There is significance to names. The Bible makes a big deal about names, God Incarnate even renaming Simon the name Cephas or Peter. John Piper is a major theologian, who got his degree in Munich, Germany. That was the second warning sign, the first was his name Piper, as in The Pied Piper or Boatman to the Underworld pagans paid with silver coins on the eyes of their dead. Names matter, John Piper proves he is a boatman for spiritual death in his mammoth sized book “Providence.” His focus is to prove God is all about his glory, when Scripture tells us God is love, “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.” (1 John 4:7-12).
Here is several passages from his book “Providence, Part 2”:
He tries some brain twisters to say God’s Grace and love is part of his glory, intrinsic, but it always comes back to glory with Piper, that God did everything to save us for his glory, uh God did it for love, “For God so loved us.. that He gave His Only Son, and whosoever believes in Him shall not perish but shall have eternal life.” (John 3:16). There is a reason we are taught to memorize John Chapter 3, verse 16. It contains how to be saved yes, but why God saves us: love.
God has glory, absolutely, and angels praise him day and night saying, “holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty..” (Revelation 4:8). But Jesus who is “The Fullness of the Deity (Godhead) in Bodily Form” (Colossians 2:9), says its above love:
“Jesus replied: “’Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” (Matthew 22:37). He didn’t say glorify the Lord with all your heart, he said love!
In fact Jesus’ last commands to his disciples were love edicts, “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another, By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another,” (John 13:34-35), and “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.” (John 15:12). Notice He doesn’t say you’ll be known as my disciples for glorifying me. While yes we glorify and praise the Lord, but it is through love. We are not like the angels praising God day and night, we are His Bride “Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his Bride has made herself ready; it was granted her to clothe herself with fine linen, bright and pure”— for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints. And the angel said to me, “Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.” And he said to me, “These are the true words of God,” (Revelation 19:7-9). A bride connects to the Bridegroom (God The Trinity) not through glory but love.
The Apostle Paul emphasizes how great the love of God is, “And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord's holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge” (Ephesians 3:18-19). He as Saul had been obsessed with God’s glory killed Christians, then on the Road to Damascus he encountered God is Love, Jesus, and turned 180 into perhaps the greatest of the apostles of Christ! Love transformed Saul into Paul, not glory.
As aforementioned names matter. Pay attention, Piper as in the Pied Piper, Rebecca Brown as in Young Goodman Brown with witches and insanity which she fell into, Bob Larson, who commits larceny of the faith, duping people with his deliverances for profit. If a name seems close to something evil, trust your discernment, it likely is their name for a reason!
I am going to give my best advice. Do not use theology books, no matter how scholarly and praised by men. There is only one theology book that can be trusted, The Holy Bible. All others have man’s egos and misconceptions, The Bible is God breathed, “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness,” (2 Timothy 3:16) and those who wrote it became vessels to communicate it, “Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet’s own interpretation of things. For prophecy never had its origin in the human will, but prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.” (2 Peter 1:20-21). Stick to the Scriptures and the teaching of the Holy Spirit which is always in harmony with Scripture.
I therefore have written this dissection of Piper’s theology, it is not a personal attack on his person, I pray he reforms and comes back to God’s love in Christ Jesus. Amen.
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