Scoring Points; Wining the Debate; One-Upmanship; And the Like

November 13, 2007

We would like to echo, from the introduction to John Piper’s book, The Future of Justification these words:

The Final Judgment feels too close for me to care much about scoring points in debate. Into my seventh decade, the clouds of time are clearing, and the prospect of wasting my remaining life on gamesmanship or one-upmanship is increasingly unthinkable. The ego-need to be right has lost its dominion, and the quiet desire to be a faithful steward of the grace of truth increases. N. T. Wright is about three years younger than I am, and I assume he feels the same.

The risen Lord Jesus sees through all our clever turns of phrase—I am preaching to myself. He knows perfectly when we have chosen words to win, but not to clarify. He has planted a banner on the pulpit of every preacher and on the desk of every scholar: “No man can give the impression that he himself is clever and that Christ is mighty to save.”1 We will give an account to the all-knowing, all-ruling Lord of the universe in a very few years—or days. And when we do, what will matter is that we have not peddled God’s word but “as men of sincerity, as commissioned by God, in the sight of God we speak in Christ” (2 Cor. 2:17).

So again, we too want to move beyond trying to win the argument for just argement sake. We would rather be faithful stewards of the grace of truth found in Christ through the Word of God. As stewards, we will defend the truth, but we will do it out of love for God and the people we touch.

Shane Trammel

Posted in John Piper, Justification