John Piper’s 2022 Year-in-Review

00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)

00:00:02.580 | - Welcome back on this Wednesday,

00:00:05.820 | a rare Wednesday episode with Pastor John

00:00:07.940 | and myself together.

00:00:09.220 | No sermon clip today.

00:00:10.380 | We're both in the studio with an update.

00:00:12.780 | This is John Piper's year in review,

00:00:14.860 | I guess we could call it, Pastor John.

00:00:17.380 | As we look back at God's kindness to us in 2022,

00:00:21.100 | it was a busy year for you.

00:00:22.900 | We have a lot of ground to cover today.

00:00:24.520 | So let's start with the personal life of John Piper.

00:00:27.560 | Don't go into the books or conferences

00:00:29.060 | or ministry memories just yet.

00:00:30.980 | Start by giving us highlights from your life.

00:00:33.440 | What stands out to you personally?

00:00:35.620 | - That's a trick question in a sense

00:00:37.100 | because pleasure personally and pleasure from ministry

00:00:41.900 | are really hard to distinguish.

00:00:44.260 | So it seems to me like you're asking the impossible,

00:00:46.660 | but I think I get what you're asking.

00:00:48.980 | The joys of the personal dimension of my life,

00:00:53.020 | apart from the work I do for Desiring God

00:00:57.140 | and Bethlehem College and Seminary.

00:00:59.060 | So let me mention maybe two or three things.

00:01:02.620 | Probably the least important thing to mention,

00:01:06.200 | but amazingly ever present in our home life

00:01:08.860 | is that we got a new dog, a golden doodle.

00:01:13.700 | Now we had a golden doodle for 14 years.

00:01:17.260 | And this dog, however, is more doodle than golden.

00:01:22.260 | So we're trying to come to terms with that

00:01:25.220 | and having a bit of a hard time.

00:01:27.900 | So that's the least important thing to mention.

00:01:30.020 | And yet there she is all the time in the kitchen

00:01:33.380 | as part of our lives now.

00:01:35.560 | Far more important was a once in a lifetime fishing trip

00:01:40.560 | with all four of my sons and two grandsons

00:01:47.140 | at a wilderness lake in Canada

00:01:49.740 | where you have to fly in, land on the water,

00:01:52.860 | fish for walleye and Northern pike.

00:01:55.460 | And these fish were so hungry.

00:01:58.980 | They were so hungry.

00:02:00.540 | We were catching them with hooks

00:02:02.520 | and pieces of orange duct tape.

00:02:04.820 | That's really, that's not an exaggeration.

00:02:07.200 | My boys were having a blast experimenting.

00:02:09.380 | What will they bite?

00:02:11.020 | And these were big, these were big fish, big edible fish.

00:02:14.340 | So I love the sounds of my sons laughing.

00:02:19.660 | And when you get four quick-witted, fast-tongued,

00:02:23.500 | Piper brothers together in one place,

00:02:25.420 | you better be prepared to be knocked over

00:02:28.380 | by the verbal rough and tumble and laughter.

00:02:31.820 | It was a really precious high point,

00:02:35.280 | which I pray God will use in their lives for good.

00:02:39.820 | Let me just mention one more, and it's cheating.

00:02:41.720 | I know it's cheating

00:02:42.560 | because it mingles ministry, pleasure, and personal,

00:02:44.580 | but I can't help but mention

00:02:46.380 | that I get a tremendous personal pleasure

00:02:51.060 | from teaching the preaching course

00:02:53.660 | at Bethlehem College and Seminary

00:02:55.060 | where I serve as chancellor.

00:02:56.660 | I mean, the give and take with these 14 guys this fall,

00:03:00.900 | for example, in the class about the glories

00:03:04.020 | of preaching God's word is simply too satisfying

00:03:08.180 | for me personally to leave out.

00:03:11.020 | - I think probably most of us feel the same way

00:03:14.060 | that you do about ministry joys

00:03:15.460 | being mingled with personal joys.

00:03:17.620 | But let's move into your ministry joys

00:03:19.660 | or your ministry highlights from 2022.

00:03:23.040 | Given the fact that you and I are talking right now,

00:03:24.960 | of course, means that in 2022,

00:03:27.180 | God enabled us to record another 150 episodes

00:03:30.420 | of this podcast of "Ask Pastor John."

00:03:33.100 | And we're closing in now on 1,900 total episodes

00:03:36.900 | as we finish up 10 years together on this podcast.

00:03:39.900 | - That is so amazing, absolutely amazing.

00:03:42.500 | I will get to say very often, Tony, in public at least,

00:03:46.560 | though I might say it to you more often,

00:03:48.760 | that I am so profoundly thankful

00:03:52.360 | for your partnership, Tony, particularly.

00:03:55.460 | I know a lot of people make things happen at Desiring God,

00:03:59.060 | but the amount of planning, praying, curating,

00:04:02.900 | editing, hosting that you do for this podcast

00:04:06.940 | to make it possible is mostly invisible,

00:04:09.460 | but absolutely essential to the life of this ministry.

00:04:13.020 | I am so thankful.

00:04:14.540 | - That's very meaningful to me, Pastor John, thank you.

00:04:18.500 | I've told you this before and I'll say it again,

00:04:20.820 | but "Ask Pastor John" is the honor of a lifetime for me.

00:04:23.540 | This will be, I'm very sure of it,

00:04:25.100 | the most impactful ministry I will ever be a part of.

00:04:29.380 | You tell me, I cannot know that.

00:04:31.500 | - Right, you cannot know that.

00:04:32.900 | (both laughing)

00:04:35.060 | - But I'm saying I know that.

00:04:36.620 | And I thank God for APJ,

00:04:38.180 | thank God for you and for your very hard work

00:04:40.700 | that is really the engine behind it all.

00:04:42.880 | But I love building this podcast with you.

00:04:44.660 | I enjoy every single week of this work

00:04:46.500 | because I know one day our building of it

00:04:48.920 | will come to an end and I do not look forward to that day.

00:04:52.060 | APJ is not the only podcast you spend time on.

00:04:56.020 | Maybe we shouldn't even classify it as a podcast,

00:04:58.160 | but you spend a lot of time creating

00:04:59.920 | these almost unique visual online teaching videos

00:05:03.100 | called "Look at the Book."

00:05:04.780 | I think we have almost 1,000 of those episodes

00:05:07.340 | available right now at DesiringGod.

00:05:09.220 | Is there anything unusual about this past year

00:05:11.940 | on the "Look at the Book" front?

00:05:13.620 | - Well, there is, but let me step back

00:05:15.580 | and give the bigger picture

00:05:16.540 | because what's special won't make as much sense without that.

00:05:20.020 | Several years ago, God, I believe, put it in my heart

00:05:24.700 | to try to create a "Look at the Book" episode,

00:05:29.140 | these are about 10, 14 minutes long,

00:05:32.760 | on all 13 of Paul's letters.

00:05:37.760 | So the team at DesiringGod thought that was an amazing thing

00:05:43.120 | and a good idea and got behind it

00:05:46.160 | and began to structure my life to that end,

00:05:49.620 | weaving "Look at the Book" creation into my weekly routine.

00:05:54.360 | But we discovered that at the pace we were going,

00:05:58.720 | that's probably not gonna happen in my lifetime

00:06:01.200 | because that's hundreds and hundreds and hundreds

00:06:05.240 | of episodes, given all of Paul's letters

00:06:08.080 | and how long some of them are.

00:06:10.320 | So we decided to experiment last summer,

00:06:13.660 | so just these months past,

00:06:15.920 | with what we call a lab blitz.

00:06:19.080 | So DesiringGod sends me away then for about seven weeks,

00:06:23.320 | where that's all I do, is nothing but that,

00:06:26.840 | and bless their hearts,

00:06:28.720 | Nine Marks and Capitol Hill Baptist Church

00:06:32.440 | provided Noel and me with a nice secluded place to stay.

00:06:37.360 | And the guys from DesiringGod set up a studio in a bedroom,

00:06:41.960 | and so nine hours a day, five days a week,

00:06:45.080 | for seven weeks, all I did was look at the book creation.

00:06:50.080 | And we did about 150 episodes in that time

00:06:53.740 | and did all the first and second Timothy.

00:06:56.000 | So if we now take that model of these blitzes

00:07:01.000 | and do that for the next two or three years,

00:07:05.720 | the goal actually looks doable.

00:07:07.800 | It looks doable.

00:07:08.920 | I mean, if God, we could drop dead anytime, right?

00:07:11.940 | No matter how old we are.

00:07:13.520 | But if I stay healthy, if my mind stays clear

00:07:17.600 | for the next two or three years,

00:07:19.040 | then it actually looks doable.

00:07:22.560 | I love doing it this way.

00:07:23.960 | I am so thankful, staying really focused day in, day out,

00:07:27.840 | is so much more efficient than fitting in to a day

00:07:32.840 | here and there during my other responsibilities,

00:07:36.040 | those efforts at look at the book.

00:07:38.220 | So we'll probably be doing both,

00:07:40.480 | and I'm excited that it looks like if God gives me life,

00:07:45.000 | I could do look at the book on all of Paul's letters.

00:07:48.000 | - Wonderful.

00:07:49.280 | Any special takeaways from seven weeks of your attention

00:07:52.920 | being riveted on Paul's letters?

00:07:54.560 | - Yes, but we don't have time to talk about it.

00:07:58.760 | They're so good, so deep, so many.

00:08:00.900 | You can't look at God's book

00:08:03.680 | as long as I have looked at it and not be amazed.

00:08:07.560 | At least I can't.

00:08:09.160 | So my prayer every time I start one of those days

00:08:12.440 | of focusing all day long on looking at God's book

00:08:16.700 | is, "Lord, open my eyes that I may see wonderful things

00:08:20.200 | "out of your word," like the psalmist prayed in Psalm 119.

00:08:24.440 | But maybe what would be most interesting for folks

00:08:27.320 | is to see the connection between doing look at the book

00:08:32.720 | on 2 Timothy and a new book that will be out in a few weeks,

00:08:37.720 | namely a book on the second coming of Christ,

00:08:44.680 | which we're calling "Come, Lord Jesus,"

00:08:48.080 | that Crossway is publishing.

00:08:50.520 | I've wanted to write a book

00:08:52.600 | on Christ's coming for many years.

00:08:56.900 | Well, here I was focused.

00:09:00.520 | Now, this was in last summer.

00:09:01.660 | This was earlier as I was pondering 2 Timothy in preparation.

00:09:05.780 | I was focused on 2 Timothy, and I got to the end.

00:09:12.160 | This is probably his last letter,

00:09:15.060 | and these are among the last verses.

00:09:18.120 | And he wrote in 2 Timothy 4, 7, and 8,

00:09:22.680 | "I have fought the good fight.

00:09:24.720 | "I have finished the race.

00:09:26.740 | "I have kept the faith.

00:09:28.860 | "Henceforth, there is laid up for me

00:09:31.920 | "the crown of righteousness,

00:09:33.740 | "which the Lord, the righteous judge,

00:09:35.320 | "will award to me on that day,

00:09:38.420 | "and not only to me,

00:09:41.600 | "but to all who have loved his appearing."

00:09:46.600 | All who have loved his appearing, and that was it.

00:09:51.160 | I mean, that's what it took to get me over the edge to say,

00:09:54.080 | "Now I know how I want to write this book

00:09:56.120 | "on the second coming."

00:09:57.840 | So I wrote a book focused mainly on helping myself,

00:10:02.840 | and I hope others love,

00:10:07.520 | not just hope for or understand or think about,

00:10:12.520 | but love the appearing of the Lord Jesus.

00:10:17.840 | And I finished the editing earlier this year,

00:10:20.720 | and it's scheduled to be out, I believe,

00:10:23.540 | in January sometime.

00:10:25.000 | - Yeah, outstanding.

00:10:25.920 | It's a great read.

00:10:27.320 | And I guess that answers one of my other questions

00:10:29.720 | I had for you, whether this new look at the book Blitz

00:10:32.440 | that you just mentioned earlier

00:10:33.640 | will replace your other writing priorities.

00:10:36.860 | - Well, it might.

00:10:37.700 | I'm not sure yet about what it will look like

00:10:41.200 | over the summers for the next two or three years.

00:10:45.340 | In fact, it's not going to in the foreseeable future

00:10:48.760 | to replace writing,

00:10:49.720 | because we've set aside some time

00:10:51.240 | just a few weeks from now in January

00:10:52.760 | to team up with Joe Rigney,

00:10:54.680 | the president of Bethlehem College Seminary,

00:10:56.320 | to write a short book on how to be a lifelong learner.

00:11:00.820 | So I know that book is in the planning stages,

00:11:04.560 | and the Blitzes aren't going to preempt that one.

00:11:08.380 | But I'm, as you know,

00:11:11.120 | not the only writer of books or articles at DG.

00:11:15.520 | I mean, what an amazing,

00:11:17.340 | when I look back over this year,

00:11:19.040 | what an amazing stream of substantial,

00:11:22.600 | insightful, Bible-saturated articles

00:11:26.480 | flow out daily at Desiring God,

00:11:31.700 | not to mention in this past year,

00:11:34.860 | the new books that you and David Mathis published this year.

00:11:39.820 | I mean, Tony, your book,

00:11:41.700 | "God, Technology, and the Christian Life"

00:11:44.100 | is still, in my mind, in a class by itself.

00:11:47.380 | I don't know anything like it

00:11:50.020 | with the combination of rich biblical reflection,

00:11:54.420 | high view of providence,

00:11:56.620 | fascinating grasp of the present lay of the land

00:12:00.400 | of technology, and I've got juicy favorite quotes.

00:12:05.400 | (laughs)

00:12:06.860 | I mean, you're a good writer,

00:12:08.820 | and you rise to some sweet levels of quotability.

00:12:12.740 | And one of mine, I mean, here's two of them.

00:12:14.940 | Angels don't bend down in awe of Silicon Valley.

00:12:19.500 | Angels kneel in awe to study the glories

00:12:23.780 | and agonies of Jesus Christ.

00:12:25.640 | I mean, that's gold.

00:12:27.020 | Or obviously, we can escape from God's providence

00:12:31.640 | like a fish can escape water for a life in outer space.

00:12:36.220 | (laughs)

00:12:38.300 | That's great.

00:12:40.360 | So your book is worthy of people's getting

00:12:44.920 | just to poke around and find those nuggets like that.

00:12:49.040 | And as if that were not enough

00:12:51.840 | for a great year at Desiring God,

00:12:53.560 | Mathis, David Mathis, our executive editor,

00:12:56.280 | published a book for church leaders.

00:12:59.920 | It's called Workers for Your Joy.

00:13:03.320 | And I think it's one of a kind

00:13:05.720 | because there are a lot of books on eldership, right?

00:13:09.840 | A lot of books on pastoring.

00:13:10.960 | Goodness, there are hundreds of them.

00:13:12.520 | But there are not a lot built on 2 Corinthians 1:24

00:13:17.520 | with the point that we are workers with our people

00:13:24.160 | for their joy.

00:13:26.800 | That's the note of the book.

00:13:28.280 | This is Christian hedonism pressed into the corners

00:13:32.080 | of the leader's life.

00:13:33.600 | It was a great year of publishing, I think.

00:13:36.320 | - Yeah, amen.

00:13:37.600 | You have not mentioned yet your book, though,

00:13:40.120 | What is Saving Faith?

00:13:41.640 | That was also published in 2022.

00:13:43.920 | In fact, just a few weeks ago,

00:13:45.640 | at the annual meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society

00:13:48.560 | in Denver, a whole three-hour block

00:13:50.960 | was devoted to your book.

00:13:53.680 | Why was that?

00:13:54.680 | And that's never happened before, I don't think, has it,

00:13:58.480 | that one of your books would be part of a debate at ETS?

00:14:02.440 | - No, no, that was a first, I think.

00:14:05.360 | And I was really glad for it.

00:14:07.280 | I feel privileged that that happened.

00:14:09.760 | The book has stirred up some discussion

00:14:14.220 | because not everyone agrees with my main point,

00:14:16.960 | namely that true saving faith has in it

00:14:21.120 | an affectional or heartfelt dimension,

00:14:26.120 | which I call treasuring Christ.

00:14:30.760 | So saving faith is a receiving of Christ

00:14:35.200 | as a treasured Savior, a treasured Lord.

00:14:40.200 | Without that treasuring aspect,

00:14:43.720 | I think we may be just using Christ, competent,

00:14:48.120 | but not trusting Him as an all-satisfying Savior.

00:14:53.120 | So I was really glad for the ETS event

00:14:57.800 | to try to bring some clarity to the pushback we've received.

00:15:02.800 | And I hope people will read it for themselves

00:15:07.520 | rather than just what others are saying.

00:15:10.100 | I think there are not many issues more important

00:15:15.580 | than whether we really have true saving faith.

00:15:19.160 | - Hmm, amen.

00:15:21.000 | Well, we're over time.

00:15:22.040 | We need to wind this up.

00:15:23.600 | Any other encouraging things that you see

00:15:25.320 | at Desiring God more broadly

00:15:27.040 | that you think our listeners might be interested in?

00:15:30.080 | - I think what is most exciting and most worthy

00:15:35.080 | of thanksgiving to God and to our financial supporters

00:15:40.800 | is the incredible expansion of the ministry globally.

00:15:45.800 | We now have something like 30 partners worldwide

00:15:52.980 | translating, ask Pastor John, books, articles.

00:15:58.940 | It's simply remarkable what God is doing globally

00:16:04.460 | to raise up young leaders with a passion

00:16:08.700 | for the glory of God and for publishing,

00:16:11.500 | and that are amazingly savvy on the internet

00:16:14.400 | for everywhere in the world.

00:16:15.960 | This is invisible to most people.

00:16:18.460 | This growth, this exciting dimension of our ministry

00:16:21.620 | is mostly invisible for people,

00:16:24.520 | and yet may be the most important thing

00:16:28.560 | we are doing right now at Desiring God,

00:16:30.720 | namely partnering with these brothers and sisters

00:16:33.960 | as an increasing part of our annual plan

00:16:37.520 | and our annual budget.

00:16:39.200 | So I think this is a great place to end the year,

00:16:43.760 | end update, thanking God for what He's doing

00:16:48.520 | outside of our little sphere called America

00:16:52.520 | through this ministry.

00:16:54.400 | - Amen, yeah.

00:16:56.000 | Speaking of God's work outside of America,

00:16:58.780 | this year included for me my first international trip ever,

00:17:02.800 | preaching in Brazil in June

00:17:04.080 | to launch my technology book in Portuguese.

00:17:06.520 | It launched there this summer,

00:17:08.600 | and I got to hold the translation in hand,

00:17:10.720 | and I met and spent time with the translator there,

00:17:13.520 | and I had lunch with our friend Vinny,

00:17:16.320 | who is one of the important contacts we have in Brazil,

00:17:19.960 | translating our resources.

00:17:21.440 | And so all this international work you just mentioned

00:17:24.060 | became very tangible for me for the first time in 2022,

00:17:28.000 | because I think if all you know is Desiring God,

00:17:30.920 | the English website and the English resources that we create,

00:17:33.800 | there is a whole other world of labor happening right now

00:17:37.840 | that we wanna introduce you to

00:17:39.720 | so that you can see it for yourself.

00:17:41.000 | And we're going to introduce you

00:17:42.600 | to that work beginning next time.

00:17:45.720 | We have 30 international partners,

00:17:47.840 | as you said, Pastor John, at least,

00:17:49.960 | and we're gonna hear from seven of them

00:17:51.800 | in the next seven APJ episodes,

00:17:54.280 | brief updates from leaders reaching the world

00:17:56.560 | through the languages of French and Portuguese

00:18:00.000 | and Farsi and Dutch and German and Arabic and Albanian.

00:18:05.000 | Each of these seven updates are incredible.

00:18:08.160 | They inspire me to ministry,

00:18:09.880 | and it's my joy to share them with you

00:18:11.600 | in these final weeks of the year.

00:18:14.160 | - Amen.

00:18:15.120 | - And if you're hearing all these updates and you want in,

00:18:17.600 | you can join us today.

00:18:18.800 | We're looking for new ministry partners like you

00:18:20.680 | to come alongside us, to support us

00:18:22.360 | as we continue to make new resources in English,

00:18:25.140 | including our books and articles

00:18:26.760 | and look at the book videos and this podcast as well.

00:18:29.640 | And as we get these resources translated

00:18:32.000 | and distributed across the globe in dozens of languages,

00:18:36.880 | we can only do all this with your help.

00:18:39.560 | So consider becoming a monthly ministry partner with us.

00:18:41.680 | Today, much of our financial support

00:18:43.520 | comes from friends of ours who give on average $30 a month

00:18:47.800 | to support all of this work,

00:18:49.080 | everything we mentioned today and more.

00:18:52.680 | To set up monthly giving, go to give.desiringgod.org.

00:18:57.320 | That's give.desiringgod.org.

00:19:01.120 | It is very much appreciated.

00:19:04.320 | Pastor John and I are back next time.

00:19:06.640 | We will see you on Friday.

00:19:08.580 | (upbeat music)

00:19:11.160 | (upbeat music)

00:19:13.740 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

John Piper’s 2022 Year-in-Review

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