“We are a people of the Book. We know God through the Book. We meet Christ in the Book. We see the cross in the Book. Our faith and love are kindled by the glorious truths of the Book. We have tasted the divine majesty of the Word and are persuaded that the Book is God’s inspired and infallible written revelation. Therefore, what the Book teaches matters . . .
That is God’s word to us as we launch into EDUCATION FOR EXULTATION. Bethlehem, “Continue in the things you have learned and become convinced of . . . the sacred writings” – the Word of God, the Bible. Don’t advance. Don’t go forward. Don’t proceed from this. Continue in this. Stay in this. Remain in this. This kind of conservatism will make you the most radical, counter-cultural, risk-taking, free people possible in Christ. If you leave the Word, you will, in the end, just conform to the world – to the spirit of this age. This may feel freeing for a moment. But it will make you the slave of every passing fashion – and they are passing faster and faster.
So God’s word to us in this vision of EDUCATION FOR EXULTATION is: Continue in your absolute allegiance to the unchanging truth of God’s Word, the Bible. Stay here. Abide here. Build children’s ministries on it. Build youth ministries on it. Build adult ministries on it. Build church planting strategies on it. Build marriages and families on it. Lead elder meetings with it. And whatever else you do, John Piper, don’t preach anything but the Word of God, the Bible.
In a sermon entitled Building Our Lives on the Bible Piper stresses the vital place of building our lives on the Bible – it seemed appropriate to share this quote with you as we have been looking at the place of doctrine and Scripture, thanks to the T4G statement challenge.
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