by John Piper
Suffering is the normal cost of godliness. “Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted” (2 Tim. 3:12). I am aware that these words on suffering move back and forth between a more general suffering as part of the fall (Rom. 8:18–25) and specific suffering owing to human hostilities. But I will argue later in chapter 3 that when it comes to God’s purposes in our suffering there is no substantial difference.23
Prosperity preachers should include in their messages significant teaching about what Jesus and the apostles said about the necessity of suffering. It must come, Paul said (Acts 14:22), and we do young disciples a disservice not to tell them that early. Jesus even said it before conversion so that prospective believers would count the cost: “So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:33).
9. Don’t preach a gospel that obscures the God-ordained purposes of suffering in the Christian life.
The New Testament not only makes clear that suffering is necessary for followers of Christ, it is also at pains to explain why this is the case and what God’s purposes in it are. These purposes are crucial for believers to know. God has revealed them to help us understand why we suffer and to bring us through like gold through fire.
Later, in the chapter on suffering, I will unfold these purposes.24 So here I will only name them and say to the prosperity preachers: Include the great biblical teachings in your messages. New believers need to know why God ordains for them to suffer.
1. Suffering deepens faith and holiness.
2. Suffering makes your cup increase.
3. Suffering is the price of making others bold.
4. Suffering fills up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions.
5. Suffering enforces the missionary command to go.
6. The supremacy of Christ is manifest in suffering.
10. Don’t preach a gospel that ignores the shift from a come-see religion in the Old Testament to a go-tell religion in the New Testament.
A fundamental change happened with the coming of Christ into the world. Until that time, God had focused his redemptive work on Israel with occasional works among the nations. Paul said, “In past generations [God] allowed all the nations to walk in their own ways” (Acts 14:16). He called them “times of ignorance.” “The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent” (Acts 17:30). Now the focus has shifted from Israel to the nations. Jesus said, “The kingdom of God will be taken away from you [Israel] and given to a people producing its fruits [followers of the Messiah]” (Matt. 21:43). A hardening has come upon Israel until the full number of the nations comes in (Rom. 11:25).
One of the main differences between these two eras is that in the Old Testament, God glorified himself largely by blessing Israel so that the nations could see and know that the Lord is God. “May [the Lord] maintain the cause of . . . his people Israel, as each day requires, that all the peoples of the earth may know that the L ord is God; there is no other” (1 Kings 8:59–60). Israel was not yet sent on a “Great Commission” to gather the nations; rather, she was glorified so that the nations would see her greatness and come to her.
So when Solomon built the temple of the Lord it was spectacularly lavish with overlaid gold.
The inner sanctuary was twenty cubits long, twenty cubits wide, and twenty cubits high, and he overlaid it with pure gold. He also overlaid an altar of cedar. And Solomon overlaid the inside of the house with pure gold, and he drew chains of gold across, in front of the inner sanctuary, and overlaid it with gold. And he overlaid the whole house with gold, until all the house was finished. Also the whole altar that belonged to the inner sanctuary he overlaid with gold.
1 Kings 6:20–22
And when he furnished it, the gold was again just as abundant.
So Solomon made all the vessels that were in the house of the Lord: the golden altar, the golden table for the bread of the Presence, the lampstands of pure gold, five on the south side and five on the north, before the inner sanctuary; the flowers, the lamps, and the tongs, of gold; the cups, snuffers, basins, dishes for incense, and fire pans, of pure gold; and the sockets of gold, for the doors of the innermost part of the house.
1 Kings 7:48–50
It took Solomon seven years to build the house of the Lord. Then he took thirteen years to build his own house (1 Kings 6:38–7:1). It too was lavish with gold and costly stones (1 Kings 7, 10).
Then, when all was built, the point of this opulence is seen in 1 Kings 10 as the queen of Sheba, representing the Gentile nations, comes to see the glory of the house of God and of Solomon. When she saw it, “there was no more breath in her” (1 Kings 10:5). She said, “Blessed be the Lord your God, who has delighted in you and set you on the throne of Israel! Because the Lord loved Israel forever, he has made you king” (1 Kings 10:9).
In other words, the pattern in the Old Testament is a come-see religion. There is a geographic center of the people of God. There is a physical temple, an earthly king, a political regime, an ethnic identity, an army to fight God’s earthly battles, and a band of priests to make animal sacrifices for sins.
With the coming of Christ all of this changed. There is no geographic center for Christianity (John 4:20–24); Jesus has replaced the temple, the priests, and the sacrifices (John 2:19; Heb. 9:25–26); there is no Christian political regime because Christ’s kingdom is not of this world (John 18:36); and we do not fight earthly battles with chariots and horses or bombs and bullets, but spiritual ones with the word and the Spirit (Eph. 6:12–18; 2 Cor. 10:3–5).
All of this supports the great change in mission. The New Testament does not present a come-see religion, but a go-tell religion. “And Jesus came and said to them, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age’” (Matt. 28:18–20).
The implications of this are huge for the way we live and the way we think about money and lifestyle. One of the main implications is that we are “sojourners and exiles” (1 Peter 2:11) on the earth. We do not use this world as though it were our primary home. “Our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ” (Phil. 3:20).
This leads to a wartime lifestyle. That means we don’t amass wealth to show the world how rich our God can make us. We work hard and seek a wartime austerity for the cause of spreading the gospel to the ends of the earth. We maximize giving to the war effort, not comforts at home. We raise our children with a view to helping them embrace the suffering that it will cost to finish the mission.
So if a prosperity preacher asks me about all the promises of wealth for faithful people in the Old Testament, my response is: Read your New Testament carefully and see if you see the same emphasis. You won’t find it. And the reason is that things have dramatically changed.
“We brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world. But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content” (1 Tim. 6:7–8). Why? Because the call to Christ is a call to “share in suffering as a good soldier of Christ Jesus” (2 Tim. 2:3). The emphasis of the New Testament is not riches to lure us in to sin, but sacrifice to carry us out.
One providential confirmation that God intended this distinction between a come-see orientation in the Old Testament and a go-tell orientation in the New Testament is the difference between the language of the Old Testament and the language of the New. Hebrew, the language of the Old Testament, was shared by no other peoples of the ancient world. It was unique to Israel. This is an astonishing contrast with Greek, the language of the New Testament, which was the trade language of the Roman world. So the very languages of the Old and New Testaments signal the difference in mission. Hebrew was not well-suited for missions to the ancient world. Gree
k was ideally suited for missions to the Roman world.
11. Don’t preach a gospel that minimizes the sin of making godliness a means of gain.
The apostle Paul set us an example by how vigilant he was not to give the impression that he was in the ministry for money. He said that ministers of the world have a right to make a living from the ministry. But then to show us the danger in that he refuses to fully use that right.
It is written in the Law of Moses, “You shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain.” . . . It was written for our sake, because the plowman should plow in hope and the thresher thresh in hope of sharing in the crop. If we have sown spiritual things among you, is it too much if we reap material things from you? If others share this rightful claim on you, do not we even more? Nevertheless, we have not made use of this right, but we endure anything rather than put an obstacle in the way of the gospel of Christ.”
1 Corinthians 9:9–12
In other words, he renounced a legitimate right in order not to give anyone the impression that money was the motivation of his ministry. He did not want the money of his converts: “We never came with words of flattery, as you know, nor with a pretext for greed—God is witness” (1 Thess. 2:5).
He preferred to work with his hands rather than give the impression that he was peddling the gospel: “I coveted no one’s silver or gold or apparel. You yourselves know that these hands ministered to my necessities and to those who were with me. In all things I have shown you that by working hard in this way we must help the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he himself said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive’” (Acts 20:33–35).
He knew that there were peddlers of God’s word who thought “godliness is a means of gain” (1 Tim. 6:5–6). But he refused to do anything that would put him in that category: “We are not, like so many, peddlers of God’s word, but as men of sincerity, as commissioned by God, in the sight of God we speak in Christ” (2 Cor. 2:17).
Too many prosperity preachers not only give the impression that they “peddle God’s word” and make “godliness a means of gain” but actually develop a bogus theology to justify their extravagant displays of wealth. Paul did just the opposite.
12. Don’t preach a gospel that obscures the biblical truth that God himself is the greatest treasure.
My biggest concern about the effects of the prosperity movement is that it diminishes Christ by making him less central and less satisfying than his gifts. Christ is not magnified most by being the giver of wealth. He is magnified most by satisfying the soul of those who sacrifice to love others in the ministry of the gospel.
When we commend Christ as the one who makes us rich, we glorify riches, and Christ becomes a means to the end of what we really want— namely, health, wealth, and prosperity. But when we commend Christ as the one who satisfies our soul forever—even when there is no health, wealth, and prosperity—then Christ is magnified as more precious than all those gifts.
We see this in Philippians 1:20–21. Paul says, “It is my eager expectation and hope that . . . Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” Honoring Christ happens when we treasure him so much that dying is gain. Because dying means “to depart and be with Christ” (Phil. 1:23).
This is the missing note in prosperity preaching. The New Testament aims at the glory of Christ, not the glory of his gifts. To make that clear, it puts the entire Christian life under the banner of joyful self-denial. “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me” (Mark 8:34). “I have been crucified with Christ” (Gal. 2:20).
But even though self-denial is a hard road that leads to life (Matt. 7:14), it is the most joyful of all roads. “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field” (Matt. 13:44). Jesus says that finding Christ as our treasure makes all other possessions joyfully dispensable. “In his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.”
I do not want prosperity preachers to stop calling people to maximum joy. On the contrary, I appeal to them to stop encouraging people to seek their joy in material things. The joy Christ offers is so great and so durable that it enables us to lose prosperity and still rejoice. “You joyfully accepted the plundering of your property, since you knew that you yourselves had a better possession and an abiding one” (Heb. 10:34). The grace to be joyful in the loss of prosperity—that is the miracle prosperity preachers should seek. That would be the salt of the earth and the light of the world. That would magnify Christ as supremely valuable.
Jesus Will Build His Church
God is sovereign over the world and over the mission of his church. All authority belongs to him in heaven and on earth (Matt. 28:18). The new configuration of world Christianity is his doing. He is building his church (Matt. 16:18). Both its blessings and its blemishes are under his sovereign sway. The gospel of the kingdom will be preached as a testimony to all the unreached peoples of the world (Matt. 24:14). The Lord of the harvest will see to it that the workers are sent and that the harvest is gathered in (Matt. 9:38). The good shepherd has other sheep outside the fold and he must bring them also. They will listen to his voice and there will be one flock and one shepherd (John 10:16).
The fundamental task of world missions remains the same—as it has for two thousand years. The aim is still captured in the words of Psalm 67:4: “Let the nations be glad and sing for joy.” The gladness of the nations through faith in Christ for the glory of God—that is the great aim of missions. Declaring his glory—the glory of grace in the saving death and resurrection of Jesus—is the great task among all the unreached peoples of the world. “Declare his glory among the nations, his marvelous works among all the peoples!” (Ps. 96:3).
God is infinitely passionate for his glory and for its praise among the nations. He has been, is now, and always will be supreme in missions, until the Lord Jesus himself returns and brings history as we know it to a close. The price of finishing this mission will be much sacrifice and many lives (Col. 1:24; Rev. 6:11). The fuel of that sacrifice will not be the love of money or a passion for prosperity; it will be a love for Christ and a passion for his glory. May the Lord purify his church. May he refine like gold the growing faith of the Global South. And may he remember mercy and grant Europe and America a great awakening for the glory of his name and the gladness of the nations.
1. Lamin Sanneh, Disciples of All Nations: Pillars of World Christianity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), xix.
2. Dana L. Robert, “Shifting Southward; Global Christianity Since 1945,” International Bulletin of Missionary Research 24, no. 2 (April 2000): 50.
3. Philip Jenkins, “Believing in the Global South,” First Things 168 (December 2006): 13.
4. Ibid., 12.
5. Ibid.
6. Robert, “Shifting Southward,” 53.
7. Mark Noll, The New Shape of World Christianity: How American Experience Reflects Global Faith (Downers Grove, Ill.: Inter Varsity Academic, 2009), 10.
8. Ibid., 20.
9. Ibid., 21.
10. Ibid.
11. See chapter 5 for an extended discussion of the biblical understanding of “unreached peoples.”
12. Michael Horton, Christless Christianity: The Alternative Gospel of the American Church (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2008), 45.
13. Quotation from Bonnie Dolan, founder and director of Zambia’s Center for Christian missions. Ibid., 25.
14. Isaac Phiri and Joe Maxwell, “Gospel Riches,” Christianity Today 51, no. 7 (July 2007): 23.
15. Ibid.
16. Ibid., 24.
17. Ibid.
18. Ibid., 25.
19. Arlene Sanchez Walsh, “First Church of Prosperidad,” Christianity Today 51, no. 7 (July 2007): 26–27; Ondina E. González and Justo L. González, Christianity in Latin America: A History
(New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008).
20. For example, see the chapter on “Money: The Currency of Christian Hedonism” in John Piper, Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist (Sisters, Ore.: Multnomah, 2003); and the chapter on “Living to Prove He Is More Precious than Life” in John Piper, Don’t Waste Your Life (Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Books, 2003).
21. Phiri and Maxwell, “Gospel Riches,” 27.
22. For example, Wayne Grudem has developed a series of lectures titled “50 Factors Within Nations that Determine Their Wealth or Poverty.” The point of these lectures is that biblical faithfulness leads a culture in general away from poverty and toward prosperity. http://www.christianessentialssbc.com/messages/.
23. See pp. 108–25.
24. See pp. 108–25.
PART 1
MAKING GOD
SUPREME
IN MISSIONS
THE PURPOSE, THE POWER,
AND THE PRICE
1
The Supremacy of God
in Missions through Worship
Missions is not the ultimate goal of the church. Worship is. Missions exists because worship doesn’t. Worship is ultimate, not missions, because God is ultimate, not man. When this age is over, and the countless millions of the redeemed fall on their faces before the throne of God, missions will be no more. It is a temporary necessity. But worship abides forever.1
Worship, therefore, is the fuel and goal of missions. It’s the goal of missions because in missions we simply aim to bring the nations into the white-hot enjoyment of God’s glory. The goal of missions is the gladness of the peoples in the greatness of God. “The Lord reigns, let the earth rejoice; let the many coastlands be glad!” (Ps. 97:1). “Let the peoples praise you, O God; let all the peoples praise you! Let the nations be glad and sing for joy!” (Ps. 67:3–4).
But worship is also the fuel of missions. Passion for God in worship precedes the offer of God in preaching. You can’t commend what you don’t cherish. Missionaries will never call out, “Let the nations be glad!” if they cannot say from the heart, “I rejoice in the Lord. . . . I will be glad and exult in you, I will sing praise to your name, O Most High” (Pss. 104:34; 9:2). Missions begins and ends in worship.