Video: The Pastor As Scholar: A Personal Journey
John Piper tells his story from childhood to pastorate. I was actually just two rows behind him at this event before he took the stage. For many different reasons the majority of his talk either flew over my head, or I didn't care to hear. I immediately forgot about it. Two years later I find myself moved to tears by his story. Specifically when he talks about slow reading, speaking in public, or coming alive to the world around us. John Piper is a trophy of grace, and his life gives me hope that I could know the same grace that he talks about. Below are some of the quotes that greatly move me. I've tried to attach a time stamp so you can hear him say it. I would highly recommend you take an hour to listen to it. It's not a sermon, simply one broken man's story about becoming whole.
-James
(13:18) You had geometry creating a passion for right reasoning and you had biology creating a passion for right observation. If you try to do right reasoning from wrong observation it doesn't matter how good your reasoning is, it's going to go haywire. These are huge things. This is the basis for all right dealing with reality.
There were a couple awakenings in high school. A passion to write, and a bent towards poetry.
I cannot sustain a sequence of thought for more than thirty seconds without writing.
(17:00) As Calvin said, "I learn as I write and I write as I learn."
(18:00) The inability to speak in front of a group, cut me off in many ways. Cut me off from all class offices. "Come on John, run for class president" "Not in a thousand years, you have to give a speech." Never ran for any class office, never gave a speech, I got C's in civics because I couldn't do an oral book report. "John if you don't do this oral book report you going to get a C in this class." "That's a done deal. I will get a C. You don't understand, this is not like I'm scared. This is not a possibility."
(19:10) I could talk to my dog. Best friend I had.
(19:30) I can read no faster than I talk.
(20:50) Forms began to take shape. Ways of seeing the world. Ways of experiencing were just exploding with significance in college and God and the bible were not the main focus. So I came out of college needing a BIG object to feel about and write about and think about...and I got it....big time.
(27:00) Even though I'm slow, I read carefully. I FEEL what I read.
(30:00) I shall open my eyes and ears once every day. I shall simply stare at a tree, a flower, a cloud, a person. I shall not then be concerned at all to ask what they are, but simply be glad that they are. I shall joyfully allow them the mystery what Lewis calls their Divine, magical, ecstatic, terrifying existence.
I was a fighting armenian
(53:30) At Wheaton I was formed and in seminary I got substance with which the form could deal. The thinking form, the feeling form, the writing form now had a massive God to deal with. Just gloriously satisfying. I mean, trees and noses, and grass and worms and sunrises are WONDERFUL, but it was all preparation. So I don't begrudge you if you pass through a romantic phase where you're just blown away by sunrises and have little time for God. God is getting you ready for something. He's opening your eyes because all that is going somewhere. The heavens are telling the what? That's why they are there.
(59:00) God said I will be proclaimed, not simply analyzed
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