Paul's Passing Thoughts

I have shared my theory in other posts that contemporary antinomians are like serial criminals. Not in essence of being actual criminals, but in their deep-seated desire to get caught. You have seen the plot in movies—serial criminals always dropping catch me if you can hints to the police. At least two antinomians of our day, Tullian Tchividjian and John Piper, are good examples of this. But first, let me say that I realize that I am one of the very few people around who equate Gospel Sanctification / Sonship theology ( Tim Keller, a significant forerunner of Sonship theology, is one of the founders of TGC) / the gospel-driven life with antinomianism. However, my reasoning is simple; if we are sanctified by justification, that excludes the law either by obligation or ability. Neither do I buy into the idea that thinking the law is good—is an acceptable replacement for an obligation to obey it. Also, the fact that I rubbed shoulders with six GS proponents for several years, and I’m privy to the fact that they bragged about being antinomians is not helpful to those who are trying to persuade me otherwise.

Hold on, my phone is ringing: “Oh! Hi honey. Uh—uh , ya, hmmm. I know sweety, we have discussed this before—getting to the point and such, ya, I will get to the women shortly. Ok, talk to you later, bye!”

Anyway, Tullian Tchividjian recently dropped a really big hint by promoting the idea that preachers should strive to be accused of antinomianism as a way to validate their preaching  as having enough Jesus. When one, lone man protested, it made national headlines in Christian circles. But despite Tchividjian’s efforts, it didn’t work. The one, lone protestant focused on the accusation element without considering for a moment that maybe TT really is antinomian. Whew, that was a close one! Michael Horton followed the same week by accusing an accuser of accusing him of antinomianism when the accuser never even used the word in the accusation. Another hint? Hmmmm.

Also, we have John Piper, the First Pope of New Calvinism, continually drawing attention to himself (hints?) by promoting heretics and refusing to correct associates that use profanity in public, while notable evangelicals at large cover for him, and not for a moment considering that any of this has anything to do with the guy’s theology while teaching that what we believe always dictates what we do—unless you’re Pope John the First. A prime example of this is Piper’s invitation to Rick Warren to speak at one of  his Desiring God conventions. But hello, when you believe that every verse in the Bible is about the gospel, how can the particular elements of God’s truth really have that much significance? If Warren also believes that the Bible is a plenary gospel narrative, everything else is fair game—so why wouldn’t they hangout together? In fact, a reader sent me a quote by Tchividjian in regard to his defense of Piper for the invite by saying something like this: “All truth is God’s truth, even if it comes from Rick Warren.”

But what’s up with Piper being defended by the likes of Phil Johnson, John MacArthur’s right-hand guy, in the following post: http://teampyro.blogspot.com/2010/04/on-piper-warren-connection.html ?  “I love John Piper. People often ask me what living preachers I listen to besides John MacArthur. John Piper is my clear first choice. He’s also one of my favorite authors.”  Unbelievable. That is, until you read this in the same post:

“Speaking of Twitter chatter and Facebook feedback, I can’t touch on this whole subject without pointing out that the tone of some of the criticism leveled at Dr. Piper is simply revolting. Within fifteen minutes of Dr. Piper’s live webcast the other night, I had to delete a comment on my Facebook page from a woman who called him a clown. Over the past week I have deleted an average of two or three comments each day that were personally insulting or deliberately disrespectful toward Dr. Piper. One woman expressed a hope that his sabbatical would be permanent.

It intrigues and disturbs me that most (not all, but most) of the overtly impertinent comments have come from women. There’s evidently a growing regiment of self-appointed discernment experts consisting of women who give lip service to the authority of Scripture. They would unanimously affirm that Scripture reserves for men the teaching and ruling elders’ roles in the church. They would, I presume, deplore the ordination of women to such positions of authority. They are not offended by Paul’s statement in 1 Timothy 2:12; rather, they would say amen to it. And yet in practice they have no compunction about posting angry, loud condemnations and insistent demands for the removal of a pastor of John Piper’s stature. These things ought not to be.”

First of all, God is sovereign; it is obvious that God planned before the foundation of the Earth for me to marry Susan and not the woman who called Piper a clown. Besides, in the spirit of defending people just because we like them, are we sure that wasn’t her way of saying  Piper is a follower of Edmund Clowney? As I unravel the sorted history of New Calvinism, there is some question as to who was really the father of Sonship theology that is the fundamental basis for neo-Calvinism—Clowney, or John “Jack” Miller. Clowney wrote Preaching Christ in All of Scripture, How Jesus Transforms the Ten Commandments, and Christian Meditation. Any of those themes sound familiar in Piper’s teachings? But if that’s not the case, to Phil Johnson’s point, how dare that woomun call out a man of “Piper’s stature” (did he really say that? Let me check again.Yep, he sure did). Well, that pretty much says it all—if one of the who’s who of the evangelical world teaches error, the uneducated book-buying peasants of American church culture need to keep their mouths shut and submit to the “ruling elders.” Worse yet, if not unthinkable, is the idea that one of the woomun peasants would speak out!

If Phil would check Acts 17:11: the Holy Spirit commends the Bereans for vetting  Paul’s (the apostle) teachings and no gender is mentioned. In fact, verse 12 seems to indicate women were among them. And I know this is difficult for Phil, but John Piper is no apostle Paul. Furthermore,  Priscilla and Aquila both instructed Apollos (Acts 18:26), and I doubt Piper is an Apollos as well. As far as Phil’s citing of  1Timothy 2:12, because of 1Corinthians 14:34, I would think Paul is referring to the corporate setting, and not the milieu of life in general. Phil’s boss, John MacArthur, agrees; see his comments on 1Timothy 2:12 in his Bible Commentary, page 1783. He states the following: “He is not prohibiting them from teaching in other appropriate conditions and circumstances (cf. Acts  18:26; Titus 2:3,4).” John’s over the Seminary and Phil’s over other stuff, right?

Moreover, now that we have established that women can callout man-leaders of high stature, Phil apparently deleted a woman who was dead-on regarding Piper taking a permanent sabbatical. Piper took an eight-month sabbatical for beyond unbiblical reasons. An eight-month, paid sabbatical to eliminate several “species of heart idols.”? And the obvious logical conclusion as follows: an eight-month sabbatical instead of being counseled by his own elders; where is all of that in the Bible? Add to that his announcement that he is hoping to remain pastor there five years after returning from his sabbatical. The lady is absolutely right, why not just retire and be done with it? And by the way, HOW DO YOU PREDETERMINE HOW LONG IT WILL TAKE TO ELIMINATE “SEVERAL SPECIES OF HEART IDOLS”? ARE THEY THE EIGHT-MONTH TYPE? Have we lost our minds?

Phil also wrote: “It intrigues and disturbs me that most (not all, but most) of the overtly impertinent comments have come from women. There’s evidently a growing regiment of self-appointed discernment experts consisting of women….” Yes, discerning Christian woman gone wild, and thank goodness for them. Phil sates that it is mostly women who are speaking up and calling for leaders to be held accountable. Sad. And the women folk are right about something else: something can be done about it; separation, not inviting them to conferences (Matthew 18:17). Rejection, not fellowship (Titus 3:10 Rom 16:17,18), Rebuke, not excuses (1Timothy 5:19).

John Piper is one of the featured speakers at this years TGC conference in Chicago. Who knows what hint he will drop this time around. Will some Christian woman gone wild have to satisfy his deep-seated desire  to be exposed? Can Christian women gone wild save the church from New Calvinism? Stay tuned.

paul