As much as I disagree with him on certain points, I try to respect John Piper as a faithful servant of God -- really I do. But things like this make me very nervous and a more than slightly sad. I've been thinking a lot about how difficult it is to challenge things in our culture that we think are wrong without completely turning people off to the church and Christianity, and even to the core message of the gospel. I don't have a lot of answers at this point -- just questions, theories, and an underlying sadness.
At times like this, all I can think to do is to pray, "Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven." But Lord... let me see it here on earth too.
Check out Scot McKnight's post and discussion on Piper's comments: "The Minneapolis Tornado and John Piper".
I will say, if I was Piper I would be more reluctant to be a prophet than he is. I mean, there's a time and place for prophets, and God uses them for sure, but they also marry harlots, and get chased by madmen and ultimately they tend to get stoned. So if Piper's sure of what he's talking about then I guess it's good that he spoke up, but I'm just saying, I think I'd want to be pretty sure that was a sign from God before I said it was. That's a mighty big claim.
ReplyDeleteI do agree that we should be careful not to make flippant statements as though we knew the mind of God.
ReplyDeletePiper's comments appear to embrace a very biblical concept that all trials in this world intended to bring us to a deeper knowledge and experience of the provision of the Creator. An example of this grows out of the generalization of the Day of the LORD theme in the Old Testament.
The question then stands whether New Testament Christians can pronounce judgment on people who are overtly violating God's Law or state whether natural disasters came as God's hand of judgment.