Some overlooked Piper quotes

Part of the problem of the technological age in which we live is that some things which should be forgotten and disappear into the vapor of air as soon as they are said, is that they are instead recorded, processed, transcribed, printed and disseminated in a variety of media forms, most notably, the Internet.  On the ‘net, things that should be forgotten or overlooked, aren’t.

Here one parishioner has listened to many of John Piper’s sermons and then transcribed some of his notable verbal faux pas and frank statements.  Undoubtedly, not too many of these were in the original manuscript or notes.  Which reminds me of some wise advice that another pastor friend regularly received from his wife — “just stick to the manuscript, ‘Joe,’ just stick to the manuscript.  Good counsel… (I sure would not want to see a similar list of comments extracted from my sermons!)

Five of my favorite:

• One of the reasons that God made bread – really good bread, not bread that’s ninety percent air – German bread – is to give you a faint taste of heaven.
• There’s no other way for the great commission to be done than for a group of people to learn a new language, cross cultures, incarnate the gospel, plant the church. There’s no other way. It won’t be done with twitter.
• We are, by the way, going to get to the text. Unlike last week.
• There’s a lot of bad theology in the Bible and the Bible makes it known. . . and there’s a lot of it in Job. Twenty-nine chapters of bad theology.
• I’ve never told a joke from the pulpit for 30 years.

Read the list here (remembering his three disclaimers):

1. All quotes taken from sermons
2. All completely taken out of context
3. None found in the Online Sermon Texts – but many are on the videos