Keller’s Formation: John Piper on C. S. Lewis and Jonathan Edwards

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Collin Hansen
One of my greatest hopes and writing the book Timothy Keller his spiritual and intellectual formation is to add to our understanding of Evan Jellicle. History In the second half of the 20th century into the early 21st century, Keller’s life spans and intersects with many of the most significant people, events and trends within Christianity during the last 75 years. The same can be said of John Piper, who along with Keller as a founding council member of the gospel coalition, Piper is nearly five years older than Keller. Between them they’ve studied in many of the most influential institutions of the postwar new evangelicalism, such as Wheaton College, fuller Theological Seminary, and Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary. They themselves have built several of the most influential institutions of the new Calvinism such as Bethlehem College and Seminary, desiring God and the gospel coalition not to mention their significant work, notably as pastors. They share something else significant in common both list Jonathan Edwards and CS Lewis among their top influences. And in this special season of gospel bound, we’re exploring in depth several key influences that appear in my book on Tim Keller. So I’m excited to talk with John Piper now about Edwards and Lewis. But I’m eager to learn about Evan Jellicle feminism and the reception to Piper’s own expansive writing and teaching. John, thank you for joining me again on gospel bound.

John Piper
It sounds intimidating.

Collin Hansen
I think I think you can handle it. Let’s start off with an easy one. Do you remember what it was like to read CS Lewis for the first time?

John Piper
No, but I know when it happened, but my memory is not good enough to know what it was quite like it was my freshman year in college. I’d never heard of CS Lewis, believe it or not. I mean, I didn’t. Most everybody I talked to says, Oh, I read the children’s books when I was little, well, I never heard of them. Until I was 18. And that was at Wheaton College. And at Wheaton College, he was a staple because the incarnation of of CS Lewis work there, right. Clyde Kilby was the American instantiation of CS Lewis. And he was my teacher, I was a little major and but that wasn’t the first his class was where I saw Louis in action, kind of. But it was in a Bible class my freshman year where we were assigned Mere Christianity. And all I recall is that when I was done, I wanted more. But that’s pretty, pretty vague. I think the general way to say it, from the wheaton experience was, Louis was, was part of my simply coming awake to the life of the mind. That’s what Wheaton was, for me. My theology wasn’t formed at Wheaton. It was formed later, but my mind was awakened, to see, to think, and to try to be rational, to be thoughtful, to be careful, to be precise, those kinds of things were coming alive. And Lewis was just a huge part of that.

Collin Hansen
I think, John, that many younger listeners would exactly be surprised that there was a time when actually neither Edwards nor Lewis was widely read among American evangelicals. You were 17 when Louis died? How would you explain or describe the growth in popularity for Louis that really does not show any signs of, of slowing, which, I mean, it’s remarkable for a historical figure that get it seems to only be increasing in interest and also at the same time relevance. Oh,

John Piper
well, not having done any sociological exploration to find out why it’s happening. I’ll speak out of my own experience, because I’m gonna guess it’s typical. Namely, I find in CS Lewis, I have have always found in CS Lewis, a unique combination that’s just not found anywhere else. I don’t know anybody else that I’ve read or met, who combines a, a poetic eye for the world, a love of great literature, a powerful imagination. That’s all on one side with what I would call just razor sharp logic. On the other side that prevents him from being snickered, snickered, that thrower snickered by any modern silliness, I mean, he just sees right through things. And so those two things together in fact, the the little paperback that I remember and I don’t even remember who wrote it, the title of captured me, romantic rationalist. That was it. I mean, I that’s what I wanted to be. That’s what I felt was inside of me. And then That’s why I think he’s He’s unique. He, he’s a radically careful thinker. And he’s got this wonderfully enticing imagination. And by that I don’t just mean that he can sync up interesting stories like the Narnia books, or the space trilogy. I mean, that he, when he writes, is concrete, and sealable testable, touchable. That’s what makes a good writer, right? He’s when he writes, you feel like you’re, you’re in touch with reality. And so those two things together those two spheres of intellectual and imaginary life, I think he embodies now. I’m just kind of assuming he’s a Christian. Right. Right. But but you add Christianity on that? I mean, really, Orthodox, historic Christianity, unapologetically. So. And that’s a very, very rare combination

Collin Hansen
of a feeling then that you’re previewing how you would respond to the same questions about Edwards. Do you remember what it was like reading Edwards for the first time?

John Piper
Yes, more so than the newest because it came later. And it was much more self conscious. In in my pursuits, I think probably like everybody else I didn’t know anything about it was until I was 22, except senators and in the hands of an angry God. And, and I assumed that was probably a pretty good sermon. I don’t know that I’d ever read it. But I’d heard about it. But when I got to Fuller, and was thrown into the hermeneutics class with Dan Fuller, I was introduced to Edwards. And the first thing I remember is this, I’m sitting in a class with about 80 students. And probably a third of those students were students from the School of Psychology, which had just been found that these students were not regularly sympathetic with Dan fuller. Fuller was a little bit of a bumbler. He was my favorite teacher, I loved him to death. He’s still alive, believe it or not, he’s 96 years old. out in California, I’ve been in touch with him a few times, recently, and and if I can help him to hear me, he remembers me, believe it or not. So I’m just, I’m just thrilled because I love the man to death. And he was what, what Kilbey was for Lois. Fuller was for Edwards. For me, he was the embodiment. And what he did was one day in class, a lady come, as a student raise their hand said, Why do we have to be so rational in this class? Don’t you know that people don’t get moved by reason? Dan Fuller, Dr. Fuller. And then he was quite upset. And I’m sitting there lovingness man, and ticked off at that attitude. And fuller hunters like this. He says, Well, I don’t see why we can’t be like Jonathan Edwards, who would be writing a philosophical treatise that would bend the minds of the great philosophers, and then break into a paragraph that would warm your grandmother’s heart. That’s the way he said it. Everything in me said, Okay, if there’s another one of those on the planet, I want, I want to know who that is. I was off to the library. And I think the first book I found there was the infer which God created the world. Actually, it was a little paper stapled together, and in the bookstore for 85 cents, I think. And I went and got that and read it. So it was the combination of religious affections, which is the name of one of his main books, and a profoundly rational approach to religion. He believed things ought to be reasonable. And he believed that if it doesn’t move your heart, you’re not saved.

Collin Hansen
You’ve often relayed Dan Fuller’s advice to pick one theologian to study your whole life. Maybe you’ve already answered this, but how did you pick Edwards?

John Piper
Probably the influence not just that he had on me, but hearing from others. That he was a man who was probably America’s greatest theologians. Biographer said that sort of thing in those days. And I just couldn’t believe that. I mean, he was just a New England pastor as far as I knew. And they’re talking like he’s in touch with European currents of thought, and he’s engaging with him. I level philosophy and he’s got a mind that it excels all other minds. And I just say, well, there must be something there. And the more I tasted what he wrote, the more profound the it shaped me. I mean, Louis can’t hold a candle, a candle to the impact Edwards had on me, theologically. Lewis had impacts on me, linguistically, intellectually, poetically. But Edwards showed me God. And that was more important to me than anything else. And the more I looked, the more I saw, and the more I loved and the more I wanted, and so it wasn’t hard to say, I’ll probably be with this man, the rest of my life and, and more or less, if you were looking at my iPad, I have Lagace on my iPad, I have all the works of Edwards, all the Yale’s books on my iPad, I know that the volumes of the sermons and discourses are all there. And I have them already just paying at any moment when I have an uncertainty and well, well, should I read tonight or I’m on an airplane, and I’m tired. I need a little bit of taste of God under my tongue. Where can I go? And I’ll, I’ll go to an assertion by Jonathan Edwards.

Collin Hansen
John, I often think of George Morrison his biography in 2004, as maybe the peak of the most recent interest in Edwards, who was writing those biographies back then that were showing you that you should be looking into Edwards more was that that? Was that Perry Miller?

John Piper
No, I’d never read Perry Miller of upair. Miller is the one who said he was the greatest theologian, and he’s quoted all the time. I didn’t read it because I heard you as an atheist. But what is that? Going to show me but Edwards but Winslow? Ola Winslow, I remember that name. I read three biographies of Andrews while I was in Germany. That’s the only one I can remember right now?

Collin Hansen
Well, I Well, the reason I’m asking is because what I’ve often found working on this book is that so much of the things that I’ve lived through, or that I’ve even written about or documented under your leadership, or others, they have they’ve happened earlier, at different periods of time, in blessed ways. And so I just wasn’t familiar with a lot of that interest in Edwards until really, your popularization happened to coincide with the publishing of the Yale works. And so I just wasn’t familiar with that earlier, earlier period. Now, I’d like to know a little bit more about about Edwards on the nature of true virtue. From what I can see in Tim Keller, that’s the most influential work of Edwards for him. You ranked at number four on Edwards writings for you. Just help us to understand what makes this work so edifying.

John Piper
Well, edifying, is that what I call it? Somebody described it as the most quintessentially logical book ever written or something like that. I mean, it is rarefied. It is not a book I would go to, for an airplane ride needing a taste of God under my tongue. Yeah. I mean, he, what in the world would it mean to say in that book, that benevolence towards being is the nature of true virtue? What in the world is happening? With that, I remember reading that book on a on a white swing in the in the outdoor patio in Barnesville, Georgia the summer before I left to go to Germany. And here’s, here’s what I remember. It’s having an effect on me. That was the first time I’d heard anybody unfold with care the distinction between the love of benevolence and the love of complacency. Complacency meaning, you find it lovely. You love what is lovely benevolence, you may you may love what is quite unlovely, but you have a goodwill toward it. And that difference made a huge difference for me. It helped me sort out lots of love language in in the Bible and how to talk about love carefully. So that was one thing. There was another thing in there where he said, and I’ve never heard anybody else say this. Until then, though I’m sure they have that. Justice will be done in the universe. Every single wrong will be punished. Either inhale or on the cross. I mean, what that did for me by way of saying justice reigns in this world, the nature of true virtue, at God’s being benevolent toward being, and yet being a god of infinite justice, who will set right, everything he has unjustly forgiven. That’s the danger of Romans 325. He put Christ forward to make him look righteous, because he passed over former sins, which made him look unrighteous. And now, you’ve got God being just inhale, God being just on the cross. So nobody’s seeing goes unpunished. So those are some of the takeaways some from the nature of true virtue? I mean, I read, you have to understand them. What are the distinct differences between me and Keller, I think, I don’t know if you even gonna ask this. But he’s a philosopher, he’s really got a brain that I don’t have. It really can think at a level of philosophical complexity and cultural understanding that poor little John Piper cannot do. So when I’m reading a book of Edwards, who’s got that same kind of mind. I’m just picking it up looking for little things that will help me I just want to live right? I just want to be a good husband, be a good be a good pastor and, and put as many pieces together as I can. So I’m sure I missed a lot in in the nature of Jouvert.

Collin Hansen
Well, the reason reason I’m asking is Edwards, of course, there’s so much that so many of us can get from him from the same treatise, and you might grab one thing, and Tim might grab something else over here, Tim’s main observation, and he would go back to Edwards a lot. And he’d go back to nature of true virtue a lot. But mainly, what he would do is go back to the basic idea that there are many things that we can love, but which costs somebody else a problem, but only through the nature of true virtue, can we love things only for their own sake, essentially, and free without any without any loss or any complication there? Just kind of a basic concept that he came back to repeatedly. And part of what I’m what I’m wondering about here is that you had the you had the advice to pick one theologian, Keller’s practice would suggest learning at least something from everyone. Now, I think your advice is probably more practical for most of us. To your earlier lonely

John Piper
something from everyone. That’s not a problem. learning, learning enough from everyone to be their conversation partner. That’s a problem.

Collin Hansen
Yeah, well, it is. It’s to your point, it’s hard to sound coherent. When you have so many different influences. Maybe that is Tim’s unique gifting. Would you caution pastors and other church elders against reading too widely?

John Piper
In general? Yes. But the the way I put it is, I would caution everybody against reading superficially, yeah. And most of us read slow enough that that equates with reading widely. Seriously, you if you go on the internet, or just look at any magazine, World Magazine, cruciate, a magazine, Krishna Century Magazine, charisma magazine, whatever magazine you want, you’re gonna see 20 books you haven’t read, you’re gonna feel behind the times, you’re gonna feel like you can’t be a good conversation partner for the latest pastors gathering. And you’re going to be intimidated, and you’re going to go out and do some skimming. And you’re going to become a parent, you’re not going to think deeply, and you’re not going to have a firm grasp on what you ought to know. So yeah, I’m, I know, I’m, I’m speaking defensively here, because I’m a slow reader, right, I have to justify my way. And yet, there may be enough truth in what I’m saying to caution some pastors that if you be if you become the way Dr. Fuller used to put it is, I have taught you guys how to read now. You can become the peer of anybody that you take the time to master, you don’t need me anymore. You can read the institute’s carefully enough to become a peer, with John Calvin not not equaling intellect, but knowing his ways of thinking enough, you can actually interact with him responsibly. You can’t do that with 10 people unless you’re a rarefied genius. And I think we need to do it. We need to know a few people. Well, especially our Bibles. Yeah,

Collin Hansen
yeah. But of all, and I think that’s a huge, I think maybe sometimes unspoken benefit to the work that you and Tim have done your whole So you’re immersed in the Bible because you’re preaching it every week, not just in the devotional life, but also in that in that study. And I think that makes a big difference. You know, you both of you left the academy to become pastors didn’t have to do that, but both chose to do that. Left me I didn’t explain very well, I’m gonna go back over the part, just for the listeners of Tim’s can when he takes away from the nature of true virtue is the distinction between common and true virtue. Common virtues love for family nation itself, they breed rivalry, because we put our families ahead of others pit nations against others, choose our self interest over others. But the kind of true virtue we see in revived Christians, when God becomes their ultimate good, it blesses everyone in there. So they have the highest love for God that blesses others, instead of making us choose between one or the other. Now, let’s dive into some Evan Jellicle feminism here, because I know this is a part of history that a lot of people don’t know. And that you have a lot of experience with. And I think even you, as you and I talked about this, we were surprised by some of the overlaps that you have here with Tim and his wife, Kathy. Tim McCarthy, of course, studied together at Gordon Conwell 72 to 75. And they encountered the beginning at that time of angelical. Feminism. And one of the things I talked about in the book is Tim, starting the magazine with some of his friends Table Talk, so that he could lock horns and criticize to his two of his professors for being heretical. Two of whom later moved to your alma mater, fuller are one of them, at least, and I can’t remember if both did, and one of them taught about feminism and the most popular course at Fuller again, this is after your time. Now, the Keller’s group close not only with RC Sproul, but also their Professor Elizabeth Elliott. A lot of people not remember that connection between them. And we know how she shaped what would later be called the complementarian roles of men and women in the church and home. I’m just wondering, John, if you could take us back to those early 1970s. And the emergence of these debates over the role of men and women among evangelicals,

John Piper
usually little irony of history, my most influential professor, and dearly beloved professor, Dan Fuller, is inegalitarian through and through. So it’s not as though I was indoctrinated at our center. In complementarianism, didn’t exist in those days. But my first serious dealing with it, I think, was the publication of Paul Jew, it’s man is male and female. And I was in Germany when that was published. And I read it as one of my professors that I admired and appreciated. And he said, flat out that first Timothy 213, was a misstep for Paul, a mistake. He just flat out called this verse about don’t permit a woman to teach or have authority of a man because and was created first, and the man was not deceived. But the woman that leftover from his rabbinic heritage, and he shouldn’t have said it. And I thought, well, he’s lost his job. And he didn’t. And that was, for me, the beginning of the end. I’m sure it was not the beginning. But it was for me the beginning of the end of Fuller’s faithfulness. And he went on to write the ordination of women. And then I got a job at Bethel College in those days now called Bessel. University. And the debates that went on there with Virginia Marlon caught coming in, for example, who called me obscene for my view, and Wayne Grudem was there for we overlapped for a couple of years and waiting I would talk and there emerged in our minds the need for re articulate responses to the kinds of things that were being being said.

Collin Hansen
I think it was, so God was again at Fuller of tell when you have an recall. I don’t recall. Okay. So Schoeller, David Schoeller, New Testament Professor went from Gordon Conwell to fuller taught an image alkyl feminism and he was the one that one of them they got into the arguments with at the time I think a lot of people just don’t. They don’t remember why something like CBM W was produced or I know you’ve talked to me a number of times in the past about people just not recalling what that period was, was like recognizing that there was not an advocacy for complementarianism Some despite it being the historic biblical view,

John Piper
Right. That if so assumed that you didn’t feel like you needed exegetical arguments or conferences or institutions to mount their forces to defend, but it towards the end of the 80s, the ETS stacked the deck at one particular meeting and had about five presenters from an egalitarian viewpoint. And I think Wayne Grudem was the only alternative. And that pushed Wayne over the edge to say we need to do something a little more concerted. And, and so the CBM W, through several years came into being that way Council of biblical manhood or womanhood, which I was part of at the beginning,

Collin Hansen
Right. I don’t know how many people associate Tim and Kathy with those movements, but it’s a huge aspect of their lives, not only because of Kathy making the decision not to pursue ordination, which she had thought that she would do early on, but because of their connection to Elizabeth Elliott. And it’s interesting the way different people’s history will affect their experience and their articulation. Because what seemed to work for them with Elizabeth Elliott was ultimately the radical submission to Scripture. What scripture says goes, God gets to correct us, we don’t get to correct God. And what was interesting when I went back through the Gordon Conwell student newspapers, I think you’ll be interested in this one of them was shoulder was arguing that opposing women’s ordination was the same as segregation, opposing racial integration. It was the same thing was early 1970s. And they talked to one of the students she had recently graduated with serving as a pastor. And they and it was a it was kind of an aggressive interview, students said, how do you reconcile your views with Paul? And she said, I’m not aware that I’m supposed to reconcile any of my views with Paul. So there were those same schools of thought of Paul was just wrong, or shoulders view was more of the accommodationist. Yes, the Bible is wrong in places because it was written by humans, though it is still divinely inspired. And we need to pursue the hermeneutic of liberation, essentially, in their eyes. I don’t know how many people recall, that was all there in the 1970s.

John Piper
Yeah, the way the way it was put to me. From Paul Jewett was you’re fighting a, a backwater movement. Today, they’d say, you’re on the wrong side of history, right? And you will wake up someday, or your sons and grandsons will and say, your position is as unthinkable as the support for slavery. That that was that was the argument.

Collin Hansen
Which of course, we see that being extended to homosexuality in our own day. And who knows, who knows what else? I want to ask about something, you know, you and you and Tim, both, you tend to produce a diverse and even eclectic set of followers. And I might even say that that’s similar to Edwards and Lewis of what we’ve been talking about here. Now, someone might really like one aspect of your writing, but not another. It might want one of your titles, but not another one sermon, but not another. How do you feel about that? Is that okay? Or, or do you think, look, this is all connected in a way that never can be or should be separated from each other?

John Piper
Well, I could, I could look at it by saying, I’m thrilled that anybody’s affected by anything, right? Or I could look at it and say, I wish everybody who was thrilled was still with everything. I choose the former because I think the ladders ridiculously unrealistic for any human being. So you know, I think early on God made it clear to me you are not going to be a macro organizer unifier, Allah, Harold John can guide type. You’re not going to be a guy who’s just kind of pulling together all kinds of things. Here’s a little anecdote to illustrate that CJ MAHANEY and I were having lunch one time at Applebee’s, way, way back and I had just come back from Mars Hill, right. Where I had done a seminar for Mark Driscoll trying my best to to make him palatable. And I said to CJ, here heard of Mark Driscoll and Mrs. Hill had no ba he’d never heard of you either. That’s Here’s, here’s a charismatic church planting reform movement on the East Coast. And a charismatic the open church planting reform movement on the West Coast. You guys never heard of each other. Do you think CJ that I should try to, to manage those streams into a river? He said, Oh, absolutely. And I thought, I don’t I don’t think I’m, I’m called to do that at all. If that’s going to help somebody else gonna do it. So my mindset has always been, I dropped my Pebble in in water. And if if God wants to blow on the ripples, and if something big happen, he will. But all I’m called to do is say what I see in the Bible and let the chips fall where they will. And my guess is that enables people to pick and choose what parts of what I

Collin Hansen
write they they like, yeah, I can get with your president of Fuller, right. He was the

John Piper
president before I got over for you to Hubbard was the process that you’re right as part of the founding? Yeah,

Collin Hansen
you’re for it. You’ve read over that transition, okay. Because then of course, he did go to Gordon Conwell, and was the President

John Piper
talking gay was, was the instrument God used to call me out of pre med into ministerial rare suits.

Collin Hansen
Yeah, it’s amazing. The now during that time period, they’re late 60s 1970s. I’m just kind of going off the cuff here. Were you influenced by other British evangelicalism beyond? Beyond Louis? Yeah,

John Piper
I can remember sitting in my senior dormitory room, which was a single room with the little yellow copy of men made new by John Stott, on Romans 57567 and eight. I was absolutely blown away by it. I had heard him speak at Urbana 67. And he did I think he did First Timothy, expository messages in the morning. And I was riveted. And so wanted to know more about this guy. And I read that, you know, he apologized later for that book by saying it didn’t have enough windows, meaning illustrations, and I just shook my head and said, Don’t add any windows. This house is so full of treasures in any windows. But start start was significant. Packer was just coming into his own I think he visited. He came to Wheaton once and I remember he was asked what you remember, he was asked in a big forum. Do you think there’s any command to to pray for people to be saved? Now that just I mean, this person must have been out of touch because I would have gone immediately to Romans 10. Paul prays for his kinsmen that they would be saved. But But Packer paused in his slow way. And he said, Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. He’s dead. I thought. I got to study the Lord’s Prayer. That really is a prayer that his name would be hallowed in people’s hearts. And so anyway, jab hacker was another one.

Collin Hansen
Lloyd Jones, where did Lloyd Jones come in? Lloyd Jones came

John Piper
in. When George Verwer stood up at Urbana 67 held up the two volumes of the Sermon on the Mount, and in his inimitable way, said, these are the most important books that have ever been written in the 20s. Okay, in the summer of 68, between my graduation from college and seminary, I read, I read those hold two volumes. While I was working as a surveyor in Wheaton, waiting to go off to seminary, and I remember feeling, wow, if I could handle the scriptures like that and see what he sees. So that was another. He was another big influence. Yeah.

Collin Hansen
Yeah, from from Tim’s experience, the American evangelical movement had not really come into his intellectual own. When he was in seminary. I think in part it was, there had been so many of those battles. Battles for the Bible was that era, of course, which Fuller was was so prominent, but of course, the earlier fundamentalist model and modernist debates. And so there was a sense in which the British evangelicalism, were providing a lot of that ballast at the time of bringing together this, this gospel spirit with this intellectual heft. That just was not not available, broadly speaking, compared to our day, at least something to Give thanks.

John Piper
Here’s an anecdote to show that that what was happening there, I mean, fuller sort of itself as the birth of the rectification of that problem of, of a fundamentalism that had a hostile attitude towards culture rather than engaging one, and that lack the intellectual firepower to do serious academic work. And then we’re going to fix that. And so George lad, said to me one time, he said, When I came here, all they did was find a pastor in New England because they desperately needed somebody who had a doctorate. And I had one from Harvard. Today, no, this is, this is now when I’m there. And so he had been there for, what, 20 years or so I’m not sure how long it was. He said, today, we scoured the world to find the best scholar, and they called Ralph Martin from England. Well, that did not go over well with me. That did not sit well with me. I remember hearing him say that say, I think I think something’s out of whack here. Because I didn’t hear anything say about Orthodoxy or prayer or devotion, or love for Jesus, just front rank, scholar. And you know, lad COULD BE ON CLOUD NINE or devastated when his book was reviewed. Negatively his HIS KINGDOM OF GOD book, it devastated, absolutely, probably turned down the hall. And when his New Testament theology sold like crazy, through Erdman, he walked down the hall waving a $9,000 royalty check, saying, hit it, selling it selling. I mean, his mama, I don’t know, I may be kidding myself. Colin, but I’ve written a lot of books. And frankly, if they didn’t sell anything, I don’t think my ego or my, my reason for being would stop. I mean, I love my church, I love my family. I love what I’m doing now. Because to me to see the glory and to say the glory is wonderful. And if it sells a lot of books, that’s fine. If it doesn’t, that’s God’s business.

Collin Hansen
I think that’s actually the only way you can write as much as you do. Because it’s just the level of work that’s required to do it’s a labor of love, no doubt about it. So Well, John, I wish I could go all day just asking for these reminisces, but hopefully, it’ll give people a taste of of those years and what it was like to live in a time when you hadn’t heard of CS Lewis or heard of this obscure pastor in New England with that sermon. And I think it also gives us a chance, John, to just say, thank you, thank you for helping create the world that I know that I’ve grown up in and grow up in my faith and, and you’ve played such a huge role in that. And I hope people will see that as well in the book on on Tim Keller. Thanks, John. Yeah,

John Piper
I’m sure they will. Thank you for writing it. And that’s the way I’m sure Tim and I feel we’re standing on these guys shoulders, right. This little, little crickets chirping away. And the swan has become silent.

Collin Hansen
Well, that’s that’s that’s what that’s what I’m hoping people get not only from this interview, but from the book is this sense of, of, there’s almost a child childlike enthusiasm, of being able to point to that, I mean, when you’re talking John, about what seat you were sitting in, when you read a certain book, or which conference, it was, somebody stood up and waved that book. I hope that I mean, I know you’ve done that with so many of us and Tim has as well. And those moments are, are life changing. So if nothing else, people are inspired out there to give their lives to, to reading and pondering great things and then putting them into action through faithful living than we would accomplish something.

John Piper
It you know that the note I would want to end on Colin is, even though we’ve spent all of our time talking about the influence of men on men, I don’t know where I’d be if Dan fuller hadn’t pushed my nose eight classes into the text and made me a Bible guy through and through. And the reason I say that is because Louis went off the rails on three or four important issues. And I was not knocked off the rails. He’s one of my heroes, and I think he’s wonky on inerrancy. And his understanding of the freedom of the will is not Calvinistic. And so is Edwards. I’m not a post millennialist And I think it’s got some bad trajectories in it. And he baptize babies and I mean, isn’t it amazing that we can have these these heroes and yet, these be so different in some ways, and I attribute that to the fact. And this is what I wouldn’t want pastors to be the Bible man, Bible men, and then sort everything out from there.

Collin Hansen
Well, that’s. So the kind of dominant perspective I got from the book actually came in a video that you and Tim had done with Don, and you were talking about your influences. And one of the things that Tim said is our influence over like rings on a tree is keep expanding. And that helped me to understand Tim because the core was his conversion. And from there, it was immediately learning how to do inductive Bible study, essentially, from Barbara Boyd, and InterVarsity. And from there, everything else makes sense as an outgrowth of that love for Christ that comes to conversion and a love for God’s word. It all starts there. You don’t ever move on to something else. You don’t say, that’s great, but now I’m going to get into the good stuff with Edwards. That’s good. I’m gonna get the good stuff for the Louis it’s always testing it by the word. And like I said, as well. It’s also the rootedness of doing that week after week. I mean, when when Tim’s is first nine years, he’s preaching 1500 sermons, three sermons a week. That does something, something good to a person. And you really can’t make up for that. No matter how many good books you would read. There’s only one truly good book. It’s good. Well, thanks, John. And it’s always fun to talk with you.

John Piper
Thanks, Collin.