A La Carte (02/16)

  • Tim Challies
  • 02/16/06
  • 1

Thursday February 16, 2006

Giveaway: Carla has once again decided to crack open the Scripscenes vaults and do a Spring giveaway. “Winner’s choice of gift from any 1 product of any department in our store!”

Du Jour: John Piper, on the eve of his cancer surgery, wrote a short article entitled, Don’t Waste Your Cancer. He affirms his belief in God’s power to heal and then says, “But healing is not God's plan for everyone. And there are many other ways to waste your cancer. I am praying for myself and for you that we will not waste this pain.”

Theology: Jollyblogger writes about the Evangelical Climate Initiative. “One thing seems clear - this is definitely a bandwagon that evangelicals can jump on and earn a good deal of “street cred” from the world around us. ”

Congratulations: Congratulations go to Josh and Shannon Harris for the arrival of their daughter. “We have named her Mary Katherine. Mary after the mother of Jesus who we fell in love with again during our study of Luke. And Katherine after Katherine Von Bora, the wife of Martin Luther. I’m studying Luther this year and Shannon read a biography about Katherine. We plan to call her Mary-Kate. Not Mary, mind you, but Mary-Kate.”

Comments (1)

1
Anonymous's picture
a comment from Rick • 02/16 @ 11:10am
› visit my web site.

I really, really appreciated Piper’s comments regarding not wasting cancer. They are very helpful for those suffering from this and for those pastoring people that are suffering.

My caution in this is that those on both sides of the “what is God’s will regarding healing” question should be careful to not read more into his statement than is there. I’m reacting to your highlighting of his “But healing is not God’s plan for everyone”. As I read this, I do so thinking that God is much more complex than that simple sentence can describe. The phrase “God’s plan is X - PERIOD” is a risky one. For example, we could use the words, “God will is for all to be saved” and be both completely right and completely wrong depending on how we define several of the words in that sentence. I don’t want to play games with words. I just want to be careful not to make a wrong conclusion.

I haven’t dug through Pipers extensive archives to learn his complete thinking on the point of God’s will regarding healing. Perhaps you have and if so, please share what you have learned. I just wanted to caution not to highlight that statement and miss the really great stuff in the body of his message.

Piper is one of the greatest communicators of our faith. I’m glad he is recovering and I’m glad he has written so much for our benefit.

Thank you for taking the time to share this.