Piper on Leading People Towards Reformed Theology

Piper on Leading People Towards Reformed Theology March 13, 2009

A few months back, Piper posted this excelent couple of paragraphs about the need to make GOD the central thing as we try to lead people to a shared understanding of theology.

. . .a Reformed position mainly means, God is really big, really strong, really powerful, really knowledgeable, really wise, really great, really weighty, and he is going to be big in this service, and we’re going to make a big deal out of God here. There are a lot of born-again Arminian people who like that. It’s because they don’t see the implications of their theology.

And if you get a congregation liking that over time—”God is great, and we’re going to celebrate his magnificence and his power and his sovereignty” (just leave it undefined for the time being. Everybody believes in the sovereignty of God, one way or the other)—what happens is that when your heart begins to get shaped around a massive, big, glorious view of God, then when you get to specifics in Romans 8 and 9 or Ephesians 2, about election and whatnot, your heart is more ready for it.

So the flourishing could be that you’re taking people where you know you want them to go, just because God is magnificent. And your Reformed orientation makes you keenly aware of that. Their Arminian orientation doesn’t naturally make them as aware of that. And you’re going to take them there. And when the whole spirit of the place changes, then the theology might grow. And that’s what I mean by flourishing. READ MORE


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