Straying from your Script

One of the best ways you can spend $16 is on John Piper’s biographical series Men of Whom The World Was Not Worthy. This mp3 CD includes 16 messages on various important figures in Christian history (three books have also been produced from this series: here, here, and here). The books are good, but Piper’s delivery makes the audio messages superior, in my opinion. And he also sometimes says unscripted things that aren’t in the manuscript. Like the following which I heard this morning in his message on J. Gresham Machen. My current interest in starting a PhD program is relevant, though I like this quote not because it tells me something new, but because it echoes what I have observed. But, of course, I’m not qualified to say it.

“Incidentally, in regard to this morning’s comment, [Machen] never got any advanced degree beyond Princeton. Neither did, by the way, F. F. Bruce, beyond his Masters [degree], and numerous others. There is no necessary correlation between insight and degrees. Most of the worst teachers in the world have Ph.D.s. There is no correlation between pedagogical ability and advanced training. They are in two totally separate worlds. And the same is true with passion. The same is true with orthodoxy. The only thing a Ph.D. does is certify you in the guild. That’s all it guarantees. And that isn’t much.”

John Piper, J. Gresham Machen’s Response to Modernism (but this statement is on the tape and not in the manuscript)

A doctorate will take years of my life and thousands of dollars. Am I really sure?

In any case, buy that CD and listen to it.