Audio Transcript

In January of 2013, we launched a little podcast into the world. We called it Ask Pastor John. We slapped a jingle on the front end and hit publish on a temporary podcast meant to last us fifteen months or so to fill a short need we had here at Desiring God. And Pastor John, here we are, two thousand episodes later.

I can’t even remember those days.

I know. It seems like a distant memory. And I think I used to call you up on your phone. You used a landline phone for those early years. Do you remember that?

Yep. Down in Tennessee.

Two thousand episodes later, we’re now into our twelfth year. And today we look back. We look back at what God has done in the past years of APJ. And we look forward, with prayers for the future and prayers for what God might do in a new APJ book. That book releases today. More on that in a moment. As we start off, Pastor John, tell us how this podcast fits within your ministry legacy. How do you think of it now, twelve years in?

Bible-Saturated Legacy

My parents built into me from the time I could read — that’s about six years old, when we moved into the house I’m thinking about — a passion for legacy. And I didn’t know that at the time. I didn’t know what legacy was, but that’s what it was, because hanging on the wall in our kitchen — and it hangs behind me right now where I’m standing in my study — was this motto: “Only one life, ’twill soon be passed. Only what’s done for Christ will last.” That’s legacy talk.

So I believe, Tony, that you and I have produced Ask Pastor John for Christ. “Only what’s done for Christ will last.” And we didn’t do it for ourselves. We did it for Christ. We’re doing it for Christ. Your book will be, I believe, part of the fulfillment of the second half of the motto: “What’s done for Christ will last.”

“Almost every episode is a careful expression of about an hour and a half of study and thought and prayer.”

You know well, Tony, that I have my favorite hyphenated phrases: God-centered, Christ-exalting, Bible-saturated. And I think that’s what Ask Pastor John is; that’s the legacy: God-centered, Christ-exalting, Bible-saturated counsel for people who are in need. And I would underline Bible-saturated, because many podcasts are enjoyable conversations that people have online. That’s not what we’ve done for ten years. Almost every episode is a careful expression — well-prepared and a lot of thought gone into it — of about an hour and a half of study and thought and prayer, saturated with the Bible.

So I think, Tony, our legacy will be this: “They were God-centered; they were Christ-exalting; they were Bible guys — with a strange twist called Christian Hedonism because they believed that God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him.” I think that’s the way I would express the legacy.

Distilling the Archive

Amen. May it be! That has certainly been our prayer from the very start of this podcast. And if you want the full backstory of where it came from and how it’s tied to the unique ways that Pastor John is gifted to answer questions, I tell that backstory in the introduction to my brand new book, just mentioned. It’s titled Ask Pastor John: 750 Bible Answers to Life’s Most Important Questions. That new book launches today. It’s the point of this special episode to announce the new book, Ask Pastor John: 750 Bible Answers to Life’s Most Important Questions.

People hearing about it for the first time ask me, “What is it, Tony? Why did you write a book about a podcast, especially when the whole archive is transcribed; it’s online; it’s just a Google search away for anyone who wants it?”

Really the genesis of this new book came years ago when friends of ours, ministry partners (donors), would email me, asking about some pressing question that has come up in their life, their family, their church — asking me for one APJ episode that could answer a dilemma. And I think the archive is intimidating for a lot of people. I think we’re up to about 250 hours of content now. And that grows by the week. That’s a lot of content to sift through.

So, what I would do is I would take the question from the donor, dive into the archive, and always find multiple episodes on a topic, and respond with an email that was basically a digest of all those episodes that I found — or even just parts of an episode that I found — that I thought could help answer a given challenge from different angles, explaining why each episode I found was uniquely valuable in answering the question.

And over time, those little digests just seemed to prove useful. As they did, I collected them into one document on my computer, and at some point I realized I could do this with the broader archive. So, I set aside two years of my book-research-and-writing time. I identified our most popular episodes from our first decade. That was the easy part. This type of podcast really offers us a feedback loop like no other — the audience asks the questions, and then the audience responds to the episodes we record. It’s very easy to see what topics most resonate with our audience.

So, I isolated our 28 most popular topics, and basically just created 28 huge digests of 750 episodes, in one comprehensive guide, to help find the episodes that you need when you need them. It was a huge project. There were times early on when I wondered if this was a good idea or not.

Book for Every Home

But now it’s done. And I have high hopes that this book will prove useful. Sinclair Ferguson, in his kind endorsement, likened it to Richard Baxter’s classic, massive book, A Christian Directory. It’s an amazing comparison for those of you in the Reformed world who know what that huge book is like. And then Dr. Ferguson called the APJ book “one of those rare contemporary books that can be described as ‘should be in every Christian home.’” My jaw dropped when I read that. I mean, that is an amazing endorsement of the book, but even of your deep labors in this podcast too, Pastor John, each episode being that careful expression of about an hour and a half of your study and thought and prayer, saturated with the Bible. That’s a huge investment. A ringing endorsement of your labors.

And then Kevin DeYoung, another friend of ours, said, “I can’t imagine any Christian who wouldn’t be helped by and fascinated by the hundreds of topics covered in this amazing resource.” Again, that highlights the value of having a printed guide you can easily thumb through and browse. It’s a unique way, I think, to appreciate such a long-running podcast like APJ.

So, if these kind words are accurate — and I have high hopes that this book is going to serve listeners to help them benefit from the archive in the years ahead — I can’t wait to see what the Lord does with this. Pastor John, as you consider what this new book will offer the podcast in the near future and in the distant future, what would you add to this conversation?

Trembling and Rejoicing

When people say nice things about our teaching, we could easily overlook what makes us tremble in this project — namely, James 3:1: “Not many of you should become teachers . . . for you know that we who teach will be judged [that means judged by God] with greater strictness.” Wow. But you and I involved in this constant teaching ministry take heart from God’s word to Isaiah: “This is the one to whom I will look [declares the Lord]: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word” (Isaiah 66:2). So, we believe God will look to us — he will smile upon us because of Jesus and because we don’t play fast and loose with his word. We tremble at the very privilege of knowing his word and speaking his word.

Teaching is what we do. It’s our calling. It’s a dangerous work. It’s a trembling work. But oh, what a happy work! It’s a happy work because we get to spend untold hours immersed in God’s word for the sake of God’s people. And Jesus said, “These things I have spoken to you . . . that your joy may be full” (John 15:11). And then he told us to go share what we’ve heard and added, “It is more blessed [more happy] to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35). So, it’s been a happy work.

Tony, you can bear your own witness to the joys of facing, amazingly, two thousand episodes of APJ, and selecting and distilling them into a usable manual of Christian counsel. But I want to bear witness to the joy of watching that happen. It really has been astonishing to watch. For ten years, I have watched you evaluate questions by the thousands, record answers, edit recordings, record or host a podcast, and schedule the episodes.

Now, that’s one source of joy (and it’s big and solid), just watching those competencies that God has given you put into action for his glory. But the skill that our readers are going to see in this book — this synthesizing skill — is of another order. Weaving hundreds of thousand-word answers into topical, coherent, readable chapters has inspired — still inspires — my happy admiration and thankfulness to God.

So thank you, Tony, for the investment of ten years of your life on the podcast and two years of your life on the book. It has been a precious partnership. Clearly you and I both believe in the value of the written word and the spoken word. You’ve reminded me of that over and over again — about the peculiar nature of this audible conversation that we have. We’ve seen lives captivated for Christ through both writing and speaking. We pray for that to continue to happen through both.

You and I both love to write. We are writers. We get our thoughts out on paper with joy. It is in our God-designed bones. But neither you nor I will surrender the living voice, because the living voice carries the affections of the heart more effectively than the written word. And we believe that new Christ-exalting affections of the heart are the goal of this ministry, the goal of books, the goal of speaking, the goal of Desiring God. I believe it’s the goal of the Bible — new Christ-exalting affections.

So, Ask Pastor John — the book and the podcast — aim to impart new affections. That’s what we want to happen. We aim at a miracle. We hope that you, our listeners, will hear and read our hearts. There is a happy melody there in our hearts — a God-centered, Christ-exalting, Bible-saturated, happy melody — and we hope that you hear it, and that it becomes the melody of your life.

Two Prayers for Listeners and Readers

Well put! Thank you, Pastor John. I appreciate that. We want the living voice captured in this podcast to bless people around the world for years and decades to come. To that end we have two prayers with this book.

First, we pray this book helps you who are listening to us right now. We want you to better navigate our over two hundred hours of audio, to find episodes you need when you need them, and the episodes your friends need when they need them. I think we can help you better serve others if we can help you find your way around the archive better. That’s prayer one.

“The book and the podcast aim to impart new affections. That’s what we want to happen. We aim at a miracle.”

Prayer two is for future listeners to this podcast, those who are not listening right now. They can’t hear me right now; they’re not listening to me; they haven’t even started listening. Imagine an audience of people who have never listened to APJ that will come online and listen to our content in future years and decades. Millions of people right now — that’s not an overstatement — don’t know that this podcast exists: people in our churches, people in our neighborhoods, people at work, people wrestling with suffering, people asking the most important questions in life. And I want them to see quickly the ground we’ve covered in the first ten years of the podcast so that they can benefit from the archive immediately.

So, those are our two prayers. And I put them in the introduction to my new book when I wrote this: “As we build this podcast into a single content library, our first decade lays the groundwork for everything else to come. For current listeners, the book rehearses key highlights from the past. For future listeners, the book is an on-ramp to summarize the ground we’ve already covered. The book will immediately serve thousands of current listeners who found their way from the podcast to the book.” That’s you if you’re listening, hearing about the book for the first time; you’re moving from the podcast to the book.

“But perhaps, if the Lord is gracious, the current will reverse in due time, and thousands of readers will find their way from this new book to the podcast. That’s our prayer. As you gift this book to not-yet-listeners, you’re helping us fulfill this dream in answer to that prayer. Think of this book as a podcast promo made of paper and ink that you can physically hand to others” (xxviii).

That thought thrills me. I can’t wait to hand out copies of this book to introduce new listeners to the podcast, to share with others this happy melody — this God-centered, Christ-exalting, Bible-saturated, happy melody of what this podcast is. What a joy! What an honor to be able to do that.

Okay, so where can you get copies? To launch this new, big, red Ask Pastor John book, we are again partnering with our friends at Westminster Books. Support a wonderful Christian bookstore, and get discounted copies of Ask Pastor John: 750 Bible Answers to Life’s Most Important Questions right now at wtsbooks.com.

I have been honored to be your podcast host for over a decade from behind a microphone. And now to be your podcast host in a new book format is a new joy for me. Whether by microphone or by book, I am your host, Tony Reinke. See you next time.

Audio Transcript

Welcome back to the podcast. Recently, we’ve been talking about how we serve and praise God. A week ago, we looked at what it means to serve God — “one of the most important questions a Christian can ask,” Pastor John said. That was APJ 1956. And that led to this question: What do we offer God as we serve him? Does he need us? And the answer to that question was no, he does not need us. We meet no need in him. So then, what do we offer him as we serve him? It’s another essential question to resolve. And that was last time, in APJ 1957.

Today we look at praise, but a different kind of praise than what we have been talking about on the podcast recently. Today we’re talking about praise in the context of celebrating one another. How do we celebrate one another authentically, and do so without flattery, which is a sin? This question is from Sarah, a listener who writes us this: “Pastor John, hello. Can you explain to me the difference between flattery and encouragement? We are called to encourage one another, but also to not puff one another up in pride. How can I know which one is which?”

There is such a thing as flattery. Not all getting is good, so we have the word greed, right? And not all giving is good, so we have the word bribe. Praise, which involves both getting and giving, may not be good, and so we have the word flattery.

Flattery in Scripture

The Greek word for flattery, kolakeias, occurs one time in the New Testament. Paul is defending his ministry to the Thessalonians, and he says, “We never came with words of flattery, as you know, nor with a pretext for greed — God is witness. Nor did we seek glory from people, whether from you or from others” (1 Thessalonians 2:5–6). And it is, I think, more than coincidental that flattery occurs in that sentence with the word greed. In other words, “I want something from you” — you’re kind of getting at the heart of flattery when you think about that.

“Flattery is a form of hypocrisy.”

The idea of flattery is present without the word in Jude 16, where Jude accuses certain men of admiring persons for the sake of their own advantage. That’s the idea: you’re admiring and you’re saying nice things about somebody for the sake of your own advantage.

Now, lots more is said about flattery in the Old Testament than in the New. The word flattery is built on the Hebrew word for be smooth or slippery. So, a person who flatters is smoothing and caressing. “The lips of a forbidden woman drip honey, and her speech is smoother than oil” (Proverbs 5:3). Here’s Proverbs 7:21: “With much seductive speech she persuades him; with her smooth talk she compels him.” The most general statement about flattery in its destructive effects is Proverbs 26:28, “A flattering mouth works ruin,” or Proverbs 29:5, “A man who flatters his neighbor spreads a net for his feet.”

Flattery vs. Praise

So, the key question becomes, How can we celebrate or praise good things about others without spreading a net for their feet or working their ruin? I think the key is to keep in mind the essential difference between good praise and bad flattery.

Flattery is bad because it’s calculated. It’s given with a view to obtaining some advantage (Jude 16). Flattery may be true; it may not be true. Sometimes people think it has to do with whether it’s true or not. That’s not the issue. You may be saying something true about somebody, and it may still be flattery. The issue is whether it’s calculated to achieve some purpose that is not rooted in the authentic, spontaneous delight that we take in the virtue we are praising.

In other words, the key mark of genuine, non-flattering praise is that it’s the overflow of authentic delight in what we are observing about the other person. It’s the opposite of calculation; it’s spontaneous. C.S. Lewis — one of my favorite quotes — says, “We delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not only expresses but completes the enjoyment. It is its appointed consummation” (Reflections on the Psalms, 111). Yes, exactly right.

But flattery does not flow from a sincere delight in the thing being praised. It’s all external and manipulative. It’s elicited out of us by some other benefit that we’re hoping to get through the flattery, not by the benefit that we just got from the person’s kindness or virtue or beauty or accomplishment. So, flattery is a form of hypocrisy. We try to give the impression that we are being moved by a spontaneous delight in something we admire, but we’re not really being moved by a spontaneous admiration. We’re being calculating; we’re desiring to use praise to get something. And I think the very phrase “use praise” makes me gag. You’re going to go to God and use praise. Ick. It’s a horrible way to think, and it’s pretty prevalent today.

Keeping Praise Authentic

This reality raises the question of whether it’s appropriate to “use praise” as a means of bringing about behaviors in children or employees or friends. Doesn’t that imply some kind of calculated use of praise for ulterior motives? And that’s a tough question.

I think the answer goes something like this. If the praise can still be an expression of authentic, spontaneous delight in some good that we have observed, and if our goal is that the child or the friend do more of that behavior, not for the sake of praise but because it’s intrinsically beautiful and God-honoring, then it’s legitimate to hope that our praise will produce more good behavior. But in general, I think it’s dangerous to think of our praise of others — including our children — in utilitarian terms.

“The key mark of genuine, non-flattering praise is that it’s the overflow of authentic delight.”

Children are going to catch on to this eventually. They’re going to say, “I don’t think Daddy really enjoyed what I just did. He’s just trying to use it to get me to do something.” Thinking that our praise will bring about behaviors that we want — kids are going to catch on to that. That’s not going to be authentic. Parents will be thinking like psychologically trained manipulators. Far better to be the kind of person — the kind of parent — who sees God-given virtue or God-given achievements, and is so authentically stirred with admiration and joy that we spill over with praise.

And of course, it’s going to have wonderful effects on our relationships and on the future behaviors of our kids and others. But if we start making the utilitarian dimension of praise prominent — which it is being made prominent today — it will cease to be authentic and, in the long run, I think it will backfire.

Evidences of Grace

Just one last help. I have friends who have taught me that a good way to conceive of our praising other people is to think of it as drawing attention — spontaneously enjoying and thus drawing attention — to “evidences of God’s grace.” That little phrase is pretty common in some circles, and I think it’s a good one. If we believe that in sinful human beings all virtue is ultimately from God, which it is, then all praising of true virtue or true accomplishments or any beautiful traits that we see will be conceived of as honoring God, not just man.

So, it is a good thing in a family, in a church, and among friends to habitually call attention to evidences of grace in each other’s lives, to say to our children in a dozen ways — we don’t have to be mechanical about this —“I love what God is doing in your life.” “That was so good of the way you shared your toys with Jimmy.” Kids aren’t going to think, “Oh, Daddy’s preaching” — not if it’s authentic, and you really feel joy in what your child just did and joy in the grace of God.

But my earnest plea is this: try to avoid utilitarian, calculated approaches that turn spontaneity into manipulation. That’s the soil of flattery.

Audio Transcript

By far the hardest part of my work on this podcast is reading the sorrow-filled emails we get, and especially those from parents who have lost young children. Some of you who are listening are enduring tremendous pain, which is so evident in the stories you share with us. And the sorrow of losing a child is only made heavier when that loss may be connected to a parent’s own decision, as is the case in this email from an anonymous woman. “Pastor John, I have been passing through a very dark and hard time since the recent loss of my unborn baby girl. My expected delivery date passed, and I was told to go to the hospital for an induced labor. I delayed that decision, trusting that I would eventually deliver my baby girl without any forced labor needed. A week later, I was told my baby died in the womb.

“I was shattered by the news. I feel directly responsible for my child’s death. I feel God should have given me a sign or something. Why did he allow my baby to die? It’s been seven weeks, and it still feels like yesterday. The pain is fresh every day. My heart is broken. I cry whenever I remember the whole scenario. I find it hard to pray. When I do, I now doubt if God still hears me. I am weighed down to the point that I feel my faith failing.”

When I was in Africa in 1996 visiting missionaries, I met a young Quaker missionary couple who had been there for fifteen years. The year before I got there, their eighteen-month-old daughter was backed over in a car and killed by a visiting missionary in their front yard. And as I was visiting them those months later, their computer was broken, they had car trouble, their housing was being taken from them because the landlord had defaulted on a loan. And in all of that, this couple, to my utter astonishment, was radiant with hope and with the love of Jesus Christ. They had not even gone home to bury the baby. They buried the baby in Kenya and pressed on with the work.

Now, I’m very aware that this young woman who has written to us can respond to that story in two very different ways. She can be angry with me or upset, as though I were trying to shame her that she hasn’t yet felt that kind of hopeful. But she doesn’t have to respond that way to my story. She can respond by saying, “Thank you, God, that you gave to that Quaker couple such grace to survive that unspeakable tragedy and survive it in hope. I don’t feel that way, God, but I want to, and I ask for that miracle to happen in my life.” She could respond that way. I hope she does.

So, here are a few thoughts that I pray God would use to give this kind of sustaining grace to our brokenhearted mom.

1. We just don’t know.

First, we don’t know if your baby would have died anyway, and so we don’t know if you were part of the reason the baby died. We just don’t know. There are too many variables. You don’t know. As much as you feel responsible, you don’t know. Maybe, maybe not.

2. Waiting need not be negligence.

Second, you referred to your negligence. Maybe it was — I don’t know enough to pass judgment — but frankly I doubt it. I doubt that you were negligent. Millions of women have passed their due dates and waited for birth without inducement. All the Piper babies were late, some as much as three weeks. To wait for a natural readiness need not be negligence.

3. Your child’s life goes on.

Third, your baby’s life did not end. If you persevere in faith, you will be with your child in due time. I tried to spell out the reason for believing that in APJ 514. You can go listen to why I believe that. There are just many significant reasons, even biblical ones, that I think are compelling. Don’t assume your baby is dead — not ultimately and not eternally — and that you’ll never know what that baby would turn out to be as God mysteriously gives it mature life.

4. God reigns with goodness and wisdom.

Fourth, I don’t know what you have been taught about the sovereignty of God over life and death, but the biblical truth is that God is sovereign over who lives and who dies and when and how they die. James 4:15 says, “If the Lord wills, we will live.” This is why, when Job’s ten children died all at once in a collapsing house, Job arose, tore his robe, shaved his head, fell on the ground, and worshiped and said, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord” (Job 1:21).

“God is doing a thousand things you cannot see. All of them are wise. All of them work for your good if you trust him.”

It is no true comfort to believe that death is controlled by the evil of Satan or the meaninglessness of chance. That is not a comfortable theology. What comforts us in death — ours and those we love — is that the all-wise, all-governing God has good reasons for whom he takes and whom he leaves and when he does it. Your baby did not die in vain. God is doing a thousand things — yes, ten thousand things — you cannot see. All of them are wise. All of them work for your good if you trust him.

5. God is not against you.

Fifth, even though we don’t know 99 percent of what God is doing in the calamities of our lives, we do know a few of his purposes, because he tells us in the Bible why he appoints suffering for his precious children. For example, James 1:12 says, “Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him.” Every loss is a test from God of our love for God. Our faith and love are being tested to prove that they are real and to make them stronger.

Paul said of his own experience of suffering, “We were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead” (2 Corinthians 1:8–9). God has dealt you, just like Paul, a very painful blow, just like he did Ruth and Naomi in the Old Testament. But he is not against you. He wants you to trust him even more deeply than you do now or ever have.

6. Regret need not paralyze.

Sixth, it is possible to live with a lifetime of regret and not be paralyzed or miserable. The apostle Paul regretted all his life that he had been a murdering persecutor of Christians. To the end of his life, he called himself the chief of sinners because of this horrible history in his life. But instead of paralyzing him, it made him even more effective, a more effective minister of mercy because of the mercy shown to him after his sin. He wished it had not happened, because it was sin. To kill Christians is sin. But he knew God could make even a history of sin serve his saving purposes. You can read that in 1 Timothy 1:12–17.

7. God cleanses and forgives.

Seventh, whatever measure of sin or guilt attaches to you because of your child’s death, God is ready to forgive it. We don’t know. I just don’t know — and I don’t think you know — what measure of involvement was there. But you do know this: “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). The slate wiped clean.

8. God promises his help.

And finally, what we can know for sure in this situation is that God’s will for you is that you fight the good fight of faith and that you win — you win (2 Timothy 4:7). He promises to help you. He speaks these words over you right now from Psalm 91:14: “Because you hold fast to me in love, I will deliver you.” Or again in Psalm 32:10: “Steadfast love surrounds the one who trusts in the Lord.” Or once more, Psalm 34:18: “The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves” — he saves — “the crushed in spirit.” Or circling back to Job, who lost all ten of his children, James says this: “We consider those blessed who remained steadfast. You have heard of the steadfastness of Job, and you have seen the purpose of the Lord, how the Lord is compassionate and merciful” (James 5:11).

So, be steadfast. Trust him. He’s going to bring you through this humble, strong, wise, kind, confident.