Friends You Need Are Buried in the Past: Q&A with John Piper and Justin Taylor

About this sermon

Christian biographies hold vast treasure for anyone willing to hunt. Don’t starve your soul of the riches they offer. 2:00 – Do you have early experiences and interest of historical study and biography as you grew up? 8:56 – Did any biographies on certain figures stand out to you during your professorship at Bethel College? 11:05 – Were there any influential biographies for you in 1980 when you left the academic world and became a pastor — like Warren Wiersbe’s biographical sketches? 16:01 – What makes biography good, and why is a good biography more compelling than a list of principles from a person’s life? 24:07 – What made you want to give an hour-long address on Edwards’s life with lessons for pastors in particular? 27:12 – Did you want to give biographies annually? 27:42 – Why is it helpful for pastors to present on biography and not just read them? 30:38 – What method have you done or would you recommend to others who want to read biography and learn from someone in the past? 36:37 – Both George Marsden and Ian Murray have written on Jonathan Edwards. How would you describe the differences between the two, and how you might benefit differently from them? 42:16 – How do we think of the unrepentant and ongoing blind spots and sins of our heroes such as Edwards and MLK? 50:59 – Your parents, Dan Fuller, Jonathan Edwards, and C.S. Lewis had a significant influence on your life. How would your life be different If Lewis was not a part of it? 1:00:05 – Why would our grandchildren and great-grandchildren read J.I. Packer instead of the current best-seller? 1:04:18 — Of all of the men that you have studied in 21 Servants of Sovereign Joy: Faithful, Flawed, and Fruitful, if you could go back in time, or bring forward some of those, whom would you want to sit down for counsel, hear a sermon, and ask a theological question? https://www.desiringgod.org/interviews/friends-you-need-are-buried-in-the-past-q-and-a-on-christian-biographies

Topics

• Relationships
• Friendship