Some people may assume that John Piper was born a Calvinist.

In fact, no, he wasn't.

His embrace of reforms of tearyology came at the expense of some very painful life experiences,

some of which he shared in a 2002 sermon.

There's Pastor John explaining one of those key moments from his life in seminary when

we came face to face with Philippians 212 and the ninth chapter of Romans.

Here he is to explain.

There are two experiences in my life that make Romans 9 one of the most important, if

not the most important chapter in the Bible in shaping the way I think about everything

and in determining where I have been led by God to minister, namely at Bethlehem.

The reason I open in this autobiographical way is not because it really matters what

happened to me.

It really is neither here nor there what I think about anything or what I experienced about

anything.

I tell it autobiographically because the doctrines of Romans 9 are about life.

They're about choices that you will make behind which you will never turn again.

You come to certain points in your life in crisis and you know that if you cross the line

you'll never go back again and you need to know that that's what we're dealing with

in Romans 9.

It's not just about controversy, it's not just about intellectual thought, it's not

just about doctrine, it's about what will happen to your life because of a vision of God

and a vision of salvation that's in this chapter.

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