John Piper answers that question in three and a half minutes (transcript | audio | video):

My initial response yesterday after reading and watching Piper’s answer was this:

I think I understand where Piper is coming from here, but it seems to me like he devalues his PhD without sufficient warrant. Did the PhD not help him hone his ability to think and communicate clearly and carefully?

I just read Dane Ortlund’s response to Piper’s answer. It’s excellent. (Dane just completed a PhD in New Testament at Wheaton under Doug Moo.)

Update: Just for the record, I certainly don’t think that all pastors should get PhDs. (But that’s not the point of this post. I am questioning whether we should devalue them so much.)

The sovereign God “decides who will believe and undeservingly be saved and who will rebel and deservingly perish.”

—John Piper, “How God Makes Known the Riches of His Glory to the Vessels of Mercy,” sermon on Rom 9:19–23 (February 16, 2003).

I keep thinking about this statement that John Piper posted three days ago:

God never does only one thing. In everything he does he is doing thousands of things. Of these we know perhaps half a dozen.

This paragraph from my favorite Piper book is much more meaningful now that I see my little daughter’s eyes light up every time she sees something new:

What a wonderful experience it is when God grants us a moment in which we don’t take anything for granted, but see the world as though it was invented yesterday. How we would marvel at the wisdom of God. We should pray for the eyes of children again, when they saw everything for the first time. William Quayle reminded me of this recently in his lively book, The Pastor-Preacher. He said, “A cow has pretty eyes, as quiet as a pool of quiet water, but uneventful eyes. There is no touch of wonder in their dreamless depths. The eyes are therefore soulless. A child’s eyes are fairly lightning. They are to see things: they are the windows of the brain, and bewilder like a play of swords of fire.” These are the eyes we need to see the unending wisdom of God running through all the world. There will be no exhausting the understanding of God. We will be making new discoveries for all eternity.

—John Piper, The Pleasures of God: Meditations on God’s Delight in Being God (2d ed.; Sisters, OR: Multnomah, 2000), 92 (emphasis added).

Related:

1. Sermons by Piper on the Pleasures of God
2. My thoughts on Piper’s Desiring God
3. Planet Earth: A Theological Documentary
4. Piper on “Planet Earth”

Three more DVD series and corresponding study guides are now available in the John Piper Small Group Series.

1. TULIP: The Pursuit of God’s Glory in Salvation (DVD | Study Guide)

2. Why We Believe the Bible (DVD | Study Guide)

3. What’s the Difference? Manhood and Womanhood Defined According to the Bible (DVD | Study Guide)

I recently watched almost all of TULIP and most of Why We Believe the Bible with my parents and siblings, and we thoroughly enjoyed them. The professionally filmed DVDs are superb. Piper teaches from an overhead using transparencies and engagingly interacts with the text of Scripture. Very effective. Great resources.

John Piper: “Boasting is the response of pride to success. Self-pity is the response of pride to failure.”

Update: Here’s a follow-up: ”BOASTING: ‘I deserve praise because I’ve achieved so much.’ SELF-PITY: ‘I deserve praise because I’ve endured so much.’”

Related: If you’re not on Twitter, you can follow John Piper on Twitter in your blog reader via his RSS feed.