and say that wasn't right then I had to preach a message in Chapel I just felt very much on my heart from that text this semester by students to tell them I want to take you back to a certain point when I was in error and I desperately needed priscilla and aquila to show up and correct me turned out don't get into a gender bending thing here his name was Carl Henry but nonetheless so it was not Priscilla but it was Aquila who showed up in this case to fulfill that function and and I needed I needed that correction it's meant it's happened times I'm not even aware of where I've been corrected by the preaching of God's Word in a way that sometimes not even not even here we've got a risk disagreement disagreements not the worst thing disagree the price you pay to make sure you actually know what you're talking about and and and clarify and and you can you can be in a disagreement and love each other all the more for it I have Christian Brothers who will challenge me and whom I challenge and at the end of it we worship God more faithfully together because of this and and you need to you need to do a couple of other things you need to think in it out loud one of the gifts we need to give each other is to expose our thinking to each other we tend in our intellectual narcissism and I'm as guilty as this is anyone else to want to show up with a finished product okay here is the truth here's my position I have arrived here we need to be vulnerable because we'll be far more faithful if we will line out our thinking so that we can we can watch each other think hear each other think and go okay you know if that's not tightened back here you're gonna end up over here or I don't think you heard what you said when you were when you were there so we need to do that in in that beautiful booklet for the conference you were given the article that is under my name is on theological triage and the last thing I want to say is that's just an offering for this discussion I didn't know what's coming up now the question was coming but we have to have the maturity in the discernment to say there's some things we have to be united on well we can't recognize each other's brothers and sisters in Christ you know someone asked me a question one time what do you say to someone a believer I was told it doesn't believe in the bodily resurrection of Christ here's what yet you're not a believer okay we have a category problem here you know there are certain things that have to be believed and this is a New Testament issue when the Apostles have to say here's what the gospel is you have to know this much Romans 10 for example I mean do you have a very clear example if you're not there you're not a believer you're not a Christian you're you aren't you're not you're not inside you're still outside once you get inside there's a second level I suggest in which we have some serious disagreements and it's not because we don't love the Lord and we don't love the Bible and we don't want to serve Jesus but there are issues that divide us denominationally that aren't accidents then go back to serious disagreements about things that matter and we love the Lord we love the truth enough to know they really matter we might both be wrong but we can't both be right but we do recognize each other as sincere believers in Christ and we can witness together Whitfield and Wesley could share the gospel together and preach together and be involved in ministry together we give me in this room together we can exult in Christ together and we know that the commonalities that bring us here are why we're here but we're still who we are we walk in the door we didn't become desiring God robots we are who we are and until Jesus comes we're going to have to work with some things in a humility there could be some things we're going to disagree with until our Lord teacher corrects his church and purifies and sanctifies his church in common but then there's a third category and this is important for us too there are things we disagree about that don't matter to the preaching and teaching of the gospel or the right ordering of the church there there may be as many positions on some questions of eschatology as there are people in this room and I can live with that so long as we're absolutely certain of the coming visible triumphant return of the Lord Jesus Christ to cleanse and claim its church and the consummation of all things according to everything that scripture proclaims there could be all kinds of positions on how the human soul originates and this or that different interpretations of things that don't matter and we recognize that and humility we need to recognize that's just another sense of our fallenness this is another sign of our incomplete sanctification okay but it isn't going to matter we can still worship together and work together and we can agree on the ordering of the church on these things together so that requires some maturity if you make a third-order issue a first-order issue you're going to blow the place up if you make a first-order issue a third-order issue you're going to flush the gospel it just requires some maturity and growing up here and we got to do it together so think out loud brothers thank you for serving us this weekend on the panel and in your messages John would you close us in prayer father in heaven we ask that you would become more and more our teacher we love that phrase of Paul to the Thessalonians that they are God taught to love one another we believe that you have ordained to do it through your inspired Word and often through anointed pastors and teachers small group leaders whatever avenues Lord we want to be God taught you want to know things feel things and do things according to reality yourself your son your ways so let this conference o God have that effect increasingly on our souls make us a God taught people for the sake of this world who needs the light of the church and the salt of the church everywhere pray this in Jesus name you

Channel: Desiring God

Views: 39,604

Rating: 4.916955 out of 5

Keywords: Conference Message, John Piper, Desiring God, Bethlehem Baptist Church, Christian, Christianity, Church, Bible, Jesus Christ, God, Scripture

Id: bqZ6vYauM_I

Length: 59min 34sec (3574 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 01 2013