The following message is by pastor John Piper.

More information from desiring God is available at

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D. desiring God.

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Let me pray one more time just to ask the Lord's help for this particular task.

Father in heaven I seek your face now and we do together we want to be taught by the Holy Spirit.

Father I pray that our mouths and our written words would become a greater honor to Christ and a greater evidence of our own

humility because of what we do here. And I pray that the effect of Christ being magnified in the way we talk and the way we write,

this truth of the gospel that we've been singing about would run and triumph more deeply,

more broadly, in the world. So help me, Father, to get out of the way and grant that I would become the instrument of your truth and your teaching.

Protect us, Lord, from the deceiver.

He's a liar and a murderer from the beginning,

and he would distract and ruin this moment in any way he could, but the one who is in us is stronger than the

one who is in the world and therefore we are confident that your great and good purposes will be established now.

I pray this in Jesus' name, amen.

The title for this talk is, is There Christian Eloquence?

Let me begin by showing you why this question is so urgent, for me in particular and perhaps for you

as well. And in the process of answering why it's so urgent, I think what the question means and what eloquence means as I'm using it will become clear. The question is urgent, is there

Christian eloquence? The question is urgent because of what Paul says under the inspiration of the spirit in 1st

Corinthians 117. In fact I would invite you to go there because while it'll take me a

good bit of time to get there, we are going to get there

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