Audio Transcript

I’ll be the first to admit that it’s a little niche for us to speak to writers. Most subscribers to this podcast are not writers. I know that. But because of Pastor John’s prolific writing ministry, we get a lot of great questions from writers — and really from all types of Christian creatives. Writing is near and dear to us both, Pastor John — so much so that if you have the APJ book, you’ve likely seen that little section I pulled together “On Writing, Grammar, and Poetry” on pages 411–416. We don’t revisit these themes often, but we do today with this question from an aspiring author, an anonymous girl.

“Hello, Pastor John! I’m seventeen. I just recently discovered this podcast and quickly became a huge fan. I have already listened to all your episodes on hobbies and entertainment, but I would like to ask something of a little more specific nature. I absolutely love literature and writing, but I like to write things that have twists and turns and that are sometimes a little creepy. Is it okay for Christians to write — or read or watch — things like thrillers and murder mysteries, which have some violent or scary elements in them, as long as those elements are not sadistic, sexual, or gratuitous? Or does this violate passages like Philippians 4:8? Sometimes I feel like dark elements serve an important purpose in fiction, because they open the door for great moral and biblical solutions, but I am not sure. I would love your opinion on this matter. Thank you.”

Let me put on my lit-major hat for a few minutes. I don’t usually do this, but I have good memories — a lit major who has spent 55 years almost entirely immersed in the word of God, the Bible, which is a form (from one vantage point) of literature. But from another vantage point, I have found that almost everyone who tries to treat the Bible as literature winds up minimizing the Bible as the authoritative, infallible revelation of the Creator of the universe. The fact that it is both literature and revelation parallels the mystery of the incarnation, doesn’t it? Jesus Christ is both man (which corresponds to literature) and God (which corresponds to revelation). He could not be our Savior if he were not both.

Just so you know, I have not lost the bug. I continue to read and enjoy fiction, and I have written, I suppose, hundreds and hundreds of poems over those 55 years since I was a lit major. I still delight in a picturesque simile like Proverbs 11:22: “Like a gold ring in a pig’s snout is a beautiful woman without discretion.” That’s great. That’s just great. Jesus painted impossibly provocative pictures: “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God” (Matthew 19:24). That’s good. That’s really good. I still love the cadences of Psalm 1:1: “Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers.” That’s good.

But the glorious divine logic and reality of Romans 8:32 exceeds the pleasures of these things a thousandfold: “He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?” The glory of that reality cannot seriously be compared to the pleasures of literary style. Both are good; one is glorious.

We Know Darkness

So, here’s the question I have lived with for decades that relates to this young aspiring writer of dark literature. Here’s the question: Why is it that almost all writers of fiction and perhaps even nonfiction find it easier to write seriously and compellingly about the dark than about the light? Why is it that most writers can produce something credible, authentic, moving, compelling about pain and fear but cannot write with the same compelling credibility and seriousness about joy?

You can see this, for example, symptomatically in television ads. If the writers want to portray some deeper emotion — say, of a family in sorrow — they can generally write something and show something that actually has the feel of authenticity about it. But when they turn to show happiness, the default is silliness. It’s just incredible — a big, wide, toothy grin everywhere, and people falling all over the couch and guffawing, and grown people acting like clowns. You get the impression that these writers are out of their element. They don’t know what to do with happiness. They’re stuck at about age ten.

“To be a good writer about the light requires a long and deep walk with God in the midst of human suffering.”

Now, my tentative explanation for this — why it’s easier to portray with authenticity the human experience of fear and sorrow than it is to portray the human experience of happiness with the same authenticity and depth — is that, for most people, the human experience of serious fear is far more common than the human experience of serious joy. Most people have categories for the stark terror of being charged by a grizzly bear or the panic of being surrounded by a mob or the sinking feeling in the stomach of a window being broken in the middle of the night or the heart-crushing grief at losing a loved one. We know these things. We’ve tasted these things deeply.

But we don’t have similar experiences or categories of serious, humble, invincible joy in the face of pain and death. Serious fear and sorrow is common. Serious joy is not. It seems to me that very often, that kind of joy is replaced with the closest many writers can get to it — namely, a kind of stoic swagger in the face of danger. Which shows that the hero or heroine is coolly above it all, which is the very opposite of the humble, serious, invincible joy I’m talking about, which is so rare and, therefore, so difficult to write about.

Writing with Serious Joy

Now, my guess at an explanation for why writing authentically about the dark is easier than writing authentically about the light is this: To be a good writer about the dark requires some literary gift mingled with the experience of darkness and fear and brokenness and sorrow that’s common in this world. But to be a good writer about the light requires more than ordinary human experience of the dark or light. It requires a long and deep walk with God in the midst of human suffering.

The kind of serious joy I’m talking about is especially at home in the heart of a Christian, a Bible-saturated Christian. Those outside the Christian worldview have tasted this because of common grace, but it is the peculiar purview of biblical revelation to understand from the inside out what serious joy in the face of suffering is really like — unless, of course, Christians have been forced into the mold of just being like the world, which happens by the thousands.

So, my short answer to our young writer is this: Of course one can write with biblical faithfulness about the dark because the dark is real. In fact, the only people who know how real and how terrible it is are people who know their Bible. Without biblical categories, the efforts of the world to portray the dark fall far short of reality, no matter how terrible they make it look. But to write faithfully about the dark requires a deep awareness that “God is light, and in him is no darkness at all” (1 John 1:5). It requires a deep awareness that God is sovereign over the darkness. Creepy is interesting but not necessarily insightful. Darkness will be defeated in the end.

But if you are going to write about the dark in a seriously joyful way that avoids naivete and melodrama, it may take decades of walking through deep waters with Christ. Don’t give up. You may prove to be one of those very rare writers who knows enough about God, knows enough about suffering, has lived enough life and sorrow and serious joy that you could actually write with authenticity about the light even better than about the dark.

Audio Transcript

We got our first question about so-called ‘gender pronoun hospitality’ exactly five years ago, in December of 2019, and many others since. Most recently is this urgent question from an anonymous elder: “Pastor John, hello and thank you for this podcast and for taking my question. I serve as an elder at my church. We are blessed with a college nearby where we have an active ministry presence. There we team up with a large parachurch ministry helping churches serve college campuses.

“During a recent training session, this ministry asked us to consider using ‘gender pronoun hospitality’ on our local campus, a suggestion that has now come before the elders of the church to see if we will allow our members, and those we support locally who work on the campus, to do so. The argument is that there are times when, for the sake of evangelism, one may decide to call a person by their chosen gender if such an act removes a possible barrier in sharing the gospel. The ask for our church is for a person to have the freedom, in the moment, to do this, limited to evangelism contexts, limited to conversations with those who are not believers. If someone claims to be a follower of Christ, such ‘pronoun hospitality’ would not apply. But Article 7 in the Nashville Statement seems to me to show no wiggle room here. Pastor John, what do you think of this so-called ‘gender pronoun hospitality’?”

I see five issues that need to be addressed in this question. I’ll take them from what I think is the least to the most important first.

1. Alternative Address

When you’re dealing directly with a person who says he is a woman or she is a man, the pronoun that you use is you, not he or she. “Hello. How are you?” So, it may be possible to engage a person directly without touching the issue of pronouns. Now, of course, that doesn’t work when dealing with proper names. Is Andy now Angie? You may not even know that Angie was once Andy. So, stepping into the conversation, you may not have any choice unless you simply avoid the name, which is possible.

2. Misleading Slogan

Even in a slogan, I think connecting the beautiful biblical word “hospitality” with the unbiblical concept of “gender pronoun” is unhelpful and misleading. Now, I know it’s just a catchphrase, but catchphrases reveal things. We ought to be hospitable, but we ought not to be affirming of pronouns that designate a destructive choice and a false view of reality. It is possible to be hospitable and honest.

3. Compromised Word

The very use of the word gender is a compromise with sinful views of reality. I think we should be using the word sex everywhere. We are distinguishing male and female, and I think the word gender should be reserved for the reality-distorting designation that it is.

“A woman does not become a man nor a man a woman by changing names or performing surgeries or taking hormones.”

Gender (as a designation for persons, not grammar) was pushed into our vocabulary by radical feminists fifty years ago, in the seventies, who believed that the givenness of sexual distinctions forever condemned women to kinds of existence they may or may not want. Therefore, to create the freedom to define their existence, “gender” was used as an alternative to “sex” because gender can be chosen and sex can’t be. Sex is bondage; gender is freedom — so it was thought. I think using the word “gender” where the right word is “sex” is like using the word “marriage” for a relationship between two men or two women. It’s not marriage. It is so-called “marriage.”

In our present context, maleness and femaleness are sexes, not genders.

4. Forthright Evangelism

How much of the gospel’s implications and purifying power should be shared up front in evangelism? Peter stated the gospel like this in 1 Peter 2:24: “[Christ] bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness.” So, Peter attaches the substitutionary death of Jesus with the sin-conquering effect of that death in one sentence. When the rich young ruler asked how to inherit eternal life, Jesus said, “Sell what you possess and give to the poor . . . and come, follow me” (Matthew 19:21). He led with an effect or a fruit of the gospel.

Now, we don’t always do that, but we might sometimes. It would go like this, perhaps: “I know you intend to change your sex, but you are my friend, and I think there’s a better way. Jesus has a better way forward for you. He’s full of grace. He’s full of forgiveness. May I share that with you?” That’s legitimate evangelism from the get-go, and it might be a good way.

5. Serious Issue

Finally, this is the most important issue, I think. How serious is the issue when a man claims to be a woman or a woman claims to be a man? How serious is that? Now, you can judge what I think the answer is from these ten points. They go by very fast, and you can pause and think about them.

1. It defies God. The Nashville Statement is right to say, “Self-conception as male or female should be defined by God’s holy purposes in creation and redemption as revealed in Scripture.” But calling a man a woman or a woman a man defies that holy purpose of God. It defies God.

2. It involves living a lie. A woman does not become a man nor a man a woman by wanting it to be so or by changing names or performing surgeries or taking hormones. It is a life built on a lie.

3. Being a man or a woman is not like being left-handed or right-handed. It goes far deeper and touches the depths of our created nature.

4. It regularly leads to destructive and irreversible surgeries and treatments.

5. When that happens, it destroys the God-designed potential of procreation and will bring — I say will bring, not might bring — sooner or later profound and sometimes suicidal regret.

6. It expresses the deeply anti-God commitment to human autonomy over against the will of God. “I will decide the essence of my being, not God.”

7. It contributes to the cultural disorder of sexuality that tends to undermine God’s pattern from male and female and, thus, confuses and destabilizes our young people and increases the prevalence of sexual dysphoria and treats it as a legitimate guide to future happiness, which it isn’t.

8. It overlooks alternative ways forward that take seriously a person’s sexual confusion or rebellion and yet lead people out of dissatisfaction into new hope and embrace of their God-given sexuality through Christ.

9. It is the prelude to future perversions in which a person marries an animal and chooses to no longer be he or she, but now demands the pronoun it. Just go to Wikipedia and look up “human-animal marriage” if you think I’m overstating things. This is not far-fetched. It is consistent with a worldview that says, “I, not God, define my essence.” We don’t want to encourage that progress, which has already gone tragically too far.

10. Therefore, the greatest possible care should be taken before one gives any impression of approving or even being mildly disagreeable toward so-called transgenderism.

Jon Hoglund: My name is Jon Hoglund, and I’m one of the professors here at Bethlehem College and Seminary. Welcome to this book discussion session. Joining me on stage is pastor John Piper, along with current students at Bethlehem College and Seminary — both college and seminary students.

We’re going to be discussing together Let the Nations Be Glad: The Supremacy of God in Missions. Pastor John wrote this book originally in 1993, and it has gone through several editions, including the most recent thirtieth anniversary edition. We look forward to sharing that with you.

All of these students have read the book and are prepared with questions. We’d like to invite you into a conversation about it, and also to give you a taste of why this book continues to shape conversations about missions, even 31 years later.

For our first question, Sang is going to introduce us by asking us a question about his interest in missions.

Sang: Pastor John, in this book — and through the rest of your ministry — you put forward the supremacy of God and his glory, and its relationship to our experience as human beings. You say, “God is most glorified when we are most satisfied with him.” You’ve written that Jonathan Edwards was instrumental in helping you to see these realities, and how this was a life-changing moment for you. My question is, Did your passion for missions grow in connection with that discovery? When did missions first become important to you, and what has that looked like in your life since then?

John Piper: Christian Hedonism emerged in my consciousness in about 1968, but it did not have — to my shame — a dominant or significant impact on my world Christianity until 1983. I had fifteen years of percolating, while I was reading my Bible badly. This is a lesson on how Bible-oriented people like me, who read the Bible all the time, can miss things. And when someone eventually points you to them and hits you with a two-by-four, you say, “How did I miss that?”

The kindling was laid early. My dad loved missions. He prayed about the glory of God and mission every night when he was home. And Wheaton, where I went for college, had a missions focus. I remember it. It was inspiring. At Fuller also, I took courses from Raph Winter, who was the craziest gung-ho missions statesman there ever was in the twentieth century. But it didn’t affect much in my life. Then I came here to be a pastor in 1980, and we had a mission conference here that I inherited. It involved two weekends and the days in between. They didn’t have the pastor preach either of those Sundays, so I didn’t have to preach on missions. Nobody asked me to until 1983.

I was preaching a series on Christian Hedonism, and they said, “Pastor, why don’t you do the first week of missions week?” That was epoch-making. The book Let the Nations Be Glad is an epoch. The sermon I preached that day was titled “[Missions: The Battle Cry of Christian Hedonism.]” And I just had to think, what does a Christian Hedonist say about the nations? That’s something I should have said over and over in fifteen years, but I didn’t. I’ll give you several texts that just exploded.

The sermon text for that sermon was Mark 10:17–31, which is about the rich young ruler. He walked away and Jesus said, “It is hard for the rich to get into the kingdom of heaven.” The disciples threw up their hands and said, “Well then who can be saved?” And Jesus said, “With man it is impossible, but with God nothing is impossible.” I can remember in 1967 Noël and I went to Urbana. There was a man who spoke there who said, “When I first went to the mission field, I thought, ‘If I believed in predestination, why would I ever be a missionary? If God has already decided who is going to be saved, why would I go to the mission field?’ Now, after twenty years in Pakistan, I say that if I didn’t believe in predestination I wouldn’t go to the mission field.” Now I’m a seven-point Calvinist, but at the time that didn’t do it for me. It shows how slow we are to make connections between what we hold dear and things we don’t think much about. So that part of the text about the sovereignty of God was connected to how God can save anybody. So, then, we should get going on it globally.

The other part of the text was about how Peter said, “We’ve left everything and followed you.” I think he was saying, “We’re not like the rich guy. We’ve left everything. We’ve made the appropriate sacrifice.” Jesus didn’t like that. Do you remember what he said? He said,

Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life. (Mark 10:29–30)

In other words, “Get off your self-pity kick, Peter. Nobody can out-sacrifice me. You’re in it for joy, and I mean for you to be.” That was my paraphrase of what he said. So, we have the sovereignty of God, and he can conquer anyone’s heart. And then Jesus is also telling Peter, “This is not about self-pity or sacrifice, ultimately. It’s about finding where your true treasure is and going for broke.”

Here is one more text. And this seals the deal because of the title of the book. Psalm 96:1–3 says,

Oh sing to the Lord a new song;     sing to the Lord, all the earth!Sing to the Lord, bless his name;     tell of his salvation from day to day.Declare his glory among the nations . . .

There you have glory, and then then Psalm 67:1–3 says,

May God be gracious to us and bless us     and make his face to shine upon us,that your way may be known on earth,     your saving power among all nations.Let the peoples praise you, O God;     let all the peoples praise you!Let the nations be glad and sing for joy . . .

So you have, “Go tell them I’m glorious,” and, “Go tell them to be glad.” After that, the battle was over. Then for the next decade, a lot of what I did was conference after conference on missions, in order to make up for lost time on world missions. A Christian Hedonist is a person who believes that God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him, and there you have the Psalms saying, “Go tell the world to be satisfied,” and “Go tell the world I’m glorious.” That’s Christian Hedonism.

Hoglund: Excellent. Thank you very much. The beginning of the book talks about the purpose, the power, and the price of missions. Selah is going to begin a few questions for us on those topics.

Selah: In reading your book, I wondered if there is a danger in treating people simply as a means to the end of God’s glory. While we see in your book that it is important to be zealous for all people to worship God and also to show compassion, how do we keep that big picture of God’s glory in mind while not thinking of people as projects to complete for the sake of God’s glory? Or is there even a problem with that type of thinking?

Piper: Here’s the nub that I’m hearing in your question. You’re going to head into the world and you’re going to say your dominant motive is, “I want God to be glorious in this world. I want every human being to know he is God. And he is glorious. I’m in the world to get you to do that.” They might feel like, “What about me? Do you care about me at all? Do I matter to you?” That’s the question you’re getting at, and let me state the other half about Christian Hedonism because this has been said to me.

People say, “Are you saying that not only do you want to be motivated by the glory of God but also your own happiness? You want your joy to increase? So, you’re in this business of Christianity to be happier?” That’s exactly right. I am. Christian Hedonism is a life devoted to pleasure. So, people say I’m just selfish. They say, “You don’t care about me; you care about you. You’re going to make me a project for your joy.” So, we have two problems, not just one: Am I making people a project to get glory for God? And am I making people a project to make myself happy? These questions do not intimidate me. I am so excited to answer these kinds of questions. I love that question because Christian Hedonism is the answer to both of those questions.

Let’s take mine first. You have to have an answer to this if you even come close to being a biblical Christian. You’re talking to someone about Jesus, and you want to lead them to Jesus, and they pick up on your hedonism and they say, “So you really are talking to me right now to increase your happiness?” I would say, “That’s exactly what I’m doing.” They say, “Isn’t that selfish?” And I would say, “It’s not selfish because no one would accuse a person of selfishness if they’re willing to lay down their lives to draw another person into the sharing of their joy.” Nobody is accused of selfishness if they say, “I will lay down my life to include you into the joy that I am pursuing. And not only will I lay down my life to include you into it, but it will make my joy bigger if you come. Your joy will be my joy.” That’s a Bible statement from 2 Corinthians 2:3. I think you can persuade unbelievers that it makes sense, even if they don’t like it.

I used to go to the hospital to visit people when I was a pastor. Let’s say I’m going to visit Maybel. We’ll call her Maybel because she’s 85 years old. She just had a heart attack, and her son asked me to visit her. So, I go into Maybel’s room, and she’s all hooked up with tubes. I don’t know if she’s going to make it. Her eyes are closed, and her skin is all shriveled, and there are bruises all over her. And I didn’t feel like going to visit her. I walk up to her and put my hand on her arm, and she says, “Oh pastor, you shouldn’t have.” (Old people always say, “You shouldn’t have.” Young people say, “It’s about time.”) At that moment when she says that, I could say, “I know, and I didn’t want to, but I’m a pastor and I have to. It’s my duty.” I don’t say that. I say, “Maybel, I’m here because it makes me so happy to share the best news in the world with you right now.” Not in a thousand years would she say, “You’re so selfish. You just want to make yourself happy.” She wouldn’t say that because it’s not true. That’s the answer to my question, which you didn’t ask.

It’s the same answer in relation to the glory of God. If they say, “You don’t care about me. You just care about your God. You just want him to look glorious, but you don’t care at all about my happiness.” My first response to that is, “Can I tell you about what the beauty of Christianity is? The beauty of Christianity is that we have the kind of God who gets the most glory in making you most happy in him.” This is not about choosing between a person’s happiness and God’s glory. It just doesn’t work that way in Christianity. It might work that way in other religions. I don’t know. But in Christianity, you dare not choose between your happiness and God’s glory. You look them right in the eye and say, “Do you get that? You may not choose between your happiness and God’s glory. As soon as you decide to nullify your happiness, God will not get the glory he deserves. You must pursue your happiness. Right now. You must pursue your maximum happiness. That’s why I’m here. I’m elevating the glory of God because that’s the only thing that can make you truly happy. You were made for something way bigger than all that stuff you’re living for right now.”

So, I just wouldn’t buy it that I have turned a person into a project because the key to God getting glory is the person getting happy in him. And a person whose happiness is being pursued like that doesn’t feel like a project.

Marc: Staying with the heart issue there but going in a slightly different direction, you allude to Matthew 16:24 and say, “To take up a cross and follow Jesus means to join Jesus on the Calvary road with a resolve to suffer and die with him.” Shortly afterward, you then balance this with a reminder, saying, “Christian martyrs do not pursue death; they pursue love.” As you intentionally aim to stoke the fire of zeal in missions, how would you counsel churches to avoid developing a martyrdom complex, where we might have this burning zeal to die for Jesus but be comparatively cold toward more mundane daily ministry to people?

Piper: If I knew any church like that, I would be happy to work on that problem. Are any of your churches in danger of creating martyr complexes? I’m going to make your question valid anyway, because it is. Seriously, I wish that were a problem. The value in your question is that it is possible to head toward the mission field with idealized, romanticized notions even of suffering. It’s not going to go well if you think that way.

It’s interesting you referred to the Calvary road. The Calvary road ended at Calvary, but it was a road — and all of it was hard. If you think, “My life is going to end gloriously. Somebody will write an article about me, or maybe a biography,” that discounts the mundane. It discounts the Calvary road, like reading for class (which you’re supposed to do). It discounts washing your clothes and paying your bills. I think what I would do to counsel those churches is to say, “You need a robust doctrine of suffering.” By robust, I mean enough to handle martyrdom but also enough to handle setting your alarm early enough to have devotions. That’s a kind of self-denial. And isn’t it interesting that in Luke’s version of self-denial, he says daily. It says, “Take up your cross daily.” So, there is martyrdom, and then there are daily crosses. And most of them are very inglorious. They’re just plain boring, hard, and ordinary. Nobody is praising you for them. They don’t even know you were faithful in that obligation. I think that’s probably the way that I would counsel the church.

Marc: I think so. There’s this saying that everyone wants to save the world, but no one wants to help mom with the dishes. And it sounds like you’re saying that underlying it is a misguided zeal, and that having a more robust theology of suffering will help you in those mundane sufferings where you’re not constantly striving for the big suffering.

Piper: That’s a great quote, and I take your question as a warning to me. Because I do — and I will tonight — move toward the ultimate quickly. I think that’s a good test case to see how people respond to the ultimate suffering. But in view of what you just said, probably the other piece of the counsel that I would give to a church is that they shouldn’t send missionaries that they haven’t put to work in a lot of ordinary ways here. Are they just wanting the big glory over there? Or are they willing to walk down 11th Avenue and pick up the trash? Are they willing to walk up to a guy with his lighter under his tin foil, sniffing his smoke, and tell him about Jesus? And if they’re not, don’t send them.

Preston: In chapter 3, you quote from Jonathan Edwards’s sermon “Heaven Is a World of Love” in order to show how differing degrees of glory in heaven will not be the cause of envy or pride in glorified saints. However, while on earth, how are those who are not as successful in their missionary efforts — despite months, years, or decades of faithful labor — to keep from becoming envious? In other words, how would you counsel missionaries to think about fruitfulness even if they are not seeing obvious fruit in their labors?

Piper: That’s really important. Let me say a word about envy first, and then we’ll go to the other part. It’s not wrong to want to be fruitful. It’s not wrong to want to be as fruitful as someone else is fruitful. Envy is being resentful that they are more fruitful than you are. It galls you. That’s envy. The desire for more hope, more love, more patience, more kindness, more faith like a hero is not sinful. The Bible holds up examples all the time of people we are supposed to imitate. We should long to be like them. Envy is when we start this niggling sense of, “I’d like to see them stumble.” That’s dangerous. That’s so dangerous. You see somebody, and they’re making it and they don’t stumble, and then you think, “I’d like to see them take a fall.” That is so far from the Spirit of Christ. That’s envy, and it is owing to pride and ego. It says, “I need my ego to be stroked by superiority.” It’s not about fruitfulness but superiority. That’s wicked.

Now, what do you say to help people press on in all the varying degrees of fruitfulness in the world? Just look around this room. Nobody is identical to anybody. It’s amazing. We are so diverse, and some of you are good at some things and not good at other things. If you spend your life comparing yourself, you will die. Mark Noll told this story in my graduating class in Wheaton. He was my RA my senior year. Outside his door, he tacked up a little saying that said, “To love is to stop comparing.” Mark was a 4.0 student. He was operating from the side of being admired. And he knew that as long as people stood in such awe of him, he wouldn’t have very good relationships. So, we must be careful in that regard.

But how do you do it, then, if you’re not going to compare? Maybe you know that their church grew but your church didn’t grow. Paul said, “I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth” (1 Corinthians 3:6–7). So, you bow before the sovereignty of God and say, “He gave growth there, and he didn’t give growth here. God is God. I’m not God. I love God. He’s good. He’s just. He’s wise.” That’s one answer. It’s the sovereignty and goodness of God disposing his gifts and blessings where he pleases.

The second thing you might take into consideration is this. When Billy Graham used to have his mission in town here, he said one time to his hundred-person staff, “You know, don’t you, that in line for rewards in heaven a lot of you will be ahead of me.” One lady told me this story and she said, “Most of us rolled our eyes at that. That’s inappropriate humility. But he got very stern. And he said, ‘God rewards faithfulness, not fruitfulness. A thousand people may walk to the front of my crusades, but maybe you’re the means of saving one person in your life and your reward will be great because your duties were fulfilled with greater care and you were faithful morning to night in a thousand ways.’” That’s so important, folks.

If you keep going in 1 Corinthians 3, you have the man whose life is passed through the fire and the wood, hay, and stubble are burned up. He doesn’t get rewards for that. Well, what was that? That was not about fruitfulness or a failure at fruitfulness. It was bad teaching. Paul laid the foundation, and other people were building on it with wood, hay, and stubble, and they are going to squeak by. You don’t say, “Oh, my lack of fruitfulness is going to get burned up at the last day.” That’s not what he’s talking about.

Here’s one other thing. I’ve often wondered what success I might have had as a pastor in Brazil or Mississippi — a place where they have emotions. Because I can get into that. I can preach to people like that. My church might grow. Here’s the point: planting a church in New Hampshire and planting a church in Mississippi are radically different challenges — not to mention Afghanistan. Therefore, if you measure yourself in New Hampshire by the guy in Mississippi, that’s not a wise thing to do. So, taking into account factors like gifting, location, culture, and all kinds of things, it might shape the kind of fruitfulness your life has.

Hoglund: Next, we have a couple of questions on missions practice and priorities, which come from the middle section of Let the Nations Be Glad.

Eddie: My question is about unreached people groups and the strategy that churches employ to reach them. It’s about the desire to finish the task. Should we think of missions as a continuous work of reaching unreached people groups as they sprout up, rather than a time-specific snapshot of people-group status collected by a mission organization? In a migration-heavy and constantly changing world, should missions be more about finishing or being faithful to the task?

Piper: Those are not alternatives in my mind. Work on finishing and work on being faithful are like comparing apples and fruit. Here’s what drives me not to write off the finishing mindset — finish the Great Commission; work on it; be part of it. Back in the 1980s, we were saying, “By 2000, come, Lord Jesus.” Date-setting is a bad thing to do, but praying for it is not. “Come, Lord Jesus” is a prayer every saint should pray. The sooner the better.

Finishing the task is still valid because Jesus said, “Go and make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:19). Whatever the panta ta ethnē is, go for it. Disciples them, baptize them, teach them, and keep doing it until you have all of them. Another text says, “You were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation, and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth” (Revelation 5:9–10). He died to ransom people from all of those nations, so we should be about the business of getting all of them from those nations. It’s like Paul in Corinth: “I have many in this city who are my people” (Acts 18:10).

The third text I would go to is Matthew 24:14, which says, “This gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.” There’s a connection between the end and reaching all the nations. I remember George Ladd, a New Testament scholar who was a teacher of mine at Fuller, wrote an article on Peter’s phrase “hasten the day of God” (2 Peter 3:12). What in the world is that? God has a day fixed, so what does he mean by “hasten the day of God”? He said, “There is one way to hasten the day of God: finish the mission.” I thought that was pretty good. So that’s my impulse to not lose the finishing mindset. I hope you don’t. I know from talking to one person already that there are people in this room on their way to the mission field. I was praying with my wife 45 minutes ago that there would be more because of this moment right here. I pray that some of you would come to this, maybe being wobbly about your future, and by the end of it not be wobbly anymore.

On the being faithful side, we don’t know when the end will be. I think one of the things you think about, Eddie, is the fact that “unreached peoples” is an amorphous idea. It’s not clearly defined, even when you say “tribe, people, tongue, nation.” If you take those four, can you draw nice lines between them? No. Can you tell how wide they are? No. But there are a lot of them. It’s probably not taxi drivers in Mumbai. I don’t think that’s the kind of people Jesus had in mind. I think he had ethnolinguistic groups, which is more manageable than every layer of job you could have. But your point is that some of those are going out of existence, and some of them are coming into existence.

So, what did Jesus mean? Frankly, I don’t know. I don’t know how Jesus would answer that question. We should go to all the nations, and Jesus can see thousands of ethnolinguistic people groups, however many there are. He knew that some of those tiny tribes at that point in South America or North America wouldn’t exist by the time missionaries got there. All I can say is that he knew that, and he didn’t intend those things. We shouldn’t press it that hard. But faithfulness means that you do what you should wherever God calls you in the process of finishing. And we all fit into different places.

I’ve never been a missionary. It should be a lesson for a lot of you that I wrote a book on missions that is used in classes and has made a difference, and I’ve never been a missionary. That’s weird. How can that be? That should tell you there are all kinds of ways God is going to use you. You can’t even imagine. So, yes to faithfulness and yes to finishing — both-and.

Jorge: There are lots of churches that send church-planting missionaries and evangelists to already reached places, such as countries in South America, Africa, and Asia. You talk about how the center of gravity in world Christianity is shifting toward the south and east. For instance, in my hometown in Mexico, there were lots of missionaries who came to preach the gospel though the gospel had already been preached there decades ago. Typically, a missionary would come, plant a church, leave, and an untrained or unqualified leader would rise up to the pulpit, eventually resulting in scandal, heresy, and a broken church. So, what should the emphasis of missions look like in countries like these? More specifically, should education and training — that is, theological education and pastoral training — replace the more traditional evangelism route as the primary focus?

Piper: My reaction to the last part of the question is no, but it’s not a quick no because the word “traditional” may carry a freight in your vocabulary that I’m not fully aware of. Let me see if I can put myself in your head and answer what you really mean. In 1985, I went to Cameroon for the first time, and I said, “I thought Wycliffe was a frontline mission organization, but Wycliffe is a church renewal project.” There were churches that had been there for 150 years. What is going on there? Why is there such dependence on the West after 150 years? I’ve thought a lot about those things.

And just to be fair, you didn’t come into being in 150 years. You came into being in two thousand years. This country is shot through with churches, publishing houses, seminaries, Bible colleges, and there is Christian influence at every level. And it’s not because of 150 years, but because of a long four hundred years of battling through the truth. And there was a long time of seasoning during the Middle Ages, and then there were hundreds of years of Reformation and a couple Great Awakenings. And there were new starts on this land, and here you are. You know a lot. You are more biblically informed than almost all Christians prior to three hundred or four hundred years ago. So here we are, and we look at a country that’s had the gospel for forty or fifty years and we say, “What’s wrong?” Are you kidding me? Who are we to be talking? We bear the fruit of thousands of years of labor and refinement. So we really need to be patient.

Now, your question is, Should we alter the strategies in such a way that we would keep what you just described from happening? And when I think of who is doing that, I think of Dieudonné in Cameroon, because Dieudonné loves his country, sees the doctrinal chaos and the weakness of the church, and he wants there to be evangelism — and I would have no problem saying “traditional evangelism.” He wants that to happen. Go tell people about Jesus. Have a strong church where they send them out as salt, tell people about Jesus, people get saved, and then they bring them in and disciple them. That’s what they should be doing, but he knows that he has to train pastors.

We know from recent news that you can be as trained as possible and still make shipwreck of your ministry, right? But what we need all over the world is both-and. Every question here is probably a both-and question. We need people with a vision for deep training, strengthening leaders, and growing up indigenous pastors who stand on their own two theological feet. Here’s a little anecdote to overstate the case, but I love Ralph Winter. He almost overstated everything. When I asked him, “What does it mean to be a reached people group?” he said, “When the local people have Greek and Hebrew and they are writing their own books for their own seminaries and colleges.” I said, “That’s a long time.” If you stay with a people group that long, you won’t reach all of them.

But another qualification is that some are called to stay there with them, and some aren’t. There are Paul-type missionaries and Timothy-type missionaries. Paul said, “I’m going to the unreached peoples,” and Timothy said, “I’m staying in Ephesus.” Timothy and Titus types are growing up elders and trying to reach the lost there. So, I think the answer to your question is that if in your judgment the traditional approach has been “get people saved and don’t do much theological preparation for fifty years from now,” that should change.

Piper B.: Since we believe that God will work in the hearts of those we interact with among the nations, and since we trust his sovereignty in each conversation we have with the unreached, how should we go about pursuing relationships with those who aren’t open to the gospel immediately? Should we consider this a closed door? Or should we continue to pursue relationships, trusting that the Lord will work through our faithfulness to the Great Commission?

Piper: You asked earlier which question I found most interesting, and I said, “I know which one I found most difficult.” It was that one. I have seen these questions before. Jesus sent out his disciples two by two and he said, “If you enter a town and they do not receive you, shake the dust off your sandals and go to another city” (Matthew 10:14). And Paul in Acts 13 goes on the first Sabbath to a synagogue and blows them away with this long sermon. Some say, “Come back next week.” And he comes back, and the opposition is enormous. I can picture Paul putting up his hands and saying, “If you judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life, I’m turning to the Gentiles.” He leaves the synagogue and leaves the people in their lostness, unless they want to come to the meeting.

So, I have these texts in my mind that are discouraging me at one level from lingering too long with resistant people. And you love people like that. And you would lay down your life for them right now. You don’t want people to forsake them. You’re praying right now that people would go into their lives and ask them for the thousandth time if they believe. You don’t want to go this route of shaking the dust off your sandals, and I don’t think the Bible had that as its only message on how to do evangelism. It’s one message, and it’s true. Jesus said, “Don’t cast your pearls before swine” (Matthew 7:6). I think that means something like, “If the resistance is so ugly, so bitter, so skeptical, so cynical, then you just say, ‘Okay, I’m going to talk to some other people right now. Excuse me.’” So, there is a place for saying, “I’m done with you.”

There are a couple reasons why I don’t think that’s the only message of the New Testament. First, it has to do with what I said earlier about there being two types of missionaries: Paul-type and Timothy-type. Paul was a frontier missionary, a pioneer missionary. When he had reached northern Greece (Illyricum) — starting in Jerusalem, going up through Syria, moving across Asia Minor, going over into Greece, coming down into Corinth, and then going up the coast to Illyricum and northern Italy — he said, “I have no more room for work in these regions” (Romans 15:23). Are you kidding me? There were tens of thousands of unbelievers in that region. What did he mean that he has no more room for work? He meant, “I’m a frontier missionary. The church exists here. I’m going to Spain.” Now, that kind of person will not spend too long with recalcitrant people.

But do you know what he did in Ephesus and Crete? He left Timothy and Titus. And he wrote letters to them to tell them how to do their work, and he said, “Do the work of an evangelist” (2 Timothy 4:5). What did that mean? It meant that they had a region they were responsible for, and they were supposed to stay right there. They should send their people out to be as loving and creative as they could be. They will figure out how long they can talk to a person, just like you’re trying to figure out how many emails you should write to your loved one.

Here’s the other biblical impulse that makes me think that knocking the dust off our sandals is not the only message. Do you remember the parable Jesus told where he said that a man owned a fig tree (Luke 13:6–9)? He says that the fig tree didn’t bear any fruit for three years, so cut it down because it shouldn’t even waste the ground. And this unknown spokesman — whoever it is — says, “Sir, could we wait just one more year and put some fertilizer around it? And then if it doesn’t bear fruit, you can cut it down.” Now, what’s the point of that parable? I think it’s a double point. I think the first point is that Israel is close to being cut down, so they shouldn’t toy with him. He came offering them the gospel, and they should repent and bear the fruits of repentance, or else they are coming down. And the point of the parable is that there is an impulse of patience. Give them another year. Give them another visit. I don’t know the right time, but your heart will make it plain, won’t it?

That’s what we do every day. We plead with the Holy Spirit. We say, “Make me know when to talk and make me know when not to talk — what to say and what not to say.” The Bible simply does not give us all the specifics on how frequently to talk to an unbeliever or what we should say. It’s a both-and again.

Hoglund: We have time for two more questions. Julia is going to ask one about chapter 7 in the book, which talks about the difference between inward and outward worship as a New Testament concept.

Julia: I’ve spent two years at the Getty’s Sing! Conference. I’ve always come away greatly enriched by their vision of the church, corporate worship, global missions, and most definitely eternity. At the conference this year, you pressed into the doctrine of God as the foundation of our delight in him, which should flow forth in praise. In chapter 7 of Let the Nations Be Glad, you place a similar emphasis on passion for God and his glory in Christ as the foundation for inward affection that leads to outward worship. But you also make clear that in the New Testament, Jesus presents a new model for worship that does not necessarily imply corporate gathering; rather, Jesus emphasizes a posture of heart over form and outward expression. In light of these things, is it problematic that we refer to worship as “corporate worship” if worship is in fact a primarily inward action?

Piper: It can be problematic. If I’m in a conversation, I will listen to discern how people use the word “worship” — whether they mean a set of forms or whether they mean something in the heart. So yes, it can be a problem.

Here’s a little anecdote about the book. The only sentence anyone ever remembers in this book is the first sentence, which is, “Missions exists because worship doesn’t.” I had these worship leaders coming up to me saying, “I love this sentence. This is so great.” And it really did serve a lot of people who did international worship ministries. But I could tell they were taking my meaning to be worship service: “Missions exists because worship services don’t.” I thought, That’s not what I mean! The key that preserves the error from happening is Matthew 15:8, which says, “This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me.” That’s the text that drives me in the essence of worship being in the heart. Forms and extensions and expressions of worship are external — singing, praying, kneeling, conversing, preaching. All those are forms, and they can be totally empty with zero worship happening in worship services. The Lord is holding his nose in the Old Testament during the solemn assemblies (Isaiah 1:13; Amos 5:21). Why is he holding their nose? They’re worshiping him. Listen to the language. They’re praising Yahweh. And he says, “They’re not paying their laborers.” So, I don’t like emphases on form.

What I mean by the New Testament being so different from the Old is that there are almost endless instructions about how to worship in the Old Testament outwardly. There are endless instructions on how to do it right. And there is almost nothing in the New Testament like that — almost. I don’t want you to say that Piper thinks there shouldn’t be corporate worship services. I make a case in my preaching book for that. I had a missionary write to me and say, “We have a lot of missionaries who don’t believe in preaching. Do you have anything to defend the normativity of preaching in worship services?” I said, “Yeah, I wrote a book about it. It’s called Expository Exultation. The first quarter of the book is about that.” I believe that you can read the New Testament carefully and know that you ought not to forsake the assembling of yourselves together, and there is enough evidence that you ought to sing and preach in those services.

So, let it be said. Sunday morning, I sit right over there, and I love it. My marriage has been saved by corporate-worship services. I’ve told Noël that. You have a squabble with your wife on Saturday, and you’re not talking. You’re emotionally ticked and you’re self-pitying. And then you come into a service and suddenly lift up — with four hundred or five hundred people — the bigness of God, the mercies of God, the kindness of God, and you feel like an idiot. You think, “Why am I wrecking this relationship with my piqued, emotional, self-pitying selfishness?” God has appointed corporate worship services to save marriages and other things. I love corporate worship, but I love real worship in the heart more.

James: I have a little bit of a hypothetical question for you. Suppose there is a young couple who is interested in missions and has been praying for a door to be opened for several years. Then suddenly a door opens before them. However, as they investigate this opportunity, they suddenly realize that being overseas would look quite different from what they had expected. Therefore, the couple is then split over what action to take. One desires to continue ahead, while the other is unsure that this is truly what they’re being called to do. What encouragement or advice do you have for this couple?

Piper: Someone said, “What was the most interesting question?” I say, “Let’s talk about complementarianism.” We have one minute. That’s not going to happen.

Some of you don’t even know what that word means. We’re complementarians — I am, and Bethlehem College and Seminary is happy to use that word. It simply means that when we read Ephesians 5, it says, “Wives, be subject to your own husbands, as to the Lord” (Ephesians 5:22), and, “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church” (Ephesians 5:25). Husbands are called the “head” of their wives (Ephesians 5:23). So, we have the husband taking his cues from Christ, and we have the wife taking her cues from a glad, obedient, maturing church. And that’s what marriage is. The world doesn’t know that’s what marriage is. They don’t have any idea what marriage is. In the Bible, marriage is a parable, a drama, of Christ and the church. That’s what it’s for. It was conceived that way from the beginning in Genesis 2. That’s complementarianism. Husbands lead, provide, and protect, and wives are glad to have it so. They think, “Give me a man like that, a mature man that I can respect. He’s biblical. He’s Christlike through and through. I’ll go anywhere with him.” That brings us to your question.

I’ll bet everyone is assuming that the guy wants to go, and the woman is dragging her feet. In my forty years at this church, that’s not been the case mostly. It’s the woman who says, “Honey, let’s go,” and he’s saying, “I’m not sure. Maybe we didn’t have it right.” So let me just deal with both. What do you do? You have a wife who wants to go, and the man doesn’t — or maybe you have a husband who wants to go, and the wife doesn’t. Those are the two different scenarios, and I don’t think they are solved in exactly the same way. It’s the non-parallelism that makes you complementarian.

Let’s think about the guy first. He wants to go. He believes it’s God’s will for them to go to the mission field, and now she has seen enough that she’s saying, “I’m not sure about this.” What does a head do? This is where you have to be so careful and biblical. He remembers that he is like Christ, but he’s not Christ. He’s not infallible like Christ. He’s not sinless like Christ. And that’s enough to make him slow to take Christ’s place in her life. This woman has a direct line to Christ. That’s the priesthood of the believer. And she’s claiming that her sense of this is not so sure. And his sense is different. He knows that he’s not God. And therefore, he doesn’t preempt conversation. He doesn’t assume that he doesn’t need counsel and wisdom. He doesn’t assume that he shouldn’t pay attention to her. That’s crazy, not only because it is unprincipled biblically, but also because you have to have her on board. You can’t have her dragging her feet. You have to be together. It’s not going to work if she isn’t in this. And not everybody did that in history.

That’s the first scenario. It means that he’s going to say, “Tell me the problems,” and he’s going to take the time to listen, discuss, argue, read the Bible with her, and pray with her. And over time, he’s going to hope that they go together. And here’s the difference between this and the other situation. There may come a point where he discerns that she is strong enough and that even though she has these misgivings, it’s time. They’re going to go. He says to her, “You can do this.” And I think she should say, “You’re the man. I’m going.”

Now, what if she wants to go and he is saying, “I don’t know”? She’s not the head, and she wants to persuade him, and she ought to want to persuade him. That’s the way it is in 1 Peter 3. The wife is desperately trying to win him to Christ — or in this case, she is trying to win him to the missionary calling they once had and she thinks they still have. She’s going to do similar things. She’s going to pray. She’s going to talk. She’s going to give her reasons. She’s going to be patient and wait. But she will not, like him, come to the point where she says, “We’re going. Pack your bags, hubby.” That’s not going to happen in a complementarian marriage. But she can win him. And she needs to. They have to do this together. That’s the bottom line.

Maybe I’ll close with this. I stood at the front there for about thirty years, and people would come to me with the most intractable questions. I would think, “I don’t have any idea what the answer is to your question.” It seemed like a situation of “damned if you do, damned if you don’t.” It would seem like there was no way forward in a relationship with their dad, or their wife, or their employer. I would generally say, “I don’t know. But I do know there is a third way. God has a third way. He has a way that will be obedient and right. Right now, you can’t see it and I can’t see it. But God can see it. Let’s ask him.” I would say that. So maybe the woman would think, “This is deadlocked. This is going to be miserable for the next ten years.” Or maybe the man might say that. But I would say, “No, there’s a way. There is a way. God will show you a way. You’re going to have a happy, fruitful marriage of ministry together. He’s going to make that happen.”

Hoglund: Thank you, Pastor John. Would you join me in showing appreciation for Pastor John and for these students?

Audio Transcript

Happy Thanksgiving Day — a national holiday for us in the States. We’re very grateful that you listen to the podcast. And no matter where you live, we are praying that you have a day full of Christ-centered thankfulness for all the blessings we enjoy in this life.

Thanksgiving is an essential daily practice for us all. And it’s evidence of our soul’s well-being. As Spurgeon said, “Thanksgiving is one of the best ways to keep yourselves in spiritual health.” Amen. Thanksgiving is spiritual cardio. To lose gratitude is to lose spiritual vibrance. So, when it comes to this Thanksgiving Day, it’s no small holiday for the Christian. Pastor John, use this day to invest a few minutes to help us refocus on what the Bible says here by leading us in a Thanksgiving Day meditation.

Let’s take a moment and ponder what the experience of thankfulness actually is. I’m going to limit myself to Christian thankfulness, so I’m not talking about Hitler’s thankfulness that his liquidation techniques have become more efficient. That kind of thankfulness is wicked. There is wicked thankfulness. Nor am I talking about a kind of good thankfulness the way most people celebrate Thanksgiving — who don’t have any relationship with God at all but feel that they are the beneficiary of some kind of benevolence and usually attribute it to other people. I’m talking about Christian thankfulness, the kind that God is very pleased with.

Defining Christian Thankfulness

Now, what is it? It’s a feeling, an emotion and affection in the heart, that rises spontaneously in response to receiving something that will increase our enjoyment of Christ. That’s my definition of Christian thankfulness. A couple of comments about that definition.

A spontaneous emotion — so, I’m distinguishing thankfulness from saying the words “thank you.” You can teach a child to say “thank you” to his grandma for a gift he does not want. There’s no spontaneous thankfulness welling up in this child’s heart, because he didn’t want those black socks. So, no spontaneous emotion rose up in the child’s heart when he got this gift that he didn’t want. Saying “thank you” is not the same as being thankful. Being thankful is not a decision. Saying “thank you” is a decision. Being thankful is not a decision. It is a spontaneous heart response to the perception of someone giving you something that’s good for you.

“Christian thankfulness is an emotion that rises in response to receiving something that will increase our enjoyment of Christ.”

What makes the spontaneous response of the heart Christian is that it has the effect of increasing our enjoyment of Jesus. This is partly owing to the fact that we see Jesus as the source ultimately behind the gift, and we fully anticipate that the goodness of the gift will cause us to know him more and love him better. The gift may be an ice-cream cone and the gift may be the salvation of your soul by the power of the Holy Spirit. In either case, what makes the heart response of thankfulness Christian is that it comes from Christ and leads to the enjoyment of Christ. If ice-cream cones don’t make you know and love Christ better, they’re wasted on you.

All things are from him and through him and to him or for him (Romans 11:36; Colossians 1:16). Christians are Christians all the way down, from salvation to Dairy Queen Butterfinger Blizzards and all the blessings above and below, which also implies that thankfulness, while it may have its tears — it regularly has its tears — is a happy emotion. When it comes, we’re glad that it comes. It is a gratifying experience. In fact, the human soul — let this sink in — is deeply made for this experience and, therefore, when it comes, we feel like we have become human as we ought — humbly receptive and sweetly thankful.

Meditating on the Power of Thanksgiving

Now, to help us revel in this happy experience on Thanksgiving, think with me about these few observations.

1. Thankfulness is a sweetly humble experience. It is, in a sense, the very opposite of pride: “What do you have that you did not receive? If then you received it, why do you boast as if [it were not a gift]?” (1 Corinthians 4:7). In other words, thankfulness, by its very nature, pushes boasting out of the human heart. You can’t, at the same time, be a brash, swaggering, boastful, cool, self-sufficient person and a thankful person. You can’t. Not in the same heart.

That’s really important in our day, it seems to me, because in video after video — for all I can tell by the advertisements that slip in while I’m watching some documentary or something else — brash, swaggering, boastful, arrogant, self-sufficient, sassy heroes and heroines are evidently quite popular. Well, they’re not popular with God because God delights in thankfulness. Picture some sassy, swaggering heroine or hero saying with humility to God or to a friend, “I am so thankful for your kindness to me.” No, it won’t work, because thankfulness necessarily implies humility and dependence and the finding of our happiness in receiving some good that another did for us that goes beyond what we deserve. It is the opposite of pride and swagger.

2. Consider that this is why thankfulness is purifying, especially to our mouths: “Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking, which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving” (Ephesians 5:4). It’s amazing that Paul would contrast crude joking with thankfulness. It’s because emotionally they just don’t go together. I mean, try to imagine it. Why do people with crude, foul mouths lace their talk with four-letter words? Why do they do that? One of Paul’s answers is that their hearts are not brimming with humble, happy thankfulness, especially to God. Nobody uses four-letter words or a crude phrase to express heartfelt, humble thankfulness.

3. Consider how everything that we have is a gift. If we know that we are sinners, then everything we have is an undeserved gift. Not just a few things here and there — everything. “[God] gives . . . life and breath and everything” (Acts 17:25). “What do you have,” Paul asks, “that you did not receive?” (1 Corinthians 4:7). And the answer is nothing.

Which means that thankfulness for the Christian who lives in the light of this truth is utterly pervasive in all of life. This is the beat of his emotional heart. This is the air we breathe. This is the flavor of every experience. God is sovereign. God is wise, God is good. God turns everything for the good of his children. Thankfulness, for the Christian, is part of every experience. That’s what 1 Thessalonians 5:18 says: “Give thanks in all circumstances.” Ephesians 5:20 takes it further: “[Give] thanks . . . for everything.” When we are walking in the light of the truth, no emotion is more common in the Christian heart than happy thankfulness.

4. Finally, consider the vastness of the benefits that Christians have. “He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?” (Romans 8:32). All things! “My God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ” (Philippians 4:19). “All things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future — all are yours, and you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s” (1 Corinthians 3:21–23). It is only a matter of time, Christian, until you inherit the earth (Matthew 5:5). Be patient, be faithful, and be thankful in everything all the time. We were made for this happy emotion.

In the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, the killed and wounded are approaching one million people. Israel is now fighting wars on two fronts with Hamas and Hezbollah. Earlier this week, China launched an intercontinental ballistic missile for the first time in decades. Boko Haram killed 26 Christians as they worshiped in Burkina Faso last week, and a hundred others. Over half of Sudan’s 46 million people suffer from acute hunger because of civil war. Civil wars rage in Ethiopia, Yemen, Syria, Afghanistan, Central African Republic, Haiti, and at least ten other nations. One hundred million people in the world have been forcibly displaced from their homes, including forty million refugees, 40 percent of which are under eighteen.

In the United States, since 2017 there have been half a million opioid-related deaths. Our mayor said last week of the encampments in our city that there is housing and help available, but “these encampments are in place because of fentanyl.”

Our Anxious Age

Those are some of the reasons we would call ours an anxious age. But I mention them for two other reasons. One is to draw attention to the fact that if every one of those crises were to go away tonight, the real-life, close-to-home reasons for anxiety would be just as great.

You are one heartbeat away from death every moment, and you have no control over God’s decision about how long you live (James 4:15). The pain in your chest might be a heart attack. The ache in your hip might be bone cancer. The email you are about to open might be your pink slip at age 55. The phone ringing might be the death of your parents — or worse, their divorce. The note you’re about to open might be that your twenty-year-old daughter has decided she is not a Christian and finds better community with her LGBTQ friends. Most of our anxieties do not come from world crises.

But the other reason I call attention to the global crises is that they describe the world in which the Great Commission is going to be finished. Most of the unreached peoples in our day live in cultures that are hostile to the gospel. They are not waiting with open arms. But that is the world in which the mission will be finished. Jesus said,

You will be hated by all nations for my name’s sake. And then many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another. And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold. But the one who endures to the end will be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come. (Matthew 24:9–14)

The love of many will grow cold as they succumb to rampant anxiety, fall away from the faith, and betray fellow Christians. But the mission of King Jesus will be completed, because amid the fear and coldness there will be white-hot, joyful, fearless lovers of Jesus. Anxiety will not rule them. Joyful, risk-taking love will rule them.

Countless Dangers, Continual Joy

The title of my message is “Countless Dangers, Continual Joy — How Is This Possible?” You can open your Bibles to Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians. We will be moving around in this absolutely amazing letter. Forty years ago, Don Carson wrote a book on 2 Corinthians called A Model of Christian Maturity that began like this:

I love the apostle Paul. Some people cannot understand my love. They find Paul angular, merely intellectual, intimidating, even arrogant. My response, firmly stated, is they do not know him. . . . Arguably, the most intense chapters in all of his writings are found in 2 Corinthians.

I too love the apostle Paul. I love him. There is no one in the history of the world, besides Jesus, whose capacity for joy in affliction I desire more than Paul’s. So, what the title of this message really means is, “Paul’s Countless Dangers, Paul’s Continual Joy — How Did He Do That?” Of all Paul’s thirteen letters, 2 Corinthians deals with suffering and afflictions more than any of the others. And 2 Corinthians contains more language for joy and gladness and contentment than any of the others.

Litany of Paul’s Afflictions

So, first, let’s take a deep breath and try to get into Paul’s skin and feel some of his dangers and afflictions. I think that is a biblical thing to do because Hebrews 13:3 says, “Remember those who are in prison, as though in prison with them, and those who are mistreated, since you also are in the body.” Paul had a body. You have a body. So, remember him as if suffering with him. What we are illustrating now is the phrase from the title “Countless Dangers” — or you could say, “Countless Afflictions.”

Second Corinthians 1:5: “We share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings.” Abundantly!

Second Corinthians 1:8: “We do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself.”

Second Corinthians 2:4: “I wrote to you out of much affliction and anguish of heart and with many tears, not to cause you pain but to let you know the abundant love that I have for you.” If you love, you will weep. If you haven’t yet, you will.

Second Corinthians 4:8–10: “We are afflicted in every way . . . perplexed . . . persecuted . . . struck down . . . always carrying in the body the death of Jesus.” I omit the resilient words. We are focusing now on dangers and afflictions.

Second Corinthians 6:4–10 (again omitting his hopeful words, as we focus just on his afflictions):

We commend ourselves in every way: by great endurance, in afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger . . . through . . . dishonor, through slander. . . . We are treated as impostors . . . as unknown . . . as dying . . . as punished . . . as sorrowful . . . as poor . . . as having nothing.

Second Corinthians 7:5: “Our bodies had no rest, but we were afflicted at every turn — fighting without and fear within.”

Danger on Every Side

Second Corinthians 11:23–29 is the list to end all lists. He calls himself a madman (verse 23) for competing with his adversaries this way. He says,

. . . far greater labors, far more imprisonments, with countless beatings, and often near death. Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one.

That’s 39 lashes with a whip. When it’s over, your back is flayed and bloody and takes — what? — a month to heal over. Then it happens again. Same back. And then again. Same back. Same skin. And then again. And then once more — 195 stripes. Was the scar tissue such that he could barely move in the morning?

Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I was adrift at sea; on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city [Minneapolis?], danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers; in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure. And, apart from other things, there is the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches. Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is made to fall, and I am not indignant?

Don’t miss the modifiers: greater labors, more imprisonments, often near death, frequent journeys, many sleepless nights, daily pressures. There was no significant letup. No sabbatical. No retirement.

Replete with Weaknesses

One more passage, 2 Corinthians 12:7–10: “A thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me. . . . For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities.”

This description of countless dangers and relentless afflictions of every kind — not only persecutions but physical maladies like ours (it was a thorn in the flesh) — is breathtaking. It was a life of almost continual danger and unrelenting affliction of one kind or the other.

Sometimes, when I hear professing Christians who have just been diagnosed with a disease or suffered a terrible loss or experienced a calamity say, “Where is God? Why would a good God let this happen?” I ask myself, “What Bible do they read?” I usually hope that Christians who talk like that have only had a momentary lapse of faith. And I give them the benefit of the doubt. But it is troubling, because Paul suffered probably more than any of you in this room will ever suffer (and I’m not minimizing your pain), but he never responded like that.

How did he respond?

Miracle of Paul’s Joy

That brings us to the second part of the title of this message: “Continual Joy.” If Paul’s dangers are countless, and his afflictions are unrelenting, at least they are natural. We have categories for them. We understand what they are. We understand how they happen. We can imagine them happening to people today. They’re not mysterious. But when we consider Paul’s response to these afflictions — namely, his continual joy — we are, at first, simply at a loss. There is nothing natural about this. This appears, by all human reckoning, inexplicable. If the dangers and afflictions are breathtaking, the joy is incomprehensible, mysterious, unfathomable. It is beyond all ordinary human experience. If it is real — and it is — it is supernatural. It’s a miracle.

So, let’s take another deep breath and try to get into Paul’s skin again, to feel some of his continual joy — not his recurrent joy, not his intermittent joy, but his continual joy — just as unremitting as the afflictions. This will be harder, and perhaps impossible, for some of you.

Abounding Comfort

Second Corinthians 1:4: “God comforts us in all our affliction.” Not in some of it — all of it. Not after it — in it.

Second Corinthians 1:5: “As we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too.” The very Christ for whom he suffers gives him comfort in suffering.

Second Corinthians 4:16: “We do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away . . .” I’m sure the aging process for Paul was much quicker than it is for us. He had none of our medical advantages. And his adversaries cut him no slack because of his age. But he did not lose heart.

Second Corinthians 6:10: “As sorrowful, yet always rejoicing . . .” This is one of those paradoxical statements that is deeply embedded in the ethos of Bethlehem College and Seminary and Desiring God. Sorrow and joy are not only sequential for Paul — sorrow and then joy — but simultaneous: “sorrowful, yet always rejoicing.” It’s even in and during the sorrow.

And notice, he doesn’t say, “afflicted yet always rejoicing.” Affliction is something that happens to you. But sorrow is a response to affliction. It is a feeling. And we usually think of the feeling of sorrow as so contrary to rejoicing that they cannot happen simultaneously. But Paul says that for him they do: “sorrowful, yet always rejoicing.”

Second Corinthians 7:4: “I am filled with comfort. In all our affliction, I am overflowing with joy.” That is probably the most astonishing, counterintuitive verse in the whole book. “In [not after but in] all our affliction [not some but all], I am overflowing [not clinging by my fingernails but overflowing] with joy [hyperperisseuō].” Remember the breathtaking list of afflictions! How is this possible?

Second Corinthians 8:2 (a description of the Macedonian Christians, but a description of Paul’s own experience): “In a severe test of affliction, their abundance of joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part.” Severe affliction. Extreme poverty. Overflowing joy. It’s as if the poverty and joy were one spring of generosity.

Well-Pleased with Weakness

Here’s one more passage. In 2 Corinthians 12:8–10, Paul prayed three times for his painful thorn to be removed. You see the Lord’s response in 2 Corinthians 12:9, and then Paul’s response. The Lord says, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Then Paul responds,

Therefore I will boast all the more gladly [hēdista, from which we get the word “hedonism”] of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content [eudokō, “well-pleased”] with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong. (2 Corinthians 12:9–10)

In summary:

Abundant comfort in all our affliction
Not losing heart while physically wasting away
Always rejoicing even while sorrowing
Overflowing with joy in all our affliction
Abundance of joy in affliction and poverty
Boasting gladly in weakness, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities

On any ordinary reckoning, this is inexplicable not only because we don’t know how it can happen with any natural explanation, but it is also because we are not sure what it is. What is joy if it can exist — indeed (as 2 Corinthians 7:4 says), overflow — simultaneously with sorrow? Do we even know what we are talking about?

I think it would be a colossal mistake to reinterpret the words “joy” and “gladness” and “rejoicing” in 2 Corinthians as though they were not feelings, not emotions. To try to make them something like committed or faithful or loyal or devoted — and so solve the paradox of “sorrowful yet always rejoicing” by saying “rejoicing” is really not an emotion, not a feeling — is to go against all ordinary usage. The Bible does not try to trick by using strong emotional language when it doesn’t refer to emotions and feelings. No. Joy, gladness, rejoicing (chara, euphrainō, chairein, hēdeōs) — they are all feelings, and they are a good feeling. Everybody wants them. Christian joy in affliction is a real, deep, glad, good feeling.

Pain in the Night, Joy in the Night

So, our last question is this: How can that be?

I’m going to try to answer that question by weaving together my experience with Paul’s many-layered answer in 2 Corinthians. I think if I can weave Paul’s answer into my experience, it may feel more emotionally compelling than if I simply point to the verses.

Many of you know that my mother was killed in a bus accident in Israel in 1974 (it will be fifty years in December). She was 56. I was 28, married, with one two-year-old son. It helps to know that I was probably a mama’s boy growing up. I was an only son with one older sister. My father was away from home two-thirds of every year — a traveling evangelist. So, my relationship with him was one of deep respect, great admiration, and a really happy connection. But it wasn’t like the emotional bond with my mother. She was there for every little crisis that seemed so big.

My parents were leading a tour in Israel. The phone rang on that December evening in 1974, and my brother-in-law said, “Johnny, I’ve got really bad news.” I said, “Okay.” He said, “Your parents were in a bus accident outside Bethlehem, and your mother didn’t make it. And your dad is seriously injured and in the hospital.” When I hung up, I told Noël what I knew, pulled Karsten off my leg, went to the bedroom, knelt down, and cried like I never had before or since, for a long time.

This was, by any measurement, sorrow. Great sorrow. Really sobbing sorrow. This is what Paul meant by the word “sorrowful” in 2 Corinthians 6:10, when he said, “sorrowful, yet always rejoicing.” And because of that experience, I know, and I testify to you, not only because of what the Bible says, but because of what God did that night, that it is possible to experience simultaneously great sorrow and great joy. It is true, as Psalm 30:5 says, that “weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning.” We can use the word “joy” that way. But it is also true — and this is the message of 2 Corinthians — that while weeping lasts for the night, joy too lasts for the night.

As I wept, my heart leaped with joyful thankfulness and hope — thankfulness and hope. I prayed, “O God, you have been so good to me to give me such a Bible-saturated mother for 28 years. Beyond all my deserving. She was so attentive, so patient, so caring, so diligent, so upright, so happy. What more could I have asked?” All the years of blessing poured out through glad thankfulness as I sobbed.

And then there was the hope. I thought, She’s home. She’s home. Second Corinthians 5:8 says, “away from the body and at home with the Lord.” She has not come into judgment because she was in Christ, a new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17). Christ died for her: for her sake God made Christ to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him she might become the righteousness of God (2 Corinthians 5:21). And that mangled body (death certificate: “lacerated medulla oblongata”), that precious body that bore me and nursed me and hugged me, will be raised gloriously: he who raised the Lord Jesus will raise her also with Jesus and bring her with me into his presence (2 Corinthians 4:14).

This nobody was a queen of heaven, “as unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and behold, [she lives]; . . . as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, yet possessing everything” (2 Corinthians 6:9–10). All God’s promises find their Yes in Christ (2 Corinthians 1:20). And she was in Christ. God’s word to her, and to me, was not Yes and No. It is always Yes in him. Every promise will prove true for Ruth Piper. Not one shall fall to the ground. Not one.

I could say to my dad, “Hang on, Daddy; hang on. God has work for you to do. It is true for her, and it is true for you right now in your hospital bed, and it is true for me in my sobbing: ‘This light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal’ (2 Corinthians 4:17–18).” I was, in that night, a sorrowing wreck, and a very happy son — “sorrowful, yet always rejoicing.”

Countless dangers, relentless afflictions, and continual joy is indeed possible because all the promises of God — all of them! — are Yes in Christ Jesus (2 Corinthians 1:20). And they will remain Yes forever, through all the global crises, through all the personal weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. So, you can say with Paul, “I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me” (2 Corinthians 12:9).

Audio Transcript

Welcome back to the podcast with longtime author and pastor John Piper. There’s an atheistic tendency in every heart — my heart and even in your heart, Pastor John. You said so when we looked at this “powerful atheistic tendency in every human heart” about a year ago in APJ 1980, a sobering episode. So, it’s no surprise that we frequently get emails from listeners struggling with doubt and unbelief — like James, a listener who writes us this: “Dear John, I remember listening to your biography of William Cowper some years ago. It has stayed with me all these years later. There’s something about his dark struggle that, in my own way, I can relate to.

“For about ten years now, it looks as though I’ve lost my faith. But I haven’t been successful in completely shutting out the nagging questions and doubts. The struggle appears to be in believing there’s a true narrative of how things are while also believing that there’s no way of little old me figuring that all out, especially when the best of the best within various academic disciplines disagree on these matters. I find myself in this agnostic no-man’s-land. It feels like an intellectually honest position, just not an overly satisfying one. The questions and doubts remain. So, I’m a little stuck on how to make any progress and would love to listen to any advice you might have for me.”

Perhaps God will use a few prayerful observations that I make from Scripture to awaken some new perspective that may help James get unstuck. That’s my prayer as we begin.

Root of Unbelief

James, you say, “For about ten years now, it looks as though I’ve lost my faith.” To this let me respond with 2 Peter 3:17. It says, “Take care that you are not carried away with the error of lawless people and lose your own stability.” Now, here’s a warning to take care; that is, to guard against. Strikingly, the danger is lawlessness leading to deception, leading to loss of stability — that is, loss of faith. It goes back to lawlessness. What is that? A disposition of heart that chafes under authority and then comes up with authority-denying ideas that don’t fit reality. That is, they are deceptive.

James, you say that you struggle with believing that there’s a true narrative of how things are. That’s amazing. That is a classic manifestation of lawlessness — doubting that truth even exists. There is no true narrative. Nothing can be more lawless than carving out a place to live where there is no such thing as reality outside yourself that you have to deal with. You doubt, you say, that there is any true narrative of what is. In that world of lawlessness, the ego is totally untethered from reality. Peter calls this a great deception. And he says it’s the cause of losing our stability, our faith.

Indeed, what could be more unstable than a world where nothing is real? There’s no true narrative. So, consider, James, and be motivated to regain your stability.

How to Regain Your Stability

The writer to the Hebrews would say to you, “Here’s how you regain your stability in the fog of lawless deceptions.” He says this in Hebrews 12:3: “Consider him [Jesus] who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted.” It is so easy and dangerous to become intellectually and spiritually weary, just exhausted at trying to consider hundreds of ideas that blow like leaves around our ears and make us feel disoriented and hopeless ever to regain any stability or faith at all. And Hebrews pleads with us: Consider Jesus. Consider the sufferings of Jesus. Consider the hostilities against Jesus. Rivet your attention on this. This is where you can find stability. Jesus authenticates himself through his sufferings.

Then, James, you add this to your doubt that any true narrative exists: you say, “There’s no way of little old me figuring all that out, especially when the best of the best within the various academic disciplines disagree on these matters.” To this I would say, “Be careful that in the name of humility — ‘little old me’ — you don’t find yourself actually mocking God.” The whole Bible is predicated on the decision of God, the Creator of the universe, to make himself known to ordinary people to such a degree that he holds them accountable to be willing to die for him.

So, if we say we’re just too little, too insignificant, too confused, too humble to understand or believe what God has revealed about the true narrative of what is, we have decided that either God made a bad decision to communicate, or he pulled it off very poorly. He has not done what he said he would do — namely, communicate himself and his salvation compellingly to ordinary people. That’s a very dangerous thing to say. It is an understatement when James describes his position as not an overly satisfying one. No, indeed. There is unwitting mockery of God built into it.

We Can See the Sun

If the sun is shining brightly at midday, and you see it, and there is a debate going on around you as to whether the sun is shining — and these are very smart people compared to little old you — will you surrender your eyes and your joy to the debaters? Would you give them that kind of power over you? To which James might say to me, “I’m not sure that’s a fair analogy, to say that I’m looking at the sun when I’m considering the truth of Christianity.” In communicating his truth to ordinary people, God does hold them accountable, not to become philosophers, but he holds them accountable to see the sun. And if they don’t see it, his explanation is that they’re blind, and the solution he offers is precisely a sight of the sun.

Here’s what he says in 2 Corinthians 4:4: “The god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.” I would dare anyone to claim that the light of the gospel of the glory of the Son of God is less compelling than the sun shining at midday. Then Paul adds, “God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:6). How bright is that? Here’s what the apostle John says: “His face was like the sun shining in full strength” (Revelation 1:16).

James, God is pursuing you. You would not have written to me if he were not. So, as you seek him in fresh ways now, consider one last exhortation from the Lord Jesus in John 7:17: “If anyone’s will is to do God’s will, he will know whether the teaching is from God.” In other words, he will see the sun.

Audio Transcript

Welcome back to Job week on the podcast. On Monday, we read Job 16 together and had to parse out which of Job’s claims are true and which ones are false — one of the particular challenges of reading Job. Today we read Job 19 and this bold declaration from Job in Job 19:26–27: “After my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another. My heart faints within me!” After Job dies, he will be in his flesh — and in his flesh, he will see God. That’s his claim.

To that claim comes this related question from Eric, who listens to the podcast in Joliet, Illinois: “Pastor John, hello! First Timothy 6:16 says that no one can see God. Yet Matthew 5:8 tells us that the pure in heart will see God. Is there any sense in which we will be able to ‘see’ God physically in heaven? Or is this text alluding to the incarnate and glorified Christ? It’s a powerful promise, and I want to understand it better.”

Let’s put the texts — the ones that he refers to and a few others — in front of us, and then see if we can answer the question.

1 Timothy 6:15–16: “He who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality, who dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see. To him be honor and eternal dominion.”
1 Timothy 1:17: “To the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory.”
1 John 4:12: “No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us.”
Exodus 33:20: “You cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live.”
Deuteronomy 4:12: “Then the Lord spoke to you out of the midst of the fire. You heard the sound of words, but saw no form; there was only a voice.”

That’s one side. You can’t see him. Now here’s the other side.

Matthew 5:8: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.”
Genesis 32:30: “Jacob called the name of the place Peniel, saying, ‘For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life has been [spared].’”
Job 19:26–27: “And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another.”

There you have both sides of the issue. And the solution to this seeming inconsistency lies in the fact that the word see, as we all know, has several different uses. And if you look at all the texts, you see that there are two different senses in which his people can see God and two senses in which they cannot see God.

So, let me break these out and see if people can follow me — see if they can see.

How We Cannot See God

First, the ways we cannot see God.

1. We can’t see him with our physical eyes for the simple reason that he’s a spirit, and he doesn’t have a body. That’s probably at least part of what Paul means when he says that Christ “is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation” (Colossians 1:15).

2. We can’t see him even spiritually with unmediated directness. This is partly owing to our sinfulness and partly owing perhaps to our creaturely weakness. He’s too great, too bright, too glorious, and we could not live if we saw him with unmediated directness. We must always have Christ, our Mediator, as a go-between.

I think that’s what Jesus meant when he says in John 6:45–46, “It is written in the Prophets, ‘And they will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me — not that anyone has seen the Father except he who is from God; he has seen the Father.” Now, when it says, “except he who is from God; he has seen the Father,” he means not with physical eyes because Jesus, the Son of God, didn’t have physical eyes before the incarnation. And that’s what he’s contrasting our seeing with. Only the Son can see the Father with nonphysical, unmediated, direct seeing. We cannot see God spiritually the way the Son of God in unmediated directness can see him.

So, those are the two ways we can’t see God when we use the word see in different ways.

How We Can See God

And here are the two ways we can see God.

1. We use the word see to mean that we finally understand and discern the beauty and glory of God after being blind to it, like when we say, “Oh, now I see.” Our soul is tuned in to the glory so that the glory of God that shines through the gospel is seen as glorious, and we’re no longer spiritually blind to it. That’s the first way we see him.

2. The second way is that, in the narrative of the Bible, we see the glory of God — and, finally, we will see him face to face — through Christ, by seeing Christ. “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father. . . . No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known” (John 1:14, 18). So, we see God by seeing Jesus. “We know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:2).

So, the implication is this: pursue purity of heart, purity of faith, purity of life so that our heart, your heart, is able to see God’s beauty as what it really is in the Scripture, and so that when he comes or when he calls us in death, we will see him face to face and be glorified with him.