John Piper is celebrating some birthdays

Dr. John Piper has written an article celebrating the birthday of the Evangelical Theological Society (ETS) and his young church Bethlehem Baptist. And yes, I can call his church young because mine was founded 3 years before his was!

Dr. Piper writes:

On June 22, Bethlehem Baptist Church turns 137, and the Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society turns 50. This is a cause for thanksgiving and an occasion for Bethlehem as a church to renew with joy our vision for faithful ministry under the authority of God’s inerrant word.

One reason we should be thankful that God has preserved and grown the Evangelical Theological Society (to over 4,000 members) is that its defining doctrinal commitment is the inerrancy of Scripture: “The Bible alone, and the Bible in its entirety, is the Word of God written and is therefore inerrant in the autographs.”

And later in that same article he writes:

A fourth reason for thanksgiving is that for 137 years Bethlehem Baptist Church has been built on the foundation of Jesus Christ revealed infallibly through the inerrant Scriptures. Today the Elder Affirmation of Faith has four paragraphs on the Scriptures. The first two are:

1.1 We believe that the Bible, consisting of the sixty-six books of the Old and New Testaments, is the infallible Word of God, verbally inspired by God, and without error in the original manuscripts.

1.2 We believe that God’s intentions, revealed in the Bible, are the supreme and final authority in testing all claims about what is true and what is right. In matters not addressed by the Bible, what is true and right is assessed by criteria consistent with the teachings of Scripture.

Give thanks with me, as Bethlehem turns 137 years old on June 22, that God has preserved among us the conviction of Jesus: “Scripture cannot be broken” ( John 10:35 ).

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