Pastor John Piper Answers: Did Public Controversy Over 'The Nashville Statement' Hurt the Cause?

THIS IS A WORTHY QUESTION WITH A VERY IMPORTANT ANSWER.

Part of Piper's Audio Transcript follows:

We now get over 1,200 emails a month from listeners. Thank you — please keep them coming in. And of course we got a few emails relating to the Nashville Statement, which was a public document you signed, Pastor John, on human sexuality. But we actually only got ten emails about the statement in total, and most of those emails were sympathetic. By far, the most articulate pushback came from a listener named Amy in this email. “Hello, Pastor John, thank you for this podcast! I’m sure you’re aware of the criticisms surrounding the Nashville Statement, released back in August from outside the church but also from within the evangelical world, too. It created quite a stir. I know of faithful, orthodox, reformed church planters and pastors working in larger metropolitan contexts who find this statement unhelpful, even as the document contains affirmations and denials that are completely true, biblical, and agreeable to them. It seems to be a matter of two related questions: (1) Is hot-topic orthodoxy, announced and affirmed in the wide-open public realm, appropriate in a ‘casting pearls before swine’ kind of way? and (2) Is it helpful or harmful for outreach to draw public lines in the sand over ideology, which, at worst, is seen as politically motivated by the world, or is at least something that adds a new wall of separation between the Christians in a local church from the liberal, unbelieving neighbors they are trying to reach within a neighborhood, first through relationship building? I hope this makes sense. Do either questions concern you?”

Maybe just a response to each of her two questions. I hear two questions in the second, so maybe three things to respond to even though there is so much more that could be said. I’ll just mention that at the end maybe. She’s asked her two questions; I’ll try to be faithful to those two questions rather than talking about things that I would like to talk about as well. There are so many criticisms and so many things that need to be said.

Preach Pearls

Yes, the questions do concern me because all questions that relate to serious dissensions among brothers and sisters concern me. First, I don’t think Jesus’s statement in Matthew 7:6 — “Do not give dogs what is holy, and do not throw your pearls before pigs, lest they trample them underfoot and turn to attack you” — was intended by Jesus to limit the public preaching of the whole counsel of God. Think with me about that for just a minute.....

Read or listen to the whole answer.