When I went to 2008 Resolved conference, I was blessed to hear John Piper preach on The Triumph of the Gospel in the New Heavens and the New Earth. This was one of the most comprehensive, weighty, and devastating messages I've heard from Piper. In it, he talks about the horror of sin, the futility of creation, and hope in liberation from this bondage and in our redemption for the spectacular display of the glory of God. It's an excellent sermon - one that surely will, using his metaphor, fill the belly of your boat with ballast, so that you will endure the crashing waves of your life without capsizing and make it safely to the harbor of heaven.
But something else happened during that message, and unfortunately, it wasn't an isolated incident. Piper was discussing the inadequacy of open theism in comforting those who suffer, but his criticism was not met with tears for those who affirm such a pitiable position, but with laughter from the audience.
I know Piper can be unintentionally funny. Listening to him get excited over European water spiders and microscopic diatoms has certainly made me laugh. He has interesting mannerisms - his intensity can look quite animated in the pulpit with his booming voice, intonations, and hand motions. But he is also uniquely earnest and characteristically serious, and I think our culture is so inundated with frivolity that we don't know how to appropriately respond to a weighty subject without somehow trivializing it. The problem is, I expect that with the world, but what about the church?
I'm not writing this as a defense of John Piper per se - I'm concerned with how we personally approach matters that demand solemnity and humility. Praise God that Piper preaches on those matters every week and ponders them deeply throughout each week. I'm grateful he does, but do we come before the Word ready to receive its truths with the same fear and awe? When we think of sin, suffering, death, judgment, eternity ... are we sobered or giggling?
This happened again recently at a conference on counseling. Confessing his personal struggles was met with laughter from the conference attendees, and his trying to be more serious only elicited more laughter. Justin Taylor and Greg Gilbert blogged on that, so you can listen to the audio there. I just hope that when we do hear something like this, we'll be humbled, not amused.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
that's very interesting.
it reminds me of when i watched a screening of "stranger than fiction" and i remember at the part where hoffman tells ferrell's character that he's going to die a bunch of people in the audience laughed. but later when the screenwriter was on stage answering a few questions, he mentioned that he'd thought that was the saddest scene in the movie and he'd been surprised to hear people laugh.
i'm glad you're writing again, millie. : )
Post a Comment