john piper
I've just started listening to sermons online by John Piper. Here's his website http://www.desiringgod.org/
Am very thankful for technology - where i can listen to good, faithful messages online at the click of a mouse. Have listened to 2 messages on prophesy - and he has been very faithful to the Word, and i've been very edified (by messages that he'd preached nearly 2 decades ago).
At the end of the sermon i just listened to, i was really really encouraged by what he says - he encourages us to not to despise prophesy simply because it is fallible, because teaching is equally fallible, but to test it against Scripture and to acknowledge that God can use prophesy in His Kingdom and for His glory. (Obviously he clearly states from the off that prophesy is definitely on a lower level of authority as the Bible) (this is all in a nutshell and quite incomplete. check the message out yourself http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/Sermons/BySeries/36/716_The_Authority_and_Nature_of_the_Gift_of_Prophecy/)
What is even more significant and encouraging to me is that he says that he has every reason to despise prophesy - that he has been prophesied over many times before by "prophets claiming to have revelation from God", that he can match you story for story as to why prophesy is too messy and too unreliable for us to delve into, but because the Bible says so, he preaches that prophesy is important - and even encourages his church to do so at a meeting later that day. That's huge. I'm not saying that he was right in encouraging that. I'm saying that it's hugely significant that he should humble himself, as this great teacher, to say that he is as equally fallible and prone to error as the woman who marched up to him with shaky hands prophesying that the birth of his 4th child would result in his wife's death. (which was completely bull) He allowed the Holy Spirit, through Scripture, to rearrange and to realign his inclination, and his experience, and to teach in front of his entire church, what went against his psyche and instinct.
I pray that we will be equally faithful to God's Word, preaching and accepting truth, even when it leaves a bitter taste in our mouths.
Am very thankful for technology - where i can listen to good, faithful messages online at the click of a mouse. Have listened to 2 messages on prophesy - and he has been very faithful to the Word, and i've been very edified (by messages that he'd preached nearly 2 decades ago).
At the end of the sermon i just listened to, i was really really encouraged by what he says - he encourages us to not to despise prophesy simply because it is fallible, because teaching is equally fallible, but to test it against Scripture and to acknowledge that God can use prophesy in His Kingdom and for His glory. (Obviously he clearly states from the off that prophesy is definitely on a lower level of authority as the Bible) (this is all in a nutshell and quite incomplete. check the message out yourself http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/Sermons/BySeries/36/716_The_Authority_and_Nature_of_the_Gift_of_Prophecy/)
What is even more significant and encouraging to me is that he says that he has every reason to despise prophesy - that he has been prophesied over many times before by "prophets claiming to have revelation from God", that he can match you story for story as to why prophesy is too messy and too unreliable for us to delve into, but because the Bible says so, he preaches that prophesy is important - and even encourages his church to do so at a meeting later that day. That's huge. I'm not saying that he was right in encouraging that. I'm saying that it's hugely significant that he should humble himself, as this great teacher, to say that he is as equally fallible and prone to error as the woman who marched up to him with shaky hands prophesying that the birth of his 4th child would result in his wife's death. (which was completely bull) He allowed the Holy Spirit, through Scripture, to rearrange and to realign his inclination, and his experience, and to teach in front of his entire church, what went against his psyche and instinct.
I pray that we will be equally faithful to God's Word, preaching and accepting truth, even when it leaves a bitter taste in our mouths.
posted by elliot at 11:28 AM
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