Alistair Begg’s annual “Basics Conference” is, in my estimation, far too underrated as a pastors conference. Each year Begg invites a select number of pastors and scholars to encourage ministers in the work of preaching and prayer. If you’ve yet to feast on the resources from these conferences make sure to head over to Truth for Life and download mp3s to your heart’s delight.
A Pricking with Piper
Over the weekend I listed to a few messages from the 2009 Basics Conference that focused on preaching to stir minds, urge wills, and renew affections. During the panel discussion John Piper was asked, “What do you believe the number one challenge will be for pastors in the next ten years?” His answer started off with some simple wisdom, but a peroration was on the way to those of us who preach God’s word. Listen to the clip below and be challenge to consider what you bleed.
Piper’s Answer: Same thing it’s always been: staying red hot for God, knowing their Bible, preaching it faithfully. I don’t think the main things change, the forms of challenges change, but the main thing about keeping your heart for God and knowing this book well, and understanding the lay of the land that changes [so quickly] today. If I had message to pastors it would be read your Bible and pray a lot. And pray earnestly for God to open His word to you, and preach it faithfully. And, you know, if you live in the world and look at the internet, if you see advertisements you see what’s there . . . I don’t work real hard at being relevant, trying to know the latest anything, I don’t know the latest anything! Because as soon as it’s there it’s gone and I can’t stay on top of it. Some things are so eternally relevant; everyone’s gonna die, everybody’s gonna get sick, everybody who’s married is going to have a horrible experience, everybody who raises kids is going to suffer like crazy. I mean, there are a few basic things that all human beings all the time walk through. If you have something to say to about these half a dozen real big challenges in life the little things that change [will fade away.]
Look if you had asked me what little handful of doctrines are going to be on the front burner or something that would be another question. I really think I would just leave it there and encourage you . . . whatever is going to be red hot in the next ten years will be gone pretty quick and people will still be the same and their needs will still be the same. Don’t be stupid. Don’t be culturally stupid and keep your head in the sand, understand there is an internet, there are televisions, there is music in the world.
Here’s what I thought of the other day. We were in preaching class talking about Spurgeon and how you do allusions, [the stuff that comes] just off the cough in your default language. And you know Spurgeon, you prick him and he bleeds Bible, right? Well, prick a lot of young pastors today and they bleed movies. I just said to the guys, “He bleeds movies, he bleeds music, he bleeds TV . . .” I said, “That sounds hip, that sounds cool, but it’s thin and it won’t carry you thirty years, probably. And it won’t help people die. It won’t help them in their marriages crises.” There are just so many young pastors so eager to grow and attract a crowd that they bleed movies. And when those young twenty-somethings get married, have kids, lose their babies—that blood coming out out is just going to be thin. You won’t sound cool at a funeral! It probably will be weird at a wedding. We’ve just turned so much of Sunday morning into a hip, cool, and entertaining talk time in order to feel a certain way. People’s souls are going to languish under that.
So all of that just to say, go ahead and just so be saturated . . . with the Bible.