For the Fame of God's Name: Essays in Honor of John Piper
544
For the Fame of God's Name: Essays in Honor of John Piper
544eBook
Related collections and offers
Overview
John Piper has had a profound impact on countless men and women over his nearly thirty years of ministry. From his online ministry with Desiring God to his preaching ministry at Bethlehem Baptist to his writing ministry in over thirty books, his faithful service has encouraged and challenged many with God’s Word.
Piper’s influence does not stem from his own abilities and accomplishments, but finds its source in his consistent and humble leading of others to Scripture, where the breathtaking glory of God is displayed in all its wonder. We rejoice and are changed as we encounter glorious truths about God in Piper’s ministry.
It is in this spirit that friends and colleagues of Piper, including Wayne Grudem, D. A. Carson, Randy Alcorn, and others, honor him by presenting essays covering topics central to his ministry: prayer, the sovereignty of God, justification, Jonathan Edwards, Christian Hedonism, and more.
Pastors, scholars, and lay leaders will benefit from this tribute to a man who has labored so faithfully for the fame of God’s name.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781433523212 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Crossway |
| Publication date: | 10/04/2010 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 544 |
| File size: | 3 MB |
About the Author
Sam Storms (PhD, University of Texas at Dallas) has spent more than four decades in ministry as a pastor, professor, and author. He is currently the senior pastor at Bridgeway Church in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, and was previously a visiting associate professor of theology at Wheaton College from 2000 to 2004. He is the founder of Enjoying God Ministries and blogs regularly at SamStorms.com.
Justin Taylor (PhD, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary) is the executive vice president of book publishing and book publisher at Crossway. He has edited and contributed to several books, including A God-Entranced Vision of All Things and Reclaiming the Center, and he blogs at Between Two Worlds—hosted by the Gospel Coalition.
Randy Alcorn (MA, Multnomah University) is the founder and director of Eternal Perspective Ministries and a New York Times best-selling author of over fifty books. His books have sold over nine million copies and been translated into nearly seventy languages. Alcorn resides in Gresham, Oregon, with his wife, Nanci. They have two married daughters and five grandsons.
G. K. Beale (PhD, University of Cambridge) is professor of New Testament and biblical theology at Westminster Theological Seminary. In recent years he has served as president and member of the executive committee of the Evangelical Theological Society. He has written several books and articles on biblical studies.
D. A. Carson (PhD, Cambridge University) is research professor of New Testament at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, where he has taught since 1978. He is a cofounder of the Gospel Coalition and has written or edited nearly 120 books. He and his wife, Joy, have two children and live in the north suburbs of Chicago.
Mark Dever (PhD, Cambridge University) is the senior pastor of Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington, DC, and president of 9Marks (9Marks.org). Dever has authored over a dozen books and speaks at conferences nationwide.
Wayne Grudem (PhD, University of Cambridge; DD, Westminster Theological Seminary) is research professor of theology and biblical studies at Phoenix Seminary, having previously taught for 20 years at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He is a former president of the Evangelical Theological Society, a member of the Translation Oversight Committee for the English Standard Version of the Bible, the general editor of the ESV Study Bible, and has published over 20 books.
John MacArthur is the pastor-teacher of Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, California, where he has served since 1969. He is known around the world for his verse-by-verse expository preaching and his pulpit ministry via his daily radio program, Grace to You. He has also written or edited nearly four hundred books and study guides. MacArthur serves as the president of the Master’s University and Seminary. He and his wife, Patricia, live in Southern California and have four grown children.
C. J. Mahaney is the senior pastor of Sovereign Grace Church of Louisville. He has written, edited and contributed to numerous books, including Proclaiming a Cross-Centered Theology; Don't Waste Your Sports; and Sex, Romance, and the Glory of God. C. J. and his wife, Carolyn, are the parents of three married daughters and one son, and the happy grandparents to twelve grandchildren.
R. Albert Mohler Jr. (PhD, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary) serves as the ninth president of Southern Seminary and as the Joseph Emerson Brown Professor of Christian Theology. Considered a leader among American evangelicals by Time and Christianity Today magazines, Dr. Mohler hosts a daily radio program for the Salem Radio Network and also writes a popular daily commentary on moral, cultural, and theological issues.
David Powlison (MDiv, Westminster Theological Seminary) is a teacher, a counselor, and the executive director of the Christian Counseling & Educational Foundation. He is also the senior editor of the Journal of Biblical Counseling and the author of Seeing with New Eyes, Good & Angry, and Speaking Truth in Love.
Thomas R. Schreiner (MDiv and ThM, Western Conservative Baptist Seminary; PhD, Fuller Theological Seminary) is the James Buchanan Harrison Professor of New Testament Interpretation and associate dean of the school of theology at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.
Bruce A. Ware (PhD, Fuller Theological Seminary) is professor of Christian theology at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He has written numerous journal articles, book chapters, book reviews, and has authored God's Lesser Glory, God's Greater Glory, and Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Thabiti M. Anyabwile (MS, North Carolina State University) serves as a pastor at Anacostia River Church in Washington, DC, and is the author of numerous books. He serves as a council member of the Gospel Coalition, is a lead writer for 9Marks Ministries, and regularly blogs at The Front Porch and Pure Church. He and his wife, Kristie, have three children.
Jon Bloom (BA, Bethel University) is the cofounder and president of desiringGod.org, where he contributes regularly. He is also the author of several books. Bloom and his wife, Pam, live in Minneapolis with their five children.
Sinclair B. Ferguson (PhD, University of Aberdeen) is Chancellor’s Professor of Systematic Theology at Reformed Theological Seminary and the former senior minister of the First Presbyterian Church in Columbia, South Carolina. He is the author of several books, the most recent being By Grace Alone: How the Grace of God Amazes Me. Sinclair and his wife, Dorothy, have four grown children.
Scott J. Hafemann is currently the Mary F. Rockefeller Distinguished Professor of New Testament at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. He also taught for nine years at Wheaton College. He has written numerous books and articles.
James M. Hamilton Jr. (PhD, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary) is professor of biblical theology at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and preaching pastor at Kenwood Baptist Church. He is the author of God's Glory in Salvation through Judgment and the Revelation volume in the Preaching the Word commentary series.
David Mathis serves as the executive editor at desiringGod.org, pastor at Cities Church, and adjunct professor at Bethlehem College & Seminary. He writes regularly at desiringGod.org, and he and his wife, Megan, have four children.
William D. Mounce (PhD, Aberdeen University) is president of BiblicalTraining.org. He is a noted Greek scholar, author of the best-selling textbook Basics of Biblical Greek, and served as the New Testament Chair of the ESV translation team.
Stephen J. Nichols (PhD, Westminster Theological Seminary) serves as the president of Reformation Bible College and chief academic officer of Ligonier Ministries. He is an editor of the Theologians on the Christian Life series and also hosts the weekly podcast 5 Minutes in Church History.
Raymond C. Ortlund Jr. is the pastor of Immanuel Church in Nashville, Tennessee. He is the author of several books, including the Preaching the Word commentary on Isaiah, as well as a contributor to the ESV Study Bible. He and his wife, Jani, have four children.
TOM STELLER, Pastor for Leadership Development, Bethlehem Baptist Church, Minneapolis, Minnesota; Dean, Bethlehem College and Seminary
Mark Talbot (PhD, University of Pennsylvania) is associate professor of philosophy at Wheaton College. He specializes in philosophical psychology and philosophical theology and has written numerous articles and reviews.
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
A PERSONAL TRIBUTE TO THE PRAISE OF GOD'S INFINITEGLORY AND ABOUNDING GRACE
David Michael
It was March 23, 1980. Our pastor was out of town for what was otherwise an ordinary Sunday morning. We appreciated the opportunities our church offered for meaningful engagement in urban ministry, but after two years our souls were parched. Certainly we were not aware that in the next hour a course would be set that would shape our marriage, our ministry, our relationships, our experiences, and our biblical and theological worldview for the next thirty years. Before the guest preacher took the pulpit, our congregation was informed that he would be resigning his position at Bethel College and in July become the senior pastor at one of our urban neighbor churches, Bethlehem Baptist. The introduction ended, a wiry thirty-four-year-old stepped to the pulpit, and Sally and I settled in for what we expected to be another spiritually arid sermon from a PhD Bible professor whom we had never heard of. But within minutes the Word of God was gushing forth like streams in the desert and watering our thirsty souls.
From the outside, Bethlehem seemed like so many of the other twenty-two churches in our community — limited resources, aging congregation, and little or no gospel influence on the neighbors they no longer knew or understood. Though their building remained, their pastors and people had long since moved to safer and more pleasant places. If there was doubt that we would visit Bethlehem to get another drink of what we tasted in March, it vanished when we learned this new pastor bought a home a few blocks from the church. A senior pastor who could faithfully preach the Word of God with such power and who was living in the neighborhood offered us hope that Bethlehem could be spiritually alive and fruitfully invested for the cause of Christ in the city. As soon as we heard this, Sally and I made plans to visit Bethlehem the following Sunday.
The course was set, and to the praise of God's infinite glory and abounding grace we would never be the same again. We became members of Bethlehem that fall. Six years later I came onto the staff as pastor for urban and social ministry. A decade later, in 1996, Sally joined the staff, and together we assumed responsibility for parenting and children's discipleship, which was later expanded to include our present responsibilities.
It would be difficult to overstate the influence John Piper's radically God-centered preaching and teaching ministry has had on us and on the people of Bethlehem. It would likewise be difficult to exaggerate the joy it has been to serve as a pastor among people who are experiencing the influence of such radically God-centered preaching and teaching. Being engaged in ministry alongside John and other faithful comrades whose hearts are knit together for serving a great church, in a great cause, to the fame and glory of our great King, has been an indubitable privilege.
It is my joy to give tribute to a man who has devoted his life to helping me (and the rest of the world) see God as the center and source of all things and therefore as the only One to whom all honor and glory and thanks belong. Therein, however, lies the challenge. For me to spend these limited words praising such a man would not only offend the man but, even worse, offend his God. It seems more fitting to honor a faithful pastor and fellow servant in Christ and in the gospel ministry by devoting the rest of my allotted words to praising the One whom I and countless others have come to see more clearly and admire more deeply through the faithful ministry of John Piper. Therefore I would like to lead us in the following prayer of praise and thanksgiving.
* * *
Almighty God and Everlasting Father,
I want to bow before you to worship you as the Giver of every good gift, including thirty years of ministry through a man who has taught us to exalt you in everything that we do, from drinking orange juice to giving tribute to a man who has influenced untold numbers of people to the praise of your infinite glory and abounding grace. I join with all who read this book not to honor John Piper, but to honor John Piper's God, who created him and sustained his life for these sixty-five years.
You are the God who works wonders! You have made known your strength among the peoples. You cause the sun to rule by day and the moon and stars at night. You brought water out of solid rock and multiplied food to feed thousands. You split waters and calmed seas. You made the blind to see, the lame to walk, the dead to live again. And, among the myriad wonders you have performed according to your glorious plans formed long ago, you created John Piper.
Thank you for Ruth and Bill Piper, who introduced John to Jesus, faithfully taught him the fear of the Lord from his youth, and gave him Galatians 2:20 on his fifteenth birthday to inspire him to live by faith in the Son of God, who loved him and delivered himself up for him.
Thank you for the awkward and difficult years of adolescence that you used to humble him and keep him from the pitfalls of vanity, worldliness, and self-reliance.
Thank you for the courage you gave John forty-four years ago to pray in Wheaton's chapel service. Thank you for using that prayer to deliver him from the paralyzing fear of man and to loosen his tongue to declare your glory with a passion that you have sustained in him to this day.
Thank you for laying him aside with mono in 1966 and for using the biblical exposition of Harold John Ockenga to grip his heart with a desire to teach and preach the Word.
Thank you for the insight that was given, the faith that was deepened, the theology that was refined, and the doctrine that was established during his years at Fuller Seminary and the University of Munich.
Thank you for six years of fruitful Bible teaching at Bethel and for all his wrestling with Romans 9, which ignited a passion to herald the Word of God and witness its power to create authentic people.
Thank you for opening Bethlehem's pulpit at just the right time and for directing the will of the search committee to recommend that John be called to the position of preaching pastor.
Thank you for thirty years of faithful prayers and for multiplied hours of preparation that gave us glimpses of your glory in over thirteen hundred Sundays of sermons, dozens of advent poems, untold numbers of articles, classes, seminars, Bible studies, wedding homilies, funeral meditations, and devotions off the "front burner." Through these means, you opened our eyes to see you as an "all-satisfying God" who is "most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him" and who "works for those who wait for him." Our hearts found joy in the confidence that you "always have a way" and work all things for good "even when things don't go the way they should." You nourished our minds and strengthened our hearts through these means. You gave us a hope in you and a delight in your ways. You awakened a hunger and desire for you. You stirred in us a joy in your Son, a reliance on your Spirit, and a love for your Truth. You gave us knowledge and understanding of your Word. You granted grace for every circumstance and a "white-hot passion" for your supremacy in all things.
I praise you, Lord Jesus, for giving me and my colleagues the unspeakable privilege of serving this church and leading ministries that were sustained week after week, year after year, and decade after decade by faithful, passionate preaching, fueled by your Word and ignited by your Spirit. I will forever bless you for the joy you have given me in serving alongside a people who have been so consistently inspired to be "coronary Christians" going "hard after God," living a "wartime lifestyle," "risking all for the cause of Christ," willing to go "outside the camp, bearing the reproach that Christ endured," forsaking gold because "copper will do," moving "toward need, not comfort," "living by faith in future grace," employing prayer as "a wartime walkie-talkie not a domestic intercom," declaring your glory among the nations with "undistracting excellence," "gutsy guilt," and "brokenhearted boldness."
I praise you for giving us a pastor who is passionate about raising a generation of young people who will "live courageously in the world even under pressure to conform" and who will "thoughtfully and effectively engage the culture for the sake of the gospel." I praise you for a pastor who prays and labors for a generation of "Christ-exalting, God-glorifying, Bible-saturated, truth-driven, doctrinally grounded, faith-filled, God-centered, mission-minded, soul-winning, justice-pursuing, God-fearing, Christ-treasuring, joyfully self-forgetting, passion-spreading, spiritually fruitful servants who are devoted to spreading a passion for the supremacy of God in all things for the joy of all peoples through Jesus Christ."
Thank you for John's example of faithful pastoral ministry that has encouraged the timid, helped the weak, warned the idle, disciplined the wayward, comforted the sick, strengthened the dying, given hope for the grieving, and brought the light of the Word to bear on innumerable decisions and problems and circumstances of life that have troubled your people over these years.
Thank you for three decades of faithful leadership that have consistently challenged the church and the culture with truth. Thank you for his courageous stand against the rising spirit of indifference, alienation, and hostility, a stand that has inspired thoughtful and biblical engagement for racial harmony and protection for the unborn.
I praise you for the most earnest, least visible, most impactful, least noticed, most fruitful, least recognized, most appreciated daily prayers for his family, for his church, and for the advancement of your kingdom to the ends of the earth. Thank you for countless daily intercessions on behalf of fellow pastors, ministry assistants, custodians, elders, missionaries, neighbors, friends, and family members in the hope that all might be kept from "sin, Satan, and sabotage."
Thank you for thirty years of leadership development and a contagious vision for the supremacy of God in preaching and pastoral ministry and Christian education, and for dozens of conferences and thousands of published pages and endless hours invested in strengthening the church and spreading your praise across the nation and around the world to this generation and to the generations to come.
Thank you for thirty years of prayer-soaked, vision-driven staff meetings, board meetings, committee meetings, elder meetings, and prayer meetings that were influenced by a quality of leadership alert to trajectories and kept us on course through Project 84, Span 1, Span 2, Span 3, Freeing the Future, Education for Exultation, Treasuring Christ Together, and countless other ideas and initiatives that have shaped our church.
Thank you for mingling these thirty years with severe mercies and bitter providences that broke us, softened us, delivered us from pride, weaned us from the temporary things of the world, and fixed our minds more on the eternal matters of salvation, holiness, and the lostness of the peoples.
Thank you for thirty years of grace that has kept our pastor firm in faith and sustained what seemed like an indomitable hope that inspired us to lift up our eyes and secure our confidence in the One who made heaven and earth.
Thank you for giving him the grace to practice what he preached and for keeping him from giving in to the temptations of the flesh that could have consumed his soul, ruined his ministry, and brought shame upon your Bride and on your holy name.
Thank you for giving John a wife who has faithfully stood with her husband for more than forty-two years. A wife who has labored with him, ministered with him, shed tears with him, shared joys with him, and prayed with him night after night. A wife who managed the household, faithfully cared for their sons and daughter, welcomed guests, edited manuscripts, and freed her husband to study and pray. Thank you for the blessing of Noël's sacrifice and love that served us, spread a table for us, encouraged us with grace, and blessed us with wisdom and writings.
Lord Jesus, without yet exhausting the praise and thanksgiving remaining in my heart, I ask that your hand of blessing remain on John and on his family and on his ministry. Be pleased to keep the fruit of his unwasted life abounding until the end of the age.
Keep piercing souls with your Word and stirring up hunger for you. Let the river of life continue to overflow into more dead hearts. Make them finally alive with a desire for you and a delight in you as the gospel. Give them eyes to see and souls to savor Jesus Christ. May praise forever be on our lips to the One who shed his blood so that we might die to our spectacular sins, be justified by faith, be counted righteous by grace, and benefit from the forty-seven other reasons Jesus came to die.
Aim more lives in a Godward direction and take pleasure in bringing forth generations of Christian hedonists with a God-entranced vision for their lives. Engage them in the dangerous duty of delight, and inflame them with a passion for your glory so that the unreached may be reached and the nations may be glad.
Grant that biblical manhood and womanhood would be fully recovered, and raise up increasing numbers of men and women who embrace the difference in their momentary marriages. Expand the legacy of sovereign joy through those who battle unbelief under the hidden smile of God. Let them taste your mercy in the midst of misery, and give them glimpses of your glory even when the darkness will not lift. Sink the roots of their endurance deep into your love so that they can stand in the days of testing.
I praise you, Lord Jesus, for sparing our church from a professionalism these past thirty years. Instead, you were pleased to give us a pastor who exalted your supremacy in his preaching and your sovereignty in his suffering. O God, may your church never be without men who stay within your bounds, seeking you like silver and making plain what Jesus demands from this postmodern world, faithfully contending for our all.
Father, we acknowledge that John's life, like ours, is a vapor and the number of his days is in your hands. As I close this prayer, I ask that you would please sustain in John the pace and the grace to finish the race. Keep guarding him from ungodliness and worldly passions. Keep lifting him from the power of every sin. Keep him practicing what he preaches. Keep him alert in prayer with all perseverance. Keep him happy, not because he is spared affliction but because his joy is rooted in you and his feet are walking in your light. Keep his heart exulting in your glory and his mouth filled with your praise. Keep his tongue telling of your righteousness and his lips declaring the wondrous deeds of your salvation to all who come behind him. Come upon John in this final stretch with great power, and let your Word have its free course to run and be glorified for the eternal praise of Jesus Christ and for the sake of his name — in which I pray, Amen.
Now to him who is able to keep [John] from stumbling and to present [John] blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.
— JUDE 24–25
CHAPTER 2THREE DOORS DOWN FROM A POWER PLANT
David Livingston
I have lived three doors down from John Piper for over twenty years. I recall a mutual friend once laughingly remarking to me, "It must be like living next to a nuclear reactor." And given my neighbor's intense, restless, competitive, probing, and usually forceful impact on others, and his high-powered, virtual nonstop generation of compelling spoken and written words, I do see the energetic aptness of "Piper, the power plant."
What follows is an effort to plot the progress of John Piper's implanted power, like successive upward "conversions," from cold to candle to coal to plutonium — or, in other words, from lost to found to Calvinism to Christian hedonism.
Crucified with Christ
January 11, 1946 — just eleven days after the commencement of that seismic demographic tidal wave called the Baby Boom — John Stephen Piper was born in Chattanooga, Tennessee, the second child of Bill and Ruth Piper. The family moved later that year to Greenville, South Carolina. Five years later they built a house just across the highway from Bob Jones University, where Bill had been elected a trustee. There Bill and Ruth raised John and his older sister Beverly, three years his senior.
Resembling his itinerant evangelist daddy, William Solomon Hottle Piper (1919–2007), Johnny grew up on the short and scrappy side of Southern life. He learned two things from his daddy: to be happy and to be blood-earnest. Despite his dad's being gone two-thirds of the time, John says that his parents "were the happiest people I have ever known."
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "For the Fame of God's Name"
by .
Copyright © 2010 Sam Storms and Justin Taylor.
Excerpted by permission of Good News Publishers.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Contributors,
A Note to John Piper,
Sam Storms and Justin Taylor,
PART 1: JOHN PIPER,
1. A Personal Tribute to the Praise of God's Infinite Glory and Abounding Grace David Michael,
2. Three Doors Down from a Power Plant David Livingston,
3. Who Is John Piper? David Mathis,
PART 2: CHRISTIAN HEDONISM,
4. Christian Hedonism: Piper and Edwards on the Pursuit of Joy in God Sam Storms,
5. When All Hope Has Died: Meditations on Profound Christian Suffering Mark R. Talbot,
PART 3: THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD,
6. The Sovereignty of God in the Theology of Jonathan Edwards Donald J. Westblade,
7. Prayer and the Sovereignty of God Bruce A. Ware,
PART 4: THE GOSPEL, THE CROSS, AND THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST,
8. What Is the Gospel? — Revisited D. A. Carson,
9. Christus Victor et Propitiator: The Death of Christ, Substitute and Conqueror Sinclair B. Ferguson,
10. The Role of Resurrection in the Already-and-Not-Yet Phases of Justification G. K. Beale,
PART 5: THE SUPREMACY OF GOD IN ALL THINGS,
11. A Biblical Theology of the Glory of God Thomas R. Schreiner,
12. The Kingdom of God as the Mission of God Scott J. Hafemann,
13. The Mystery of Marriage James M. Hamilton Jr.,
14. Pleasing God by Our Obedience: A Neglected New Testament Teaching Wayne Grudem,
15. The Glory and Supremacy of Jesus Christ in Ethnic Distinctions and over Ethnic Identities Thabiti Anyabwile,
16. Dethroning Money to Treasure Christ above All Randy Alcorn,
17. "Abortion Is about God": Piper's Passionate, Prophetic Pro-Life Preaching Justin Taylor,
18. A God-Centered Worldview: Recovering the Christian Mind by Rediscovering the Master Narrative of the Bible R. Albert Mohler Jr.,
PART 6: PREACHING AND PASTORAL MINISTRY,
19. Proclaiming the Gospel and the Glory of God: The Legacy of Jonathan Edwards for Preaching Stephen J. Nichols,
20. The Pastor and the Trinity C. J. Mahaney,
21. The Pastor as Worshiper Ray Ortlund,
22. The Pastor as Counselor David Powlison,
23. The Pastor as Shepherd Mark Dever,
24. The Pastor as Leader John MacArthur,
25. The Pastor and His Study William D. Mounce,
PART 7: MINISTRIES,
26. The Vision and Ministry of Desiring God Jon Bloom,
27. The Vision and History of the Bethlehem Institute Tom Steller,