Learn Philosophy Online, Challenge to Gratitude, The middle-class-white-teenager -who-thinks-he’s-black in Piper

a)

This is an awesome website for some good resources. Something I really appreciate is the 24-minute sessions on the history of western philosophy taken from a very informed, evangelical viewpoint (taught by RC Sproul). They haven’t offered the whole dvd collection for free, but there’s quite a few videos there. In the media player, click on video and go down to Augustine for the first one. Sproul speaks intelligently, accurately, and in an accessible manner.

b)

I’ve started reading Future Grace by Dr. John Piper online (unfortunately, only the first three chapters are available for free :(). Piper makes a huge claim. Anyone able to prove him wrong? Please let me know if you or someone else can. Here’s the claim:

‘How many places in the Bible can you think of where gratitude or thankfulness is explicitly made the motive of moral behavior?... If you ask Christians today, “What is the biblical motive for Christian obedience?” great numbers would say, “Gratitude to God.” And yet this way of thinking seems almost totally lacking in the Bible. The Bible rarely, if ever, explicitly makes gratitude the impulse of moral behavior, or ingratitude the explanation of immorality.’ – p33-34

‘You will read the Old Testament in vain for texts that make gratitude the explicit motive or power for obedience.’ – p34-35

Piper says, to paraphrase and simplify it a lot, that we should obey God because we trust His promises for our future. NOT because we are grateful for what He did in the past. Piper seems to say that gratitude is never given as a motivation for obedience. Is this true?

If you’re interested in what Piper says, you can read along with me.

c)

While I’m on the topic of Piper, here’s something I saw quite a while ago, and forgot to post.