john piper

All We Need

~ P. Jason

Does God Really Supply All We Need? 
John Piper

What then does Jesus mean, “All these things–all your food and clothing–will be added to you when you seek the kingdom of God first”? He means the same thing he meant when he said, “Some of you they will put to death…But not a hair of your head will perish” (Luke 21:16-18). He meant that you will have everything you need to do his will and be eternally and supremely happy in him. How much food and clothing are necessary? Necessary for what? we must ask. Necessary to be comfortable? No, Jesus did not promise comfort. Necessary to avoid shame? No, Jesus called us to bear shame for his name with joy. Necessary to stay alive? No, he did not promise to spare us death–of any kind. Persecution and plague consume the saints. Christians die on the scaffold, and Christians die of disease.  That’s why Paul wrote, “We ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies” (Romans 8:23). What Jesus meant was that our Father in heaven would never let us be tested beyond what we are able (1 Corinthians 10:13). If there is one scrap of bread that you need, as God’s child, in order to keep your faith in the dungeon of starvation, you will have it. God does not promise enough food for comfort or life–he promises enough so that you can trust him and do his will.

Let Us Learn

~ P. Jason

Bloodlines
John Piper

John 11:5

Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus . . . so . . . he stayed . . . where he was.

Oh, how many people today—even Christians—would murmur at Jesus for callously letting Lazarus die and putting him and Mary and Martha and others through the pain and misery of those days. And if they saw that this was motivated by Jesus’s desire to magnify the glory of God, many would call this harsh or unloving. What this shows is how far above the glory of God most people value pain-free lives. For most people, love is whatever puts human value and human well-being at the center. So Jesus’s behavior is unintelligible to them. But let us not tell Jesus what love is. Let us not instruct him how he should love us and make us central. Let us learn from Jesus what love is and what our true well-being is. Love is doing whatever you need to do to help people see and savor the glory of God forever and ever. Love keeps God central. Because the soul was made for God.

Only God Can

~ P. Jason

Bloodlines
John Piper

Guilt is a huge player in the way blacks and whites relate to each other. It’s huge and deadly when it is denied. It’s huge and deadly when it is wallowed in. It’s huge and deadly when it is exploited. There is no deliverance and no relief and no healing in any of those ways of dealing with guilt. Denial drives it below the surface where it creates endless illusions and self-justifications. Wallowing in it produces phony humility and obsequiousness and moral cowardice. Exploiting it gives a false sense of power that turns out to be only the weapon of weakness.   There is no other savior from our guilt than Christ, because our guilt is ultimately guilt for sins against God. Only God can forgive those sins.

Personal and Structural

~ P. Jason

Bloodlines
John Piper

Michael O. Emerson and Christian Smith, in their book Divided by Faith: Evangelical Religion and the Problem of Race in America, argue that, for the main part, evangelical Christians are blind to these structural dimensions of what they call the racialization of America. They give a good example of the difference between the merely personal and the structural approach toward racial change: Recall that in the Jim Crow era, “Most evangelicals, even in the North, did not think it their duty to oppose segregation; it was enough to treat blacks they knew personally with courtesy and fairness.” The racialized system itself is not directly challenged. What is challenged is the treatment of individuals within the system.

Connotations

~ P. Jason

Bloodlines
John Piper

In this progressing collapse of the last forty years, there can be no white or black finger-pointing. We have fallen together. And we who are white should be as keenly aware of the peculiarly white corruption. For example, in the months leading up to the writing of this book, the news has been full of several enormous financial fraud cases that have ruined hundreds of people and hurt thousands. The faces of these swindlers are white. In the last month, two more stories have been in the news of young killers mowing down students in school and random townspeople. What color do I expect to see on the television? A sullen, pale, white face in a dark coat. And together with every other race, whites are killing their babies and wallowing in their porn and taking their illegal drugs and leaving their wives and having babies without marriage. The difference is that when you develop patterns of sin in the majority race, they have no racial connotation. Since majority people don’t think of themselves in terms of race, none of our dysfunctions is viewed as a racial dysfunction. When you are the majority ethnicity, nothing you do is ethnic. It’s just the way it’s done. When you are a minority, everything you do has color.

When I Awake from My Stupor

~ P. Jason

Bloodlines
John Piper

I have already confessed in chapter 1 the racism of my youth. As much as I tore down, I would like to build up. This is not penance—as though I did not believe the blood of Christ were sufficient to cover all my sins. This book does not atone for anything. Christ is our only atonement. And he is enough. That is not the kind of debt I have to pay. If I slander a colleague and later I repent, I owe him the effort to restore his good name. If I break out your window in a drunken stupor, I owe you a new window and will work on it when I am sober. If I demean a racial group, I owe them the effort to affirm their dignity when I awake from my stupor.