Hey podcast listeners, this is Tony. Today I had hoped to get you audio from our first ever APJ live recording recently in Nashville with Pastor John and I on stage together. That audio is being delayed, so here's a different episode to stand in while we wait. Thanks for your patience.

Well sometimes the best questions are the simplest ones like, "Who is John Piper? Where did he come from? How was he saved? And how did he become a preacher?" The very types of questions asked of him during a recent ministry trip to Belfast. Keith Getty, the Northern Irish Christian singer and songwriter, asked the questions.

Here today is the interchange that they had in Belfast. Have a listen. I suspect most people in this place have been influenced over the years either directly by your preaching, your books, podcasts, whatever, or indirectly through those who have. And so we want you to know that we are, we owe you a debt of gratitude for your faithful service and we are so grateful to you for that.

Yes indeed. By way of broad introduction, tell us about yourself, your journey to faith, a short biography, and actually what you're doing now. I don't remember being converted, which I am happy with because I think we learn the wonder of conversion not primarily through remembered experiences but through the Word of God.

I think if you think you have a handle on the majesty and magnificence and wonder of your conversion because you remember it and how glorious the transition was, you don't know a fraction of it because you can't know the miracle without being told by God what happened there. So my mother told me that when I was six in a motel in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, I became convicted of my sin and asked her what I could do and she knelt with me by the bed in the motel room and led me in a prayer of confession of my sin and faith in Jesus.

And I don't remember any of that. And so it doesn't matter to me whether that's a true story or not. What matters to me is that today I see. When I began to see is not of the essence. Once upon a time the devil was blinding the minds of an unbeliever and God said, "Let there be light." 2nd Corinthians 4 verse 6.

He said, "Let there be light." And whether a six-year-old or a 14-year-old or a 23-year-old discovering God-centeredness was the first seeing doesn't matter much to me. What matters to me is that I see by grace. So I'm not sure what the pilgrimage was. I never remember being an unbeliever and I'm thankful for that.

I never remember rebelling against my parents. I think one of the most helpful things for me to say here in this context would be that my father would have self-identified as a fundamentalist of the good old Southern American variety. And you would think that a fellow like me would grow up and kick against the standards that were used.

And I never did. And I've tried to figure out why that is because I know a lot of people who grew up in homes sort of like mine who did kick, rebel, leave, and never come back. But I think one of the means God used to keep that from happening was that my father was the happiest man I've ever known.

He and my mother would sing in the front seat of our old Buick driving from Greenville, South Carolina to Daytona Beach for our annual 10-day beach vacation. And my sister and I in the back seat listening to my mother and father sing gospel choruses. I mean that's extraordinary. That's extraordinary.

And not only did he sing but when he came back from evangelistic crusades, he was an evangelist, he would come back with stories of triumph about the gospel and a new joke. And he laughed harder at his own jokes than anybody. And my mother laughed next hardest until the tears would roll down her cheek.

And my sister and I would sit there looking at each end of the table saying, "I think they're having a good time enjoying Jesus." Why would anybody want to go to a movie or dance or smoke? I mean I just never kicked because I lived in a glorious family.

So that brings me to... where do I go from there? You went to college then? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, off to Wheaton College, literature major, met Noel Henry on an auspicious date 6-6-66. We just celebrated our 53rd 6-6-66. Straightway got mono and was in the hospital for three weeks and decided not to be a medical doctor but to go to seminary because I was listening to John Harold Ockengay preach 200 yards away in the Wheaton Chapel.

And as I lay there with my big yellow tonsils and my palpitating spleen said to myself, "I can't do anything to do what he's doing right now, opening the Word of God." I said, "That's glorious." And so my girlfriend had fallen into love with a pre-med student and so I did a bait-and-switch on her and said, "I think I'm gonna go to seminary not medical school." And she was okay with that.

So we went to Fuller Seminary and had the most influential teacher of my life there, Daniel Fuller, who did two things. He showed me a magnificent view of a sovereign God, especially through the lens of Jonathan Edwards. And then he gave me an exegetical method called arching, which takes every word, every phrase, every sentence of the Bible with blood, earnest seriousness, and rings it until every drop of life-giving blood falls out of it on the page.

And I've never been the same since. That's why I talked last night about being 23 years old, because I was 22 when I went there and by the time I was 23 I was a different human being. And Noel was walking on that pilgrimage with me. Then I went to Germany for three years and got a degree in New Testament.

Then I taught for six years at Bethel College in St. Paul, Minnesota. Taught Bible and Greek. And then God stepped into my life in a most remarkable way on October 14, 1979. I mean, Pascal, I don't know if you've ever read Pascal's conversion story, but he carried all of his life long until his grave, he carried inside his coat, sewn into his coat, a piece of paper where he had written down, and I don't remember the date, but he put down, "The date, midnight, fire." And met God.

And I didn't meet God, but I met a call to preaching that was, at that point, irresistible. Waited for Noel to wake up the next morning thinking, "Okay, this is another bait-and-switch here." Because being a teacher is cool, you know, Mr. Academics, and no big pressure on the wife if you're a professor, but if you become a pastor, whoa, this is big for both of you.

And so I'm lying there at 6:30 in the morning having been up half the night wrestling with God and thinking, "She's got to say yes, because if she doesn't say yes, we're in big trouble. God just spoke." But you don't go off without your wife, right? You two have become one flesh.

And I leaned over when she got up and said, "What would you think if I resigned at Bethel and looked for a church?" And she said, "I could see that coming." And what she meant was a couple of years of watching me in church, and if it was a mediocre sermon, I'd say, "We've got to do better than that." And if it was a great sermon, I would say, "I would love to do that." So I went to my denomination and said, "I'm available.

Find me a church. Help me. Help me." And they sent me to Bethlehem, and I was there for 33 years until 2013. So 2013, I stepped away, not because I was tired of preaching, but because the church was big and complex and prosperous, and I think I had Peter-principled myself out of a job.

I mean, it's a big church. It's complicated. It had three campuses, 125 employees, and 20 pastors, and 40 elders, and I thought, "Oh my goodness. This is just over my managerial head." And so while I still had energy and life, God did a miracle. There's a lot of people here in this room right now who go to Bethlehem, and they will remember what a miracle He did of bringing in a man named Jason Meyer, and the church voted in a closed ballot.

These are Baptists now. Remember, these are Baptists. They don't agree on anything. I think these guys, we've heard of Baptists. Yeah, and I think out of 890 votes or something like that, there were seven no votes on a closed ballot. So he was in tears, and we were all thrilled that God had found a person, and so I stepped away.

I still go to the church, love it every minute of it, love corporate worship like crazy. We'll go there. So I was there for 33 years, and now I attend there, enjoy it. That's a nice little introduction to John Piper, and Pastor John, no longer in pastoral ministry, is now full-time at Desiring God, writing, preaching, traveling around the globe to minister in places like Belfast, and of course recording episodes for this podcast, too.

We keep him pretty busy, and I recently asked Pastor John to explain that long night where he wrestled with God's calling to preach, and what he has to say to those of us who are wrestling with two good options. Which one does God call us to when we have two good options that are both God honoring?

Kind of maps on to that night that he experienced, and we'll look at that huge date for him on the 40th anniversary of it, which is coming up on October 14th. Be watching for that episode. That one is recorded, done, and ready to go, and we continue to eagerly wait for audio to come in from our first ever APJ Live Sing session, Pastor John and I on stage in Nashville.

It's been delayed, but I'll get you those episodes as soon as possible. We recorded those five episodes live on stage at the Gaylord Opryland Resort and Convention Center in Nashville. This was the very same site, ten years ago, to the month, to what I think is the weirdest John Piper preaching video you will ever see.

So why did 8,000 Christian counselors laugh at John Piper? I have so many questions about this event. I know you have so many questions about watching the video. Together we will find out when I ask Pastor John about it next time on Friday. I'm your host Tony Reike. We'll see you then.