Given Sanctity of Life Sunday this weekend, Crossway kindly gave me permission to post online a PDF of my chapter, “Abortion Is About God: Piper’s Passionate, Prophetic Pro-Life Preaching” (in For the Fame of God’s Name: Essays in Honor of John Piper, ed. Sam Storms and Justin Taylor [Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2010], 328-350).
Here are the opening paragraphs:
Evangelicalism—in the Reformed camp or elsewhere—is not exactly overflowing with models of how to preach exegetically faithful, powerfully prophetic, culture-engaging, hope-giving, gospel-centered sermons on the politically charged and personally painful topic of abortion. But for the past twenty years John Piper has been doing just that. In this chapter I want to survey Piper’s sermons and writings on abortion as an encouragement and a model for preachers—and all believers—to honor God and defend the defenseless by proclaiming God’s Word and engaging the world on the issue of abortion.
In order to let Piper speak as much as possible, I’ll quote and paraphrase him extensively in what follows. I begin with a bit of biographical overview, sketching Piper’s development as a pro-life pastor. I’ll then attempt to summarize the main exegetical arguments in his pro-life sermons, since expositional preaching on abortion is a challenge. Finally, I will suggest some application lessons that pastors can learn from Piper’s pro-life preaching.
You can read or listen to all of these original sermons here.
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