I disagree with John Piper - hopefully constructively
July 16, 2009
I woke up this morning, checked my twitter feed and at the top of it was a tweet from John Piper. I really love Mr. Piper. His books have been really quite helpful for me. However I totally disagree with his tweet this morning and think I would be helped by having a conversation about it. To get started you must read this
You can likely understand how this gets into the bonnet of a guy who's been doing arts ministry for 3+5 years and is looking to plant a church with a high value on creativity. However, more to the point, i get kind of riled by this because I think we're making big assumptions about how we must do church and I don't see mcuh biblical evidence to support our assumptions. Piper is not alone in making these assumptions so today he is just to one refuling my thinking.
As I read the article I see Piper basically saying that we shouldn't use examples from real life to illustrate our point because it's not preaching. I'd contend that this is exactly how Jesus preached! When Jesus addressed a group of people he most often did so using story and parables. Jesus of course referenced the Old Testament and I'm in no way saying we shouldn't use Biblical texts as the truth and point of our preaching but what I am saying is this - what is the modern day equivalent of illustration and story telling? In 2009 do we not most often choose to tell our most complelling and rich stories through the visual arts? In Jesus' day good story telling was all they had. Should we remain there or ought we not take advantage of all that's before us in communicating the message, complete with illustrations, that God has put on our hearts. Piper assumes drama and video is there for entertainment. I assume those media can at times tell a story more effectively than my words can. Unless Piper is suggesting we stop telling stories altogether in our sermons then I think perhaps the point here is being missed?
Help me, please! My intention here is not to slag Mr. Piper. Again, I have mounds of resepct for him. However, I just don't see the sense or even Biblical justification for what he's saying. If you've got an opinion I'd LOVE to hear it!
