Cap-Quotes: Desiring God Chapter 2

Cap-Quotes: Desiring God Chapter 2

by | Jul 15, 2015 | Christian Living, General Theology, The Gospel

Each Wednesday evening through the summer months, a group of adults are reading through and discussing the implications of John Piper’s book, Desiring God. If you have opportunity, come join us each Wednesday, 6:30 p.m. at Summit Woods Baptist Church.  Here are a few highlights from chapter two. God’s pursuit of praise from us and our pursuit of pleasure in Him are one and the same pursuit. God’s quest to be glorified and our quest to be satisfied reach their goal in this one experience: our delight in God, which overflows in praise.   …no one is a Christian who does not embrace Jesus gladly as his most valued treasure, and then pursue the fullness of that joy in Christ that honors Him.   The best explanation of Romans 3:23 is Romans 1:23. It says that those who did not glorify or thank God became fools “and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images.” This is the way we “fall short” of the glory of God: We exchange it for something of lesser value. All sin comes from not putting supreme value on the glory of God—this is the very essence of sin.   The wickedness of sin is owing to the implicit disdain for God.   Quoting Jonathan Edwards: Our obligation to love, honor, and obey any being is in proportion to his loveliness, honorableness, and authority.… But God is a being infinitely lovely, because he hath infinite excellency and beauty.… So sin against God, being a violation of infinite obligations, must be a crime infinitely heinous, and so deserving infinite punishment.… The eternity of the punishment of...
Cap-Quotes: The Afflictions of Christ in the Life of Tyndale

Cap-Quotes: The Afflictions of Christ in the Life of Tyndale

by | Aug 28, 2013 | Church History, Pastoral Ministry

I am currently reading through John Piper’s biographical sketches on William Tyndale, John Paton, and Adoniram Judson, from his book, Filling Up the Afflictions of Christ.  Here are a few salient quotes from the Introduction and the chapter on William Tyndale. Good thoughts for keeping our afflictions in Christ-centered perspective: From the Introduction God’s design for the evangelization of the world and the consummation of his purposes includes the suffering of his ministers and missionaries. . . God designs that the sufferings of his ambassadors is one essential means in the triumphant spread of the Good News among all the peoples of the world. . . . suffering is a result of faithful obedience in spreading the gospel (14).   But this voluntary suffering and death to save others is not only the content but it is also the method of our mission. . . . As Joseph Tson puts it in his own case: “I am an extension of Jesus Christ. When I was beaten in Romania, He suffered in my body. It is not my suffering: I only had the honor to share His sufferings” . . . Christ’s suffering is for our propitiation; our suffering is for propagation (15).   So the afflictions of Christ are “lacking” in the sense that they are not seen and known and loved among the nations. They must be carried by missionaries. And those missionaries “complete” what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ by extending them to others. (22).   God intends for the afflictions of Christ to be presented to the world through the afflictions of his people. God really means for the body of...