(upbeat music) - Happy New Year everyone. 2023 is here and we launch our new year with a more informal episode than normal. This one was recorded live in Nashville, Tennessee in front of 2000 friends of ours who were, well, they were quite engaged as you can hear. Have a listen.

(audience cheering) - How many of you are regular listeners to the podcast? (audience cheering) The direction of our podcast is shaped by you, the listeners, right? You send us the questions, we sift through those. I ask John Piper the questions. I ask John Piper your most awkward questions. I'm willing to do that for you because I serve you, our listeners.

And I've been wanting to do something like this for a long time on the podcast. And I figured let's do this in Nashville. Let's hear from John Piper about his favorite things. Over the decade of APJ, we've received over 100 questions from listeners asking random questions about John Piper's favorite soft drink, movies, novels, poets, things like that.

So I just compiled all of those questions. I'm gonna pose them to Pastor John and he's got a rapid fire respond, okay? So he can't elaborate very long on that. - That's the problem. - That's the problem, yeah. So I boiled down these questions to 12, 12 questions. Okay, here we go.

Ready, John Piper? - Yeah, but listen. Some of these are gonna be really short, like one word answer. - That's good. - Which means I can go longer on others, okay? (audience laughing) - All right, John Piper's favorite things. Here we go, number one. In APJ 696, you said, quote, "I have my favorite movies." And you left us at that.

You never told us. What are your top three favorite movies? - I consulted my wife about this. I knew this question was coming. And we agreed that at the top would be Henry V, Kenneth Branagh's Shakespearean movie. An amazing speech that a pastor cannot listen to and not be moved to tears.

We few, we happy few. Tomorrow who sheds his blood with me will be my brother. And then England defeats France at five to one odds. And they sing, no, nobis, nobis domine, said domine gloria. Not to us, oh Lord, not to us, but to your name give glory. It's just a riveting, dramatic Shakespearean piece.

That's number one. Number two would be "Chariots of Fire," which you have seen. And the scene of him opening the note that God glorifies or God honors those who honor him. Powerful statement that moved me deeply. And my wife said, you really have to say "Princess Bride." But you don't know why I have to say "Princess Bride." And the reason is because when I first saw it, I was preaching through Hebrews.

And there is one scene that's serious in this hilarious movie. And it's the scene where, now I had to go back and remind myself the names 'cause I forget names. Inigo Montoya is standing at the top of the cliff and Wesley's climbing the cliff and he's gonna fall down if he doesn't hold on.

And Inigo says, "I could drop you a rope." And he says, "Yeah, and then you would let go of the rope." And seriousness comes over his face. And he says, "I swear to you on the life of my father, Domingo Montoya, I won't drop you." And Wesley gets serious and says, "Drop the rope." I use that in the next Sunday sermon.

Because of the power of a promise and an oath in Hebrews. Okay. >> All right, that's really good. That was elaborate, that was a little more elaborate. >> It's way better. I won't do that, I won't do that if you want. I'm tempted to. >> All right, your favorite novel.

>> I'm gonna cheat again, but I won't elaborate. "All the Light We Cannot See" by Anthony Doerr, a contemporary that is in the last 10 years, is a beautifully written book about the Second World War and the interweaving of lives of a young blind girl during the bombing of the Germans on France.

"All the Light We Cannot See." "A Man at Arms" by Stephen Pressfield is also contemporary, written in the last five years probably, a dramatic telling of a young speechless girl carrying the Corinthian correspondence to Corinth, Paul's letters to Corinth, and a man at arms steps up to be her protector.

Amazing book. And then historically, I mean, if I had to pick a classic, it would be "Crime and Punishment" by Dostoevsky, just because the power of the description of the tormented soul of Raskolnikov is unparalleled. >> It is unparalleled. All right, number three, your favorite most frequently used Bible app.

>> Logos. >> Logos Bible software. >> Yes. >> iPhone, iPad, laptop, all three? >> All three. >> All three. >> I'm on, like right now I'm on a leave working on, look at the book, I'm on Logos nine hours a day. I ran it into the ground. We had to call them to get them to figure out how to make it work after nine hours of work.

And they fixed it for me. And I use my iPad for my devotions and it's Logos that I use. I find I'm very indebted to Logos. >> That's good. Your favorite poet, not in scripture. >> George Herbert died in 1633, wrote a collection called the Temple, 164 poems. None of them has the same rhyme scheme or meter.

It's an absolutely amazing collection. The content, the craft, those two things together, I think in Herbert are without peer. >> Your favorite poem, not in scripture. >> Well, you know, I thought a lot about that. And my song is Love Unknown. Love Unknown is a hymn. But if you just take away the beautiful music, ♪ My song is love unknown ♪ ♪ My savior's love to me ♪ That's the tune, beautiful tune.

But Samuel Crossman's poem by itself is magnificent. It's simply beautiful. The rhyme structure and the meter is very unusual and it's very hard to put solid, deep, moving words without sounding corny into structures of rhyme and meter. So my song is Love Unknown would be, and if I had to choose a non-religious one, it would be If by Rudyard Kipling.

If, if, if, if, then you will be a man, my son. I love it. >> Love that line. Love to the loveless shown that they might lovely be. >> Yes. >> Such a great line. All right, number six, your favorite, this is important. This is what the people want to know, okay?

Your favorite pop, soda, soft drink. >> It moves back and forth between diet, Dr. Pepper and Diet Coke. If I get tired of one, Noel will order the other and back and forth they go. Which means in the Washington DC airport, there are no Coke products. And if you walk around here, there are no Coke products.

It's just appalling. Like, where are we? >> Okay, your favorite dinner at home. >> My wife's spaghetti. She's sitting over there. >> There's Noel. >> Yeah. So this is, there's no, there's hands down. She would know the answer to that right away. And so I'm just on her case to make it as often as possible when we have company and elsewhere.

>> Favorite restaurant. >> Well, we talked about that one. And she said, you can't say Chick-fil-A. And you can't say Chipotle, 'cause they don't, he doesn't mean fast foods. He means real bonafide restaurants. And so I said, well, how about then Olive Garden? And she said, well, that would work.

That's true because our sons growing up, since we didn't very often go out to eat. And when we did, we went to the places I like, like Chick-fil-A. And then if we stepped it up, we would go to Olive Garden. And they thought Olive Garden was fine dining. It is.

Why would you want to go any higher than that? Food tastes weird if you go higher than that. I mean, haven't you, the more expensive the restaurant, the weirder the food. I don't know why expensive gourmet chefs make food taste strange. It's just strange. >> That is a man of refined palate.

>> I don't want my food to taste strange. >> All right, let's cut the mic at that point. All right, your favorite hobby? >> I love to play Scrabble with my wife. I love to work in the yard. I like to pull grass out of sidewalk crevices. I hate grass growing in sidewalks.

And I like straight borders. I like it when the sidewalks are smooth. I don't like weeds growing around the boxwoods. I get a deep satisfaction from making things look Edenic or Eschatological, whichever way you want to look at it. >> All right, number 10, your favorite breakfast. A lot of you know what his favorite breakfast is, but why don't you say it?

>> So the first layer is grape nuts. And the second layer is mini shredded wheats, not the sweetened kind. And the last layer is great heartland granola and then blueberries on top. I've eaten that for years and years. When we go on vacation, Noelle puts it all in a big sack and we take my breakfast, so I don't have to eat the stuff they serve here.

I can eat that. >> All right. Number 11, your favorite song by a Christian. Your favorite song by a Christian. >> That's impossible, but just right off the front burner, since I'm 76 and death is just coming on very quickly, the fresh rendition of Matt Merker's, "He Will Hold Me Fast" has risen in my affections and in my personal singing and my church singing to a level of sweetness that few songs have in recent years.

Over the decades, I've had favorite hymns, but if you pushed my button right now and asked what would you like to sing, what's your emotional quotient right now? It would be, "He holds me, he's holding me, I'll get through, he's holding me." And the music that he put to that old hymn is perfect.

>> It is perfect. All right, last, number 12, your favorite song by a non-Christian. >> I don't listen to much music by non-Christians, but I did in the '60s. So I think beautiful tunes were written in the '60s. I think the Beatles wrote beautiful tunes. I think Simon and Garfunkel wrote beautiful tunes and the Seekers wrote beautiful tunes.

And so I have a playlist in my phone called '60s Instrumental. Get rid of the words, the words are usually nihilistic or vain, and so they're not helpful to me. So maybe "Bridge Over Troubled Waters," Simon and Garfunkel. "Bridge Over Troubled Waters" is a song I would default to.

Or I was playing a tune for Noelle the other day, I said, "Can you recognize this tune?" And she said, "I recognize the tune, but I can't name it." And it's "Here, There, and Everywhere" by the Beatles. So I've got a '60s heart left in me. - There it is, John Piper's 12 Favorite Things.

(audience cheering) - Such a great time. Wonderful turnout, enthusiastic engagement, as you can hear at the Getty Sing Conference this summer in Nashville. And thank you for joining us for this first episode of 2023. You can ask a question of your own, search our growing archive, or subscribe to the podcast all at askpastorjohn.com.

Well, Pastor John calls the experience of discouragement, quote, "Typical Christian life." Typical Christian life, typical. Being discouraged is more normal than abnormal. But when we find ourselves stuck in discouragement, can we get ourselves unstuck? We can. And the Bible gives us a strategy for how to do it. Pastor John will explain it next time.

I'm your host, Tony Reinke. Welcome to 2023. And we will see you on Wednesday. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)