John Piper on the Jab

Welcome once again to the conversations that matter podcast. There's a article that just was released on the 19th of October called a reason to be vaccinated freedom, a reason to be vaccinated freedom by John Piper.

Now I am no fool. I hope at least I realized that talking about this subject easily puts you in the crosshairs of the folks who at YouTube who do not want this information that I might may likely share getting out.

So I'm going to be very careful in the language I use as I try to share this with you.

Some people have asked me why aren't you on rumble or why aren't you on gab or somewhere. The fact is I actually am on rumble so you can go to rumble and watch these videos.

They're not monetized on rumble. The gab format,

I did look into that a while ago and it just did not have the bandwidth that was necessary for some of my lengthier videos.

So I'm not on gab at this point, but I do very much appreciate gab's dedication to free speech.

And I will say this, anything I mentioned, any links, any information, I will be posting it on gab and you can go to my gab page and you can find it.

It's not going to be on Facebook. It's not going to be on YouTube today just because of some of the censorship that I've incurred from those platforms, especially

YouTube. And so I'm going to be very careful with how I go through this. I may even switch out some words as I go through the article, but I'm not going to obviously change the meaning at all, but just words that could trigger the algorithms.

But I'll give you a substitute that means pretty much the same thing. So I wanted to say that. Before I read it though,

I also wanted to say this about the episode yesterday on naming names Karen Swallow Pryor, Carl Truman.

Some people reached out to me and said, hey, well, hold on a minute. Carl Truman does name names. And apparently there's an author at the

Gospel Coalition that he had called out in an article he wrote against critical race theory,

Jamar Tisby. And then I think he had called out Ed Litton, someone told me, I haven't verified all that.

These are just things people are telling me, which to which I say, that's great. I'm glad to hear that. I want to say this though,

Jamar Tisby, I'm not sure he's quite part of the guild anymore, the evangelical elite guild.

There is a guild. And this is one of the things, I'm not going to say I'm the biggest expert on the subject, but I have been, you know,

I've been to masters, I've been to Southeastern, I've been to Liberty. I've kind of, I've seen how it works at different institutions and more broadly in evangelicalism.

And there definitely is a guild. And once you start rocking the ship too much, you're in danger of hurting yourself with invitations to conferences, book deals, that kind of thing.

And really it's not even that, honestly, that's not the thing that actually drives us. It's more respect. It's more what others think of you.

So Jamar Tisby, I'm going to say this, I don't think he's actually a part of the guild anymore. When he went off with Kendi, when we started working with him,

Jamar Tisby has been kind of leaving the guild and it's become a little bit more acceptable for some people to go after him.

There are some acceptable names. I would say Russell Moore has become more of an acceptable name.

Now look, there's people at like Southeastern who will never go after Russell Moore, or at least I should say,

I shouldn't say never, but it's unlikely. And because they're way far out there, that's like the heart in my mind of the evangelical social justice stuff that that's where it's cranking out of, at least in the

SBC. So they may not, but it has become much more acceptable.

Al Mohler, I've been told this by people, he'll call out Russell Moore in private meetings.

He doesn't mind doing that. I'm trying to think. I don't know who else is called. I know there are more people who have called out

Russell Moore, but Beth Moore is another one. To some extent, you can kind of get away.

And look, Russell Moore left the SBC. Beth Moore left the SBC. I don't even know. I'm assuming her older books are at Lifeway, but her affiliation, they're purposely leaving organizations and they're kind of, now

Russell Moore is still in the guild. He's at Christianity Today, but we're seeing a fracturing happening right now.

And you have, there's two sides and the dust hasn't settled. We don't know where everyone's going to wind up, what side they're going to be on.

And so it's kind of a, it's a hard situation for people who don't want to hurt their own careers, especially, who is it safe to go after?

I think for some, Russell Moore is kind of safe to go after. But Jamar Tisby is so far radical out there.

I think to some extent you can go after him. I think Ed Litton, to an extent, you can somewhat go after him, at least on the plagiarism stuff, because it's not directly related to the social justice thing.

And you have to be careful with it. But I think Al Moeller demonstrated this in his chapel on it, where he doesn't really go after Litton, but he goes after Litton, right?

So there are some names on the fringes that you can start to test the waters and kind of go after.

But there's some names in the guild that you just, you can't, you cannot say those names.

And Karen Swallow Pryor, I think is kind of one of those. You're not allowed to go after her. If you want to be in good standing in the evangelical elite circles, you can't go after her.

She has too much influence in those circles and it just, it wouldn't be wise. And so really what

I was getting at was, you have someone like Carl Truman, a lot of people look at him and say, hold on, he's against CRT.

He's against the social justice stuff. Now, some people have argued with me and say, no, he endorses Amy Byrd. He endorses, he's soft on complementarianism and he's, you know, has a little bit of a pro

LGBT. I don't know. I don't know. I haven't looked into all that. But all I know is what

I saw, which is here's, it just literally, it landed on the same day on my desk,

Karen Swallow Pryor writing this article, this, like the epitome of an evangelical elitist article, siding with the secular elites against the working class people in her own organization in the, well, in the

SBC and in evangelicalism more broadly. And just the epitome, she says,

I don't have a problem, you know, getting a, working in secular environments, but all these people somehow they're pretending to, they don't really, it's cosplay

Christianity. I mean, it's so dripping with this elitism. And then Carl Truman writes an article specifically against Christian elites.

And so many of his words sum up what Karen Swallow Pryor did. But yet at the same time, he is at Southeastern, you know, around the same season, he's at Southeastern, the heart of evangelical social justice,

Christianity, endorsing her on a certain level, telling 18 year olds, 19 year olds, Hey, go take some

Karen Swallow Pryor classes without any caveat, without any warning. And it's not like Karen Swallow Pryor is someone who is unknown.

She's very known. And she's probably been more, I'd say with the exception of perhaps

Russell Moore's, Russell Moore and Beth Moore. She's probably had more press against her as far as bloggers who follow this kind of thing than anyone else.

And I mean, she even, I think it probably still says the notorious Karen Swallow Pryor, right? She's very, or notorious

KSP, I guess, her nickname. She's kind of proud of it, how she's ruffled feathers in conservative circles.

So it's not like it's an unknown thing. I think Carl Truman's a smart guy. So this isn't about, I'm not trying to nail

Carl Truman to the wall or anything like that. Literally, there's only one reason that I bring any of that up. And it's just to let you all know that to basically encourage people like him and encourage others who think their instincts are in the right place, that you can correctly diagnose the problem.

It's like a doctor who comes in and they correctly diagnose the problem, but they have a very hard time giving you the remedy or telling you what's causing it, where it's actually coming from, what you could do to prevent it.

They can tell you what the disease is, but prevention, not so much. And that's one of the issues that I see.

And it's not just Carl Truman. There's a lot of names in my head right now I could give you of people that I don't want to cast too much shade on them or anything, because I really do.

I have hope for them. I really think that their hearts are in the right... Well, I should say,

I don't know about their hearts necessarily in every circumstance, but I can at least say they can correctly see what's going on.

Their head is in the right place as far as understanding, and they want to take somewhat of a stand, but they're hampered because they're in the guild.

That's all I got. They're in the guild. It's very hard to take those chances. You try to find...

I've seen it before. Even in some of the books that are coming out, and there are starting to be some books coming out on this.

I think this is one of the things that separates the book. I just wrote Christianity and Social Justice, Religions and Conflict.

You can actually go to Christianityandsocialjustice .com if you want to copy. But my book is different in that I do name all the names.

I'm like, look, the sheep need to know. Here are the people that are saying this. Here's what they're saying, and they're in your circles.

That's not the whole reason for the book, but that's in the book. A lot of the other books coming out, some of them you can tell they're grasping at straws sometimes to find names that are kind of on the fringes or outside the guild or someone you don't really know much about, haven't heard of before, so they can go after that person so that they're not going after someone really who's part of the same circle as they run in.

The thing is, we have the most ability to change things in our own backyard, sweeping our own front porches.

If you're at an evangelical institution, it seems like if you work there, that's the last place you're allowed to ruffle any feathers.

But that's the place you have the most influence. That's where you actually can call attention to what's going on.

That's where you can submit complaints. That's where you can put personal pressure on and confront people for error that they're teaching.

Sadly, there's even great men, men I respect in many aspects, who they have such a respect for their institution or the guild that they're a part of that they just have a very hard time going after anyone who would run in the same circles.

I get it. It's uncomfortable to some extent, but some people are just ...

Academics especially can be obsessed with their own ... I don't want to get too far into this because I'm not even talking necessarily ...

I want people to know I'm not necessarily talking about Carl Truman in this. I'm just saying it's a tendency

I've noticed is academics tend to be insecure people and they rely on others praising them or being at least okay with them for landing positions and obtaining honor and chairs and all the bells and ribbons and all of that.

It's the chief seats. It's the chief seats thing. What we need to do, and the reason

I bring up what I did in the last episode is we got to encourage these people. We got to encourage them to fight.

We have to put some pressure on them. Pressure from even this podcast does make a difference. I know that from even private channels, people reaching out.

Let me give you an illustration that's not even this podcast. Russell Moore. Why is it acceptable to go after Russell Moore now?

Or Beth Moore? Why? Because there was so much pressure put on those in academic institutions to say something that eventually the coast was clear.

They had been so damaged, their reputations or I should, well, really the material that they put out, which is connected to their reputation has been so critiqued and so damaged that it became safe.

The coast was clear for people who didn't want to accept the risk. They can now, someone else accepted the risk for them so they can kind of venture out and start saying those things.

That's how I've seen it work. I know because there's even people I've talked to years ago who have admitted to me, oh yeah, this person's a problem.

This person's a problem. That person's a problem. But then when it comes time to actually say something, silence. I still remember.

I don't know. We're going to get to the article from John Piper, but I still remember a few years ago.

It was 2019, January 2019. Talking about two and a half years ago, more than that.

I was at the pre -conference for G3, Social Justice and the Gospel Conference. It was a one -day thing.

I remember sitting there and there was a bunch of men on a stage. Many men, in fact, all of them,

I think I respect to a certain extent and I'm grateful for their ministries. I remember this was kind of a little early in this whole thing.

It shouldn't have been, but it was. Michael O 'Fallon's sitting on the stage and he's the president of Sovereign Nations for those who don't know.

He starts asking some questions. You can tell he's kind of prodding everyone on that stage to say certain things.

Then it was Tom Buck, I think I remember, just blurts out, Russell Moore's a political operative and the audience.

I was in the audience, so I'll tell you what happened. Half the audience was finally, finally someone said it.

I remember Judd Saul was in the audience and he started shouting out things like call out and he started saying other names.

I'm trying to remember what names he was saying now. Call out, I don't remember who it was exactly.

I think Tim Keller. I think he was saying call out Tim Keller and Phil Johnson was sitting right in front of us.

Phil Johnson kind of turned around and was like, who's this guy who's saying call out Tim Keller behind us?

You could tell the whole circle around Judd, people were kind of like looking, kind of like there was this uneasiness.

It was in the air. You could cut it with a knife. When Tom Buck said, Russell Moore's a political operative, half the audience was finally, they were relieved.

They started to clap. The other half was mortified and shocked. I remember that.

I remember that because it stood out to me and it showed me, I said, this is where we're at and you have these people.

Think about that. Social justice and the gospel conference, most of the people there were there because they were probably, at least in some ways, they were on board with what was being said.

They would have been in agreement, but they didn't apply it to Russell Moore. Half of them didn't realize

Russell Moore, he's part of this. Obviously he's part of this. We know that now. I knew that then. Many of us knew that then, but to say that name, it showed that half the people who were probably on board didn't know.

That's the reason I do some of what I do that gets people upset sometimes.

It's because there needs to be an accounting. For the sheep, they need to know some of these people that they listen to, that they may read articles from, they get advice from.

They listen to what they say about the Bible. What Russell Moore says about the Bible is atrocious at times, but they listen to it.

They listen to false teaching at times. Sometimes they don't. They're not listening to every article. They're not listening to every podcast or reading every article.

They don't know that someone's who they are sometimes, and they need to. There's also something to be said for trying to encourage those who do have the platforms to actually say what they need to say and to care about the sheep more than they do their own reputation.

That's all I have to say. That's why I sometimes get into the waters that I did in the last podcast. I know some people were a little defensive, and I understand that.

Again, nothing personal against Karl Truman. Go read Karl Truman books. That's totally fine. In fact,

I may even read his new book, The Rise of the Modern Self. I don't know if I will or not. My reading habits are a different topic.

I'm totally fine with all that. My only thing is encourage these men. We got to encourage these guys to come out and start applying what they have so rightly diagnosed.

They need to apply it in the situations in which it would be the most helpful. There you go. That's all I have to say about that.

Let's get to this article. This is John Piper, October 19th, a reason to be vaccinated, freedom.

It was funny. I said, I'll try to love my neighbor by defending their liberty and by telling the truth.

Now we're seeing, I guess there's liberty and being, and we're going to use a word here, probably say jab, if that's okay, a reason to be jabbed, freedom.

We're combining the two. Let's read this. My aim, let's see, how long is this article? Not that long.

My aim in this article is to encourage Christians to be jabbed. If they can do so with a good conscience and judicious medical warrant.

The people I have, now stop there, right? This is, you know, why do this?

You could sidestep it, right? You could just say, you know what, I don't know enough about that. Or you could say, it's just something

I don't want to get into, but he purposely getting into this. It just means that there's a priority there.

This is important. We're about to find out why it's important to John Piper that people get jabbed.

The people I have, especially in view are those who are not jabbed because of fear of being out of step with people they respect and in step with people they don't admire.

My message to them is simple. You are free. You know, I'd like to say that too, to people in the guild, the evangelical guild, you know,

Hey, you are free. You don't have to withhold, you know, naming the names of people like Karen Swallow Pryor.

You can say their name, you know, you can call out Matt Mullins and Walter Strickland and all the other folks at Southeastern, you know, why not?

You don't have to go there and, you know, anyway, I just, I'd like to say the same thing.

But anyway, it's interesting how this logic is so often, and I see it often applied to working class evangelicals who it's this sort of assumption that like they're, they're constrained because while they're living among these deplorables and you know, you don't have to play by the rules of the deplorables, but you don't see it hardly ever the other way.

And it's the other way, you know, that most often, I'm not saying there's not peer pressure in, you know, among the evangelical working class people, but the peer pressure is about 10 times greater.

I know this because I've been in those circles in academic institutions and in the guilt.

It just is. But you don't see that logic applied there. John Piper continues. So I am not talking directly to everybody.

If the shoe fits, put it on, check your conscience, consult your doctor and go get jabbed. I don't know.

I'm pretty sure he's, the emphasis is on the go get jabbed. It's, it's, yeah.

If it doesn't go tearfully and cheerfully on, what if I have to say this? What if your doctor is against it?

There are some doctors who are. What if, what if your conscience is against it?

I guess he would say that don't do it, but then, but then his whole sentence is and go get jabbed. So he's assuming,

I guess, and more often than not that, you know, your conscience and your doctor are hopefully going to be on the same page on this.

If it doesn't go tearfully and cheerfully on your way, tearfully, because 4 .5 million people have died from COVID and cheerfully because Christ makes it miraculously possible to love people by being sorrowful, yet always rejoicing.

Okay. I, I, that's, I'm, I'm okay. I don't know. I don't know really what, what to make of that.

I, that, I guess it's important to realize what's happened and I mean, there have been people who have died and I mean,

I honestly, I'll be just honest with you guys. What I get sad about is I do get sad from people who have died from this, but I get more sad at the needless deaths.

The deaths that took place because the protocols in the medical facilities around this country are compromised and it's from the top and there are proven treatments that are working and they are not being tried.

And instead, unproven treatments and treatments that can even exacerbate the situation or don't treat the root cause are what are being used.

That makes me upset. That and, and it's, I have family members who have, and friends who have gone through some of this and it's needless.

It's that's what makes me angry to, to think that there are people who they didn't have to die and they did because of a, they were trusting in a medical facility that was not doing its, its due diligence to actually help the people that it was supposed to serve.

So John Piper doesn't talk about that, but that's something that should really grieve us. Instead, it seems like there is somewhat, and I'll just say it, it's a naivete that he has regarding the medical establishment and where much of, much of the medical establishment is getting its directions from.

What fuels the cooking fire? And I'm talking about geopolitical things, by the way, as far as where, where these, these procedures are coming from.

Before I get to the biblical argument for radical freedom, which, you know, this is a reform guy.

I don't think you're supposed to say that word. Consider a few statistics that fuel the fire over which this article was cooked.

Nearly all, and you know what, I'm going to say a different word. I'm just going to say the virus, okay.

Nearly all the virus deaths in the U .S. are now in people who weren't, weren't jabbed.

I'm catching myself from May. Infections in fully jabbed people accounted for fewer than, okay.

So he's going through the stats from the Associated Press. And we've, we've gone through some of this before.

Here in Indiana, they saw a certain, almost 4 ,000 cases or deaths,

I should say, between January and September. And most of them were from people that didn't have the jab,

Montana, Kentucky, Pennsylvania. So all these statistics that saying basically, look, you're much better off if you, if you actually get the, get the jab.

And so it's, you're, you're safer that way. That's his whole argument. When people respond to this increasingly clear reality by pointing to untrustworthy, this is the thing.

This is why, you know, he's in, it's not increasingly clear. It's actually increasingly unclear or increase.

What's increasingly clear is that you're more likely to get the variant. You're more likely, or at least you're more likely to die from the variant and, and, and get it and, and trans certainly transmit it.

You're more contagious if you got the jab and then you get the variant. What's becoming more clear is that this doesn't seem to make a huge amount of difference because you have to get so many boosters to keep it up.

What's also becoming clear is there are side effects that are starting to show up that are very troubling and these aren't talked about.

And this is the problem I have, you know, could it be that you're not going to get the, you know, the original strain?

If you get the, the, the jab, yeah, it could be that you're less likely to get the original strain, but there's a lot of risk factor, risk factors that you need to think about.

You need to think about where, where you are as far as your health, your age, your preexisting conditions, all those kinds of things that factors into it.

The potential side effects need to factor into it. And I'll talk a little bit about that in some cryptic language here at the end.

You need to at least look at that. You need to look at the information that's coming from smaller studies and just the numbers reported, especially in other countries that seem to indicate the greater, how the variant is affecting.

It seems like to some extent people who got the jab in greater numbers and including deaths.

So it's more complicated. And then of course, overall that he's talking about freedom here in Australia, you can't go to church unless you get what three boosters in Canada.

I mean, the restrictions that are coming down because of this are just insane.

And that needs to be factored into this as well. It's like there's tunnel vision Piper in among other elites in even

Christianity, but secular elites included are just tunnel vision there. They're only accepting.

They're not creating a paradigm that makes sense of all the information out there. They're only accepting the numbers that seem to help their case.

And oftentimes these are compromised or these numbers are the samples they're using are not the right samples they should be using.

And I know this from people that work in the medical community, the reports of deaths and the reports of deaths that are attributed to this.

For instance, I'll just say this. I'm trying to be so careful, but I've had multiple people in the medical community telling me, listen, when someone dies or when there are complications as a result of the jab, it is often attributed to not the jab, but the virus instead.

I don't even it's hard to even know kind of what numbers to trust. And so all of that needs to be considered.

And that's all I've been trying to say about this. But when people respond to this increasingly clear reality, it's not clear by pointing to untrustworthy and disreputable government and medical leaders,

I respond, that's a non sequitur. The team, really? I don't know. Again, gain of function research,

Fauci, you know, I don't I don't think so. And, you know, he's been all over the map on masks and you can see, you know, where his wife works and you can see the corruption.

It's I don't think so. I don't think it's most of the people in the medical community are following orders that are from the people above them, above them, above them.

There is a hierarchy here. And if the people at the top are a bunch of corrupt individuals, that's kind of relevant.

The team called the jab just made a first. Let's see. The team called jab just made a first down, even if monkeys are holding the chains for friends around the world.

We don't know American football. That means a win. OK, so you're saying, oh, Piper. OK, let's so let's think about Christian freedom.

Apostle Peter said, I'm very curious to see how in the world this relates. First, Peter to 15 through 17.

This is the will of God that by doing good, you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover up for evil, but living as slaves of God.

Honor everyone. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the emperor. Live as people who are free, free to do what?

Well, let's see if he explains it. Peter has just said, be subject for the Lord's sake to every human institution, whether to the emperor, a supreme or to governors.

So how can you be subject and be free at the same time? Peter's answer is that Christians are slaves of God.

In other words, when you submit to a human institution, you don't do it as a slave of that institution. You do it in freedom because you are slaves of God, not man.

God owns his people by creation and redemption. The apostle Paul makes this point. You are not your own for your bought with a price.

God bought you by the blood of Christ. He owns you. And if God owns you, no one else can.

You were bought with a price and do not become slaves of men. Christians are owned by no man, no society, no company, no clan, no family, no school, no military, no government, no political interest group.

God owns us and God alone rules us. We are not ruled by any man. We are free from all human ownership and rule.

When we submit, we do so for the sake, the Lord's sake, because he said to God's ownership of his people strips every decisive entitlement from human authority.

It turns every act of human compliance into worship. When we submit, we do so for the glory of our owner and master.

Life is radically Godward. I'd like to keep reading because I think he switches gears, though.

This seems ridiculous to me. And I'm going to tell you why, because if I'm hearing this right, what he's saying is that, essentially, you're free to follow, you can be following all the government's directives, all the government's orders, but you're still free because in an abstract sense,

I guess, you're not actually under them. You're under God and God's just asking you to follow them. So they don't really have control over you, even though you're following everything that they're asking you to do because God said to.

So it's kind of what it does is he's almost sounding like a libertarian here, which, you know,

Piper can't be. He's reformed. It just would be hard to and I mean libertarian, not necessarily in the political sense, like a libertine.

I'm saying like libertarian free will. He's almost sounding like a libertarian. But then he kind of gets to the cusp of that cliff and says, no,

God owns you. So the thing that is hard about this is that we do have obligations.

God created a world where there are hierarchies, there are institutions, and we do have places in them. We wear different hats.

So you're a part of a family. You're part of a community. You are part of a country, a nation.

There's all kinds of identities that you have, a region. And there are obligations that are incumbent upon you because of where you live.

And those obligations are important. That's actually where the basis for things like honor, where they come from.

And duty and these kinds of things that used to be so important. They aren't as much anymore. And Piper's saying that, no, like none of these things, you're not owned by anyone.

Well, yeah, no, but you do have obligations. So there is an authority structure.

I mean, your labor's owned by your boss. I mean, so it's kind of, I think there's some overstating the case here.

So you do have some obligations and those obligations are by design. God created this world.

And this is the world that we have. But when you look at the text that he's using, though, let's actually go to it.

1 Peter 2, let me just pull it up in a different browser here. 1 Peter 2.

And I'm going to read from the New American Standard Version, 1995.

OK, let's start here. Submit yourselves for the Lord's sake to every human institution. Let's actually go before that, because really the constant text here is living stones.

Come to him as living stones which have been rejected by men, but his choice and precious in the sight of God.

You also are as living stones. You're like Jesus, are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God.

So this is what he's talking about. Let me skip ahead to verse 8. Let's see, no, verse 9. You are chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God's own possession, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

For you once were not a people, but now you are the people of God. You have not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

Beloved, I urge you as aliens and strangers to abstain from fleshly lusts. And this is, by the way, I think important.

Verse 11 and verse 12. I urge you as aliens and strangers to abstain from fleshly lusts, which wage war against the soul.

Keep your behavior excellent among the Gentiles, so that in the thing in which they slander you as evildoers, they may, because of your good deeds, as they observe them, glorify

God in the day of visitation. So this, I think, is going to bring into focus what kind of freedom are we talking about?

Submit yourselves for the Lord's sake to every human institution, whether the king or to the governors, sent by him for what?

For the punishment of evildoers and the praise of those who do right. Right according to who?

Evil according to who? Well, that's got to be evil according to God and right according to God. So that factors into this, too.

You can't just, it's not just, well, the government said so, so I got to do it. No, the government said so for what purpose?

There's a purpose there. If they're punishing the good people and forwarding evil and honoring, praising evil, then they're not, you don't have to, why would you have to submit to that?

They're outside of their scope, their purpose, their responsibility. For such is the will of God that by doing right, you may silence the ignorance of foolish men, act as free men, and do not use your freedom as a covering for evil, but use it as bond slaves of God.

Honor all people, love the brotherhood, fear God, honor the king. Now we could go on, but it talks about servants being submissive to masters, it's slaves and masters there.

That relationship, it's just, you've been called to this purpose. Verse 21, since Christ has suffered for you, leaving an example, do you follow in his steps?

Here's the thing about the freedom of this passage. If you're looking at the whole passage, the freedom is freedom from what?

Freedom from sin. That's the freedom he's talking about. Abstaining from fleshly lusts, which wage war against your soul.

Piper here, what he's doing is he's saying, let me see if I can find the passage here again.

He said, since Peter is basically saying to be subject to every human institution, and of course he leaves out the whole, you know, punishing evil part.

He's saying, since that's the context, then you do it in freedom because you are slaves of God.

So you can follow, I guess, what would be questionable orders from the top, at the very least, you can follow those orders because God has called you to do that.

And at the same time, somehow, that's also, it's totally fine because the reason is that that's freedom.

So even if you don't feel free because you're a slave, let's just be honest with what's happening. We have socialism forming right before our eyes, totalitarianism right before our eyes.

But Piper's saying, hold on, hold on, you're still free. You're still free. You could be in Maoist China. You could be free. I mean, you could be in Soviet Russia.

You're free. Nazi Germany. I guess you're just free. You're just free because, you know, the Lord said you're free in this abstract sense.

You're free. Actually, that freedom is a freedom from sin. It means that in the context of submitting even to government institutions, you don't have to sin.

That's the freedom you have. So it's not this passive, let's pacify everyone by making them feel like they're free when they really aren't free.

They don't feel like they're free and they know they're not free. But listen, the Bible says you're free. No. How about if we're going to take this passage seriously?

I'm actually embarrassed about this because, here's the thing, there's part of me still. I have a hard time.

I just can be honest with you guys. I read John Piper so much when I was younger, especially so many of his books, and I appreciated so many of the things in them.

And you can go back and look at the episodes I've done on John Piper. I've realized over time, it's taken me time to realize kind of what

I was buying into and this kind of hyper, this conscience that was, well, I won't go into all it now because I already did podcasts on it.

But to summarize, just a whole way of thinking that caused a prohibitive conscience is kind of a pietist strain that just was constantly making me self -focused.

Am I really glorifying God? This kind of thing. And there was an obsession there.

And it wasn't the greatest for me. And I realized that I still have some respect for John Piper, even though I think

I think he's wrong even on justification. I think he's gotten some things that are kind of wacky, this whole final justification versus initial justification and writing the dedication to to a book that basically contains a heretical idea and a refutation of Sola Gratia by Fuller, Daniel Fuller, who

Piper says influenced him, Daniel Fuller's book, you know, more than anything except the Bible.

So I something like that, but in the forward, but those things bother me. I get all that.

But at the same time, I'm still kind of like I still have some respect. He's an older guy. He's been preaching for so long.

And I and there's part of me that just wants to extend some grace here and say, maybe he's getting older.

Maybe that's what's going on. Maybe it's just things aren't as clear or something, because this, in my mind, is atrocious.

This is just read the passage and you're not going to come up with this. How in the world does this hermeneutic, what is he using?

How how can he be so good on some other passages? But then on this, it's just this is a mess. So I'll wrap this section up and then we'll we got to finish this.

But all that this to say, you're free from sin and the government's purpose in submitting to the government.

But what's the whole purpose of that? You're showing people that, look, we're not sinning against. We're not rebels in the sense that we're rebelling against the government that is punishing evil and promoting righteousness.

That's the purpose of the government. So if we're punished by the government for doing evil, that's a bad sign. That shames the name of Christ.

We have the freedom not to sin. We have the freedom not to do those things. That's the context. I don't understand how he doesn't get that.

OK, the sons are free. And during let's see, let me skim through some of this, because I took too long here.

OK, so he has a section here on Matthew 17 and talking about.

Taxes, the toll tax, and Jesus said, basically, let's pay it. So as not to cause an offense.

So Piper's whole point here is the king's sons are not obliged to pay taxes to institutions created by their father.

They are obliged to obey their father, not man. Therefore, they pay the tax. They do not. They do so to honor their father because he gave them the resources and command.

Peter learned the lesson. And now he says to Christians, live as people who are free. You are sons of God. You are slaves of God.

Sonship implies. Now, this is, I think, a unique situation also in the sense that Jesus keeps talking about the kingdom of God.

And this is that already not yet. The kingdom of God is really surrounded the ministry of Jesus.

It's that the influence of Jesus on this earth. And Jesus is saying we're as sons of the new kingdom.

We're not obligated. I don't think and it can't mean that Jesus is giving a for all time.

Christians, they don't really don't have to pay their taxes. But the only reason they really pay their taxes is not to pay for your firemen.

It's not to pay for your police. It's to pay for. It's basically just to to try to tell non -Christians that, hey, like,

I don't want to cause you offense. That's the whole purpose for it. No, it can't mean that because Jesus even this would be kind of contradicting himself when he holds up the image of Caesar and says to him, does this belong?

And you see the Old Testament, the purpose for even some of the taxes that were collected there, there's a there's a reason for them.

There's there are duties and obligations that are incumbent on someone when they're part of a community, when they're part of a culture, a region, a family, all these kinds of things.

And and so I don't I don't think that's Jesus can't be saying that he can't be saying, well, you know, there's no purpose for taxes at all.

We should never have taxes. On the contrary, we're supposed to pay taxes. Paul even says this. So the reason for it isn't just not causing offense.

I think that could be a reason. But I think there's a unique I think Jesus is making a larger point here about the two people who are

Jewish, especially in their and think they're, you know, they're part of this this land that's occupied by the

Romans. And Jesus is saying to them, there's something greater here. You're part of the kingdom of God. You're those who are are with me, who are my disciples.

We God owns all of this. This is he's making a larger point about the kingdom,

I think, in that passage. Piper's using that, too, though. But why is Piper using this to basically say, well, you know, you're still you're still free, even if you feel like you're not free in the

United States, you're still free to. And and I've said this in New York where I am right now.

I mean, people are escorted off their jobs, denied religious exemptions because they're refusing to do this.

And John Piper saying those people, you know, they maybe they should just do it because, well, they're still technically free.

It's a weird it's weird, guys. Liberation for man is not exaltation of self, but woe to us Christians if this radical freedom makes us cocky.

Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover up for evil. And the greatest evil is the pride of self exaltation.

Peter is clear about how God's ownership and fatherhood should affect his slave like son, like people.

I'm going to skip this. Let's just keep going here. Christians are lowly because we are under God's mighty hand. OK, so there's a lot of as I'm skimming through these paragraphs.

Basically, he's saying no one should boast, no one should be arrogant. And, you know, sort of raging against,

I guess, Christians who would. Be that way, I don't I don't know if the insinuation is that people who are against the jab are that way, it sounds like maybe

I don't know, I'm trying to think through why that's in this. Let's we're in the final stretch here.

Free, freed from the fear of man left or right. Of course, here we go. Left or right. Now we might.

It's the right wing. That's really right now, man, you know, our freedom is really being challenged by the right wing, isn't it?

No, I don't think so. Now, we might think that the point of this biblically reality, a bold, broken hearted

Christian freedom would be this. You don't have to be vaccinated, jabbed, sorry. You have to be jabbed when the government tells you to.

You are free. Live as people who are free. That's true, of course. If your father in heaven makes it clear to you by his word and wisdom and that his

OK, this is getting so mystical here. That his glory and your neighbor's good will be better served by not being jabbed, you are free to risk the virus for love's sake.

No Christian, you're free to go take that risk. No Christian is obliged to bow to unwarranted mandates.

But that's not my main point. My main point is this. So I have no words.

My main point is this. Don't be enslaved by fear of man. Don't be enslaved by fear of breaking ranks with ideological allies.

The old name of this is peer pressure. You are free. You have considered the risk of the virus.

You have considered this short and long term risk. OK, he goes through all this stuff. I don't think Piper's considered all this. You've pondered the likelihood and unlikelihood of conspiratorial conjectures.

Your conscience is increasingly clear. It says get jabbed. Can you hear the whisper? A soft, still voice.

But there is no, there is this niggling fear of looking left wing or progressive or democratic or compromised or woke.

So my message to such folks is this. The children are free. Each of us stands or falls.

OK, I'll let you know what I'm thinking. I got to get through this. Let's see. More verses on freedom, freedom, freedom.

I call you to something better for freedom. So all these verses that seem to be kind of taken out of context, the sons are free, tearfully, cheerfully free, therefore live as people are free.

OK, so we get to the point of this at the end. And the point seems to be that there's this insurmountable amount of peer pressure going on for people who are conservative, people who are against or at least more on the right, we'll say, who are against the mandates, against the the jab.

And Piper wants to go out there and say, listen, you guys, let me get a bunch of Bible verses together that show you don't have to listen to those people.

You don't have to to take that peer pressure. And and what I'll say is this, like a lot of things, Piper writes, it's very abstract and it's very.

It's kind of there's it's not very helpful, it's not very practical, it's.

It's intellectual, it's it, but it's not meat and potatoes. I'm need an answer as to whether I'm going to do this or not.

At the end, you're like, I still have no clue. Am I doing this? Am I not doing this? Like the only thing I know is the

Bible says I'm free and I guess I don't have to listen to peer pressure because of all these Bible verses that didn't really have much to do with peer pressure.

That's kind of what you get. Now, the effect of it is basically Piper's encouraging people and he says it to get the jab.

He wants people to get the jab, says you're risking yourself if you don't even do it. He is doesn't talk about the other risks, of course, but this is the signal that he's offering out there.

It's it really is against people like myself who would be skeptical about this and say, hold on,

I don't think I would do this. Or at the very least, if you are if you've had it before, so you've already have your natural immunity, if you are in a healthy demographic,

I wouldn't do it. He he is making clear what side he's on here.

But he kind of wants to have his cake and eat it because he has a little bit of language there. It kind of sort of against mandates to against.

Well, we shouldn't shouldn't have that. But at the same time, in Piper's scheme, it doesn't seem to really matter much what the government does.

And this is that this is my main concern with this. The government can be as tyrannical as possible, but it just has no effect.

It's just doesn't matter because in your God has declared you free, whatever that exactly means.

I'm saying the freedom that he's talking about. Most of these verses is freedom from sin. So there's there's a freedom that you have, so you might as well go ahead and do it.

But then at the same time, look, if your conscience, if there's this other thing going on in your head where your conscience prevents you and you've done the risk calculation, then, you know, that's fine.

You don't have to do it. And for someone of his stature who has as many followers as he does, what would be this is what

I think would be really helpful. Don't don't rip verses out of context. You don't have to go and try to find a bunch of verses to patch together to try to make an argument that doesn't seem to work.

Work. Admit what's going on. Number one, yes, we're losing freedom where this is a scary thing, whether no matter what you think about this, this treatment, no matter even if you are pro treatment, you should be horrified about what's happening, not just in our country, but across the

Western world. Canada, many parts of Europe, Australia, this should horrify you. And we shouldn't be straining at gnats and swallowing camels.

So let's acknowledge the elephant in the room and let's talk about it. So that's number one.

Number two, provide people comfort in this situation. Hey, God's still in control. He was in control in all sorts of bad situations.

We have a whole book in the Bible is full of stories like this. And we need to do our best to follow the commands of God in those situations.

We are free to do what? To follow him. The government can never tell us to sin. We're never going to be in that position.

So encourage people with that. It's not that you're free to get the vaccine because it doesn't really matter. Let's downplay that whole let's downplay government authority.

Let's downplay the importance of the vaccine, because the only thing that really matters is you're somehow free because God has you.

You only belong to God and God's told you to submit to the government. So that's not that's not comforting.

It's not accurate. It doesn't help. Just acknowledge what's actually happening out there in realville and then tell people, you know, this be honest with them.

Hey, this is this is where I come down on it. And it might be being honest with us. I mean, he's he's pro the jab, but this is where I come down on it.

But at least acknowledge where they're at and give them some some biblical direction. Talk about maybe really what he should have probably done if he was going to write a blog about this is talk about the

Adi Afra. And he mentions it in passing. But he's not talking about Romans 14 as much here.

And then I guess the only other thing I'd add is if you're going to talk about this, talk about all of it, talk about the side effects.

And here's what I'm going to do. And it's going to be posted on Gab today. I'm not even going to put the link in the info section. You're going to have to find my

Gab. Now, you can go to worldviewconversation .com. You can find my Gab profile. But I'm going to be posting some things, some links there for you to look at that really can hopefully are going to put the brakes on this for you.

Some of them. I'm going to tell you this. Some of the links, I couldn't even send it in a private Facebook chat message because the links are all blocked.

So I'm going to just put these out there and you can make an informed decision. There are some very frightening, very frightening things.

What what's happening with after getting this treatment, what's happening to blood, what's happening to spinal fluid?

We don't know what's going on exactly, but the possibilities are very frightening.

And so I would just caution you and you can go to Gab if you want to find out more. I can't talk about it more on this channel.

I'm already running the risk. All right. So I hope that was helpful for you. God bless. More coming later this week.

And look forward to, by the way, seeing some of you. If you go to worldviewconversation .com, you can see.

Let's see here if I can pop it up here for you. You can see where I'm going to be.

Worldviewconversation .com. And on the top right hand corner is speaking and it'll come up with a little poster and there you go.

There you can see where I am going to be. Let's see if I can make this bigger for everyone out there.

So yeah, you have Thursday. This Thursday I'll be at DeForest Evangelical Free Church in DeForest, Wisconsin.

And then Saturday, Syracuse Baptist Church, Syracuse, Indiana. Sunday, Evansville Bible Church in Evansville, Indiana. Wednesday I'll be in Oklahoma and Thursday and then

Saturday and Sunday of November 6th and 7th, Grant, Nebraska. So we'd love to see you and you can still get the book, by the way.

You can click on the books tab and I'm really hoping this will help.

It already has, I think, helped a lot of people. If you do have the book and you do like the book, please rate it on Amazon.

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or you can just go to WorldViewConversation .com books and it's right there. And I appreciate the support. God bless.