Election is taking a group of people and choosing them out of another group for yourself,

and predestination is what you destined them for, why you choose them.

So the act of predestining was in God's mind, simultaneous with, and I think we're both

happening together. He chose us for himself unto something. And here it's adoption as sons.

So what does it mean to be chosen in Christ? In this episode of light and truth,

John Piper turns to Ephesians 1 verses 3 to 6 to show how God's election and predestination

lead to adoption as sons.

This teaching was originally delivered

on a Wednesday night at Bethlehem Baptist Church

on September 17th, 1997.

In these midweek sessions,

Piper pulls back the curtain on his sermon preparation

using a Bible study method called arcing to help his people see the

relationships between biblical propositions. You know why this is so important because a bunch of the

students in this room, especially those who go to seminary, well those are the ones I'm thinking about, they at the end of their seminary career, at Bethel anyway, it's a good assignment, have to write a paper called their integrating motif. After all their theological studies, three, four, five years of theological studies, they now write one paper, it's kind of a step towards ordination if you think about it that way,

that says what's the integrating motif of the Bible and your theology?

And virtually all the guys who've been around Bethlehem say the glory of God.

And there is some discussion I've noticed over the 17 years I've been watching this

as to whether that's approved or not by other students and some faculty.

Because other motifs like the love of God, the grace of God, the reconciliation of God,

and such ideas are presented as integrating motifs around which everything else is gathered or towards which

everything else is moving. And so I have checked myself a lot on whether or not these massively

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