I saw this in my friend Laura’s blog. Though I differ from John Piper on some issues, this video is not one of them. I think maybe what I like most about John is that he is not wishy-washy. He’s not afraid to say what is wrong and what he is against. The prosperity gospel is wrong, I am against it, it is damnable. Thanks for your voice on this pastor.
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What the Gospel is Not | rhythm+hue // Jul 5, 2008 at 12:56 am
[...] a video by John Piper I caught on a blog I read by JR. This is very good at saying what needs to be said about the Prosperity Doctrine that pervades the [...]
interesting. i like the overall point, but i don’t think i like how he gets there. i don’t like what he is opposing the prosperity gospel to…loss, devestation, sacrafice. i have been recenting rethinking the theology of the cross (don’t worry, i still believe in the atonement and that what christ did was necessary) but what i am questioning is how we view it. maybe you can shed some light on this (and perhaps my trouble comes from the “type” of individuals i work with.)
we preach that we should be satisfied in our sufferings because they bring us closer to Christ. I read this statement in a book “conventional doctrines say jesus saved the world by dying, but the peopel who killed jesus hated him. it is wrong to confuse hate with love.” When we encourage others to makes such sacrafices, take up their cross, endure their pain and suffering for Christ…so this gets a certain idea into their heads that loss is what most greatly glorifies God and brings you closest to Him. This is not inherently bad, but when you then have women staying in abusive situations, etc. you run into some issues with our current view of what it means to “sacrifice” like Christ did.
i just have a hard time with him saying Jesus looks beautiful with pain. I believe he does…but why is that our standard. Why is pain our standard? Why is that when we believe we are most close to God or glorifying him?
thoughts…
Julia, you wrote, “we preach that we should be satisfied in our sufferings because they bring us closer to Christ.” If I heard that preached I would vomit. This is nothing shy of masochism. It’s analogous to the statement that God has a preference for the poor. The logical consequence then is that we should pursue suffering (in the first instance), and poverty (in the second). But I do not see this in Scripture.
Rather, it’s that God may be found, perhaps even in a necessary way in suffering and poverty – in those things that our culture despises and considers evil. The beauty of the atonement is that God powerfully meets his people even, not only, in suffering and poverty.
Thus, the child who has been forced into sexual slavery or the woman who feels trapped in an abusive relationship may find comfort in knowing that God himself became a slave and was abused.
However, to say that they should remain in this condition for the sake of “being closer to Christ” is, in my view, utter madness. They ought also be given the opportunity to know God as deliverer and liberator.
I suppose some, in Christlike fashion, may choose to live in situations of abuse and mistreatment in hopeful expectation that they may have some sort of role to play for the sake of the gospel, but I would never go so far as to say that anyone has this sort of obligation.
You also said, “Why is that [in pain] when we believe we are most close to God or glorifying him?” I think that’s a totally valid question. Maybe it is a matter of dependence? That, for the same reason that it is hard (though not impossible) for the rich to enter the Kingdom of God, it is also hard (though not impossible) for the comfortable to know what it means for God to be enough. Would that we would all know and glorify God in our comfort – but it is seldom the case.