The following message is by pastor John Piper. More information from desiring God is available at

W.W.

D. D. desiring God. O.R.G. Father, you have given us a mission statement.

We exist to spread a passion for the supremacy of God in all things, for the

joy of all peoples through Jesus Christ.

So I pray that you would come and you would turn that vision

into the reality of Bethlehem College and Seminary. Help me now to have the right spirit about me and grant that these words that you have given me

would be understandable and that they would honor Christ and that they would launch us into a

trajectory that would be faithful for years to come.

We ask this in Jesus name, Amen.

The title for my talk is The Earth is The Lords, the supremacy of Christ in Christian learning, biblical

foundations for Bethlehem College and Seminary. First a few comments about the spirit with which this vision of Bethlehem

College and Seminary proceeds and from which it flows. There is no sense of triumphalism. There is no sense of

having the last word in education. There's no sense of having easy answers to challenges of our own time.

There's no sense that we own the ideal philosophy of college and seminary training.

Instead, as Tim said, there's a trembling sense that pride and poverty and many other things make this a very dangerous

undertaking and I want to say a word about each of those two, pride and poverty.

One of the most fertile fields of pride is academic higher education. I spent 16 years of my life in it and I

have tasted it deeply. I read this morning in Ezekiel 16 as some of you did that

God took Israel in her misery and he made her beautiful did he not and then that

dreadful verse 15 came but you trusted in your beauty and played the whore because of your renown.

And I thought to myself, God has taken Bethlehem and blessed her.

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