John Piper and D. A. Carson teamed up on April 23, 2009 to address “The Pastor as Scholar and the Scholar as Pastor.”
(I live-blogged the event, and audio, video, and manuscripts are available.)
Now it’s been updated as a 124-page book:
John Piper and D. A. Carson. The Pastor as Scholar and the Scholar as Pastor: Reflections on Life and Ministry. Edited by Owen Strachan and David Mathis. Wheaton: Crossway, 2011. 
John Piper, Taste and See: 140 Meditations (Sisters, OR: Multnomah, 2005), 28:
One profound biblical insight we need to know is that our heart exploits our mind to justify what the heart wants. That is, our deepest desires precede the rational functioning of our minds and incline the mind to perceive and think in a way that will make the desires look right. It is an illusion to think that our hearts are neutral and incline in accordance with cool rational observation of truth. On the contrary, we feel powerful desires or fears in our heart, and then our mind bends reality to justify the desires and fears.
Is this vapid, moralistic therapeutic selfism the best you can do?
Text from the video (numbering added):
That way of life is ultimately unsatisfying.
There is a better way.
Sam Storms, “Christian Hedonism: Piper and Edwards on the Pursuit of Joy in God,” in For the Fame of God’s Name: Essays in Honor of John Piper (ed. Sam Storms and Justin Taylor; Wheaton: Crossway, 2010), 49–50.
John Piper is known for many things. . . .
Some would likely mention the fact that he’s never owned a television! I vividly remember my first visit to John’s home in 1992. He had invited me to speak at his annual pastor’s conference which, as it turns out, is regularly scheduled during the week following the Super Bowl. Upon arriving at his home after the Sunday service, I told John that I had been looking forward for quite some time to watching the game with him. “Not at my house,” he said. “We don’t have a TV.” After I recovered from the initial shock, John graciously agreed to take me to the home of a church member where I could indulge myself in this annual affair. And yes, John stayed and actually watched the game! [Read more…] about Why John Piper Doesn’t Own a TV
John Piper, Think: The Life of the Mind and the Love of God (Wheaton: Crossway, 2010), 79:
What does it mean to love God “with all your mind” [Matt 22:37]? I take it to mean that we direct our thinking in a certain way; namely, our thinking should be wholly engaged to do all it can to awaken and express the heartfelt fullness of treasuring God above all things.
Chapter 6 (pp. 79–88) unpacks that definition.
Piper has thought about that definition for a long time. As recently as the mid-1990s, he told Don Carson that he wasn’t sure what it means to love God with your mind.
Cf. D. A. Carson, The Gagging of God: Christianity Confronts Pluralism (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996), 484:
Noll and others often cite Jesus’ injunction to love the Lord your God your God “with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength” (Mark 12:30) as if that justifies all intellectual effort expended by a Christian. John Piper, in a private conversation, thoughtfully commented that he was unsure what the passage means: What precisely does it mean to love God with one’s mind? It is not obvious. This is not the place to embark on a full-scale exegesis. Remembering, however, that the “heart” in biblical thought is not so much the seat of the emotions as the seat of thought and of the whole person, both “loving God with your heart” and “loving God with your mind” are bound up with thinking the right things about God. They cannot simply be equated with all intellectual endeavor undertaken by a Christian, even though such endeavor must be undertaken coram Deo. But whatever the full sweep of this injunction, it cannot mean less than a God-inspired delight in all of God’s thoughts insofar as he has disclosed them, and a God-given determination to dethrone all competing systems of thought and bring them into captivity to the gospel (cf. 2 Cor. 10:5). And that requires constant, thoughtful Bible reading, theological reflection, interaction with Christian thinkers from the past, humble assessment of the currents of our age and courageous determination not to become their slave.
It is precisely here, I fear, that many evangelical intellectuals have failed.
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.