Ask Pastor John
John Piper answers tough theological and pastoral questions in this podcast from Desiring God.
Episodes
Do Good People Get Hurt?
Does the Bible promise that believers will not be harmed for doing good? Pastor John explains the context of 1 Peter 3:13 and God’s sovereign wisdom in suffering.
The Marriage Miracle That Takes Time
Loving our spouses for better or worse includes loving them through their spiritual apathy. Pastor John gives ten encouragements for the weary.
When You’re Not Sorry
When someone confronts you wrongly, should you apologize? Pastor John encourages humility and reconciliation without giving in to emotional manipulation.
The Gospel Before Jesus Died
Did Jesus preach the gospel before his death and resurrection? Pastor John calls us to a deeper understanding of God as Creator and King, and Jesus as Lord and Savior.
The Perils of a Quick Fix
How can we witness to those who just want a quick fix? Pastor John presses home the shocking reality of eternity and the astounding love of Jesus.
When I’m Too Weak to Be Productive
Can a disabled mother model the Proverbs 31 woman? Pastor John describes the gift of a heart that hopes in God’s steadfast love.
Six Traits of a Forgettable Sermon
Rigorous exposition isn’t at odds with engaging preaching. Pastor John encourages pastors to work for creativity when technical, abstract sermons feel easier.
Do We Need to Go to Church Every Week?
Gathering with other Christians is a crucial way to encourage and be encouraged in Christ. But do we really need to gather every week?
The Joy That Sustained Jesus
Jesus endured unspeakable agony at the cross. Pastor John marvels at the force of his love sustained by expectant joy.
The Barrier to Doctrinal Maturity
Is the Bible accessible only to readers with a high IQ? Pastor John reframes biblical maturity as a moral issue centered on our obedience, not our intellect.
Daily Vigilance for Lifelong Productivity
Daily productivity requires often elusive focus and grit. Pastor John offers ten charges to live each day to the glory of God.
Why Did Jesus Call Her a Dog?
Did Jesus demean the Canaanite woman he called a dog? Pastor John explains how Jesus’s test revealed her great faith — and her adoption as one of God’s own.
When Walking Away Feels Good
Why should we follow Jesus when life seems easier without him? Pastor John responds to a man questioning the cost of daily obedience.
How a Crushed Faith Comes Home
Deep suffering can drive us away from true hope and comfort. But our Father waits to gather us back to himself.
When Nice People Face God
Does eternal punishment in hell bring God glory? Pastor John challenges the rejection of God’s judgment by pointing to his unmerited mercies and perfect righteousness.
Can My Silence Cost Souls?
Why does evangelism matter when God has chosen whom he will save? Pastor John unpacks and rejoices in our role as God’s instruments.
The Pleasure Trap
How can Christians avoid placing a relationship or hobby over a desire for God? Pastor John calls us to let earthly delights turn us Godward.
Selfies in the End Times
Are selfies a sign of the end times? Pastor John looks beyond smartphones and social media to our society’s desire for deep satisfaction.
Your Regrets Cannot Ruin You
Can past sins separate us from the love of God? Pastor John offers hope in God’s promised forgiveness for believers wrestling with crippling shame.
Why a Crowd Got Resurrected
At Jesus’s last breath, a crowd of saints rose from their tombs in Jerusalem. Pastor John offers six reasons Matthew’s Gospel includes this event.
Does God Owe You?
What’s the relationship between our good deeds and God’s reward? When he empowers us to obey him, he loves to celebrate the beauty of his grace.
Doomscrolling Done Right
How does God intend for us to deal with tragedy in the news? Pastor John offers six reasons why suffering should drive us to repentance and action.
When Your Boss Expects You to Lie
How do we respond when an employer expects us to compromise the truth? Pastor John offers counsel for keeping an uncompromised faith in the workplace.
Surviving Financial Panics
How can we fight anxiety through financial panic and stress? Pastor John offers five truths about God’s character to calm our hearts and minds.
If Jesus Returns Tonight
How would we use our time if Christ were coming back tonight? Pastor John gives ten transforming ways to live while waiting for the second coming.
Why Good Men Fail God
King Asa worshiped God almost all his days, but he drifted in his old age. So, how should we respond when sin corrupts good men?
Should You Marry Her Anyway?
Does past sexual sin ruin a future marriage? Pastor John counsels a confused young man to trust God’s redeeming love for repentant sexual sinners.
God’s Plan for Your Prayers
If God is sovereign, why should we pray? Pastor John encourages us to seek God with confidence in his power and plan for our lives.
When Your Pastor Feels Distant
How can the pastor of a growing church care for each member? Pastor John encourages shepherds to care tenderly for the flock and depend on God’s mercy.
Breaking Prayer Ruts
How can we shift our prayers from rote repetition to an awareness of God’s larger purposes? Pastor John models praying Scripture back to God.
Obedience Will Never Ruin Your Life
How can Christians act in obedience when they face a life-changing cost? Grace can sustain us through the painful consequences of following God.
Why God’s Protection Still Hurts
How can we reconcile the pain we feel in this fallen world with God’s promise to keep us from all evil? Pastor John applies Psalm 121 to this life.
Sovereignty and My Murdered Friend
Even great evil serves God’s eternal purposes — yet God also gives us precious promises to comfort us in the midst of our pain and grief.
How to Save a Marriage
To redeem relationships, we need humility — but how do we get that kind of sacrificial heart? Looking to Christ and his cross strips away entitlement.
Zeal For God Gone Wrong
How can Christians tell the difference between true and false zeal for God’s name? Pastor John examines Jehu’s tragic history in 2 Kings.
Preaching Outrage
Should pastors expose every fresh cultural outrage from the pulpit? Pastor John encourages pastors to condemn sin without being consumed.
Defeating Daily Anxiety
When we face day-to-day pressure and stress, Jesus’s teaching steadies our hearts and minds. Pastor John offers eight truths to fight anxiety.
The God Who Gives You Worth
Is God’s pursuit of his glory and man’s pursuit of our joy a selfish transaction? Pastor John insists on keeping our joy in God connected to God himself.
Kill Your Ego, Find Your Joy
Every recognition and reward we receive is a gift of God’s steadfast love, poured out so that we might magnify the glory of his undeserved grace.
The Secret Superpower of Silence
How does Jesus’s silence before his accusers teach us how to suffer? Pastor John offers encouragement for Christians facing unjust treatment.
The Freedom That Kills Regret
True freedom means our desires align with God’s; we want what he wants. Pastor John answers three questions from Galatians about Christian liberty.
The God Over Dice
What do we mean when we say God is sovereign? Pastor John traces God’s sovereignty throughout the Bible and draws out two big, soul-steadying truths.
Don’t Wait for the Pain to Stop
We don’t need to wait for painful seasons to end before we feel joy again. By God’s grace, we can hold sorrow and joy in the very same heart.
Why Your Mind Cannot Die
If consciousness is part of the soul, what are the implications when the brain degrades and dies? Pastor John speaks to consciousness in both life and death.
When Obedience Is Evil
How should Christians respond when an authority asks them to sin? Pastor John encourages believers to respect earthly institutions without compromising God’s word.
Delighting in a Holy God
God’s children are set apart as saints, given the privilege of sharing in Christ’s moral beauty. Pastor John explains how God’s holiness draws us to him.
Suffering for Joy
Christianity isn’t a fix for all suffering in this life — but it does offer unshakable joy in trials and immediate relief from the deepest of pains.
Ten Seconds After You Die
Do the souls of believers “sleep” in the grave after death, or do they go to be with the Lord? Pastor John explains the logic of the resurrection.
Don’t Let Her Die Before You Say This
How can we show Christ’s love to a dying, unbelieving loved one? Pastor John shares ten ways believers can embody God’s love.
Fur Babies and Pet Stewardship
How should Christians steward pets? Pastor John offers guidance for enjoying animals without treating their companionship like human companionship.
Wasted Talents
Without Christ-exalting love, spiritual gifts serve as self-promotion — even when they produce powerful results.
Where AI Fails
How important are emotions in the Christian life? Pastor John looks to AI and suffering to clarify the essence of what makes us unique as human beings.
Long Sorrows Set the Stage
In Scripture, long periods of suffering and pain serve as a backdrop for God’s great kindness. Pastor John offers three reasons for long sorrows.
The Bondage of Singleness
What does true freedom look like in the Christian life? Pastor John describes the apostle Paul’s burden for both single and married believers.
Sex Is Worship
If sex outside of marriage doesn’t hurt anyone, why does Scripture call it sin? Pastor John unfolds the spiritual significance of sex from 1 Corinthians 6.
The Wrong Kind of Cross-Centered
Should every sermon make a beeline to the cross? Pastor John traces the pattern of the New Testament from the death of Christ to the holiness of Christians.
Will You Be Happy in a Million Years?
Eternity with God can sound too good to be true — even impossible. Will heaven really never end? And if not, will we still be happy after a million years?
Made Lonely by Holiness
How should we respond when friends embrace worldly entertainment? Pastor John offers encouragement for when personal convictions lead to loneliness.
Dying to Live
How do we present ourselves to God “as a living sacrifice”? Pastor John applies Romans 12:1–2 to believers’ daily lives.
Stop Waiting for a Sign
Should all believers assume they are called to missions? Pastor John provides seven factors to direct a desire for ministry at home or abroad.
Your Only Roadblock to Heaven
God’s sovereign grace is strong enough to overcome all human sin and rebellion — changing belief in Jesus from “will not” to “want to.”
Everything Happens for a Reason
Does the Bible teach that everything happens for a reason? Pastor John offers grounding from Romans 8 for God’s purpose in our suffering.
Your Main Calling in the End Times
When Christians encounter signs of the end times, how should we respond? Pastor John outlines a biblical approach to waiting well for Jesus’s return.
Five Escapes from Dry Devotions
How can believers push past surface-level Bible reading to the reality behind the words? Pastor John offers five practices to enliven dry devotions.
Why Smart People Reject God
Why do people reject God when creation proclaims his presence? Pastor John explains how truth becomes suppressed, both internally and externally.
Hope for Screwups
How can those who have wandered far from God come back home to him? Pastor John offers hope in the face of deep failure.
Marks of a Godly Boss
How do Jesus’s teaching and example shape our leadership? Pastor John examines the traits of a godly leader in the home, church, or workplace.
Waiting Is the Hardest Part
What is God doing while we wait in a painful place? Pastor John shows how God uses waiting to produce a new security, a new song, and a new significance.
The Gospel of Gorgeous
How can we find peace when struggling to see the goodness of our individual design? Pastor John illustrates God’s love and wisdom in his creation.
Regretting the Day I Was Born
When does faithful lament become sinful complaint? Pastor John offers five statements on lament to help us cry out to God in great pain.
Aging with Joy
How do we cling to Christ when faced with the unknowns of aging? Pastor John encourages older Christians in the battle against bitterness and fear.
The Hardest Heart God Can Save
By nature, we are selfish and God-ignoring and God-belittling. But no matter how hard a heart may be, the sovereign God can still save.
Life Guidance for Sinners
Indwelling sin still pervades those who are in Christ. But God’s mercy is more than enough to meet, match, and master any guilt we bring to him.
Learning to Delegate
How might pastors approach the many administrative needs of a congregation? Pastor John draws four helpful guidelines from Jethro’s counsel to Moses.
Is Sex as Dangerous as Christians Make It Seem?
Why do Christians make such a big deal about sex? Pastor John shows what godly sexuality says about the God who made us and the Christ who redeemed us.
Why Is Christianity the Best Religion?
Why is Christianity the best religion? Pastor John offers four reasons, including the hope of the gospel and the uniqueness of the God-man.
Why Mental Clarity Arrives at Night
How does God’s word guide our heart’s instruction in the night? Pastor John explains the ways God uses nighttime counsel to teach and lead us.
Three Metrics for Your Fitness
When does stewardship of the body cross over into self-glorification? Pastor John helps us test our motivations with three questions.
Are Raised Hands in Worship Just Showing Off?
When we lift our hands in worship, are we displaying public faithfulness or public performance? Pastor John gives three ways to test our hearts.
Piper, Did You Miss Something?
How do we rejoice in God without neglecting to rejoice in our salvation? Pastor John clarifies how to rightly rejoice in God and his good gifts.
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