I just started John Piper’s response to N.T. Wright, The Future of Justification. It seems to be a very courteous and carefully written challenge of Wright’s presentation of justification.  Piper is careful to note that he is past the stage in life where he needs to score points in academic debates, yet he is writing a critique of Wright’s work.  Why?  Because, he says, people don’t bring him books written by other New Perspective scholars like Dunn or Sanders, but they do bring him the popular works of Wright.  Here is the scholar Piper writing as the pastor Piper in order to seek to protect others from an emphasis or understanding that is perceived to be harmful.

I haven’t read the book yet, so I won’t comment on the issues being addressed (although I could from my own study).  But one quote on pages 28-29 really caught my attention and resonated deeply.  It comes early on in an introductory section entitled On Controversy.  It addresses the issue of whether we should contend at all, or whether it is better to simply be positive, without pointing out error in others. It comes from a 1932 speech by J. Gresham Machen delivered in London:

Men tell us that our reaching should be positive and not negative, that we can preach the truth without attacking error.  But if we follow that advice we shall have to close our Bible and desert its teachings.  The New Testament is a polemic book almost from beginning to end.

He goes on to tell of a time when he heard a theology prof urge his listeners away from the unfortunate controversies in Paul’s writings and give their attention to the inspiring hymn to Christian love found in 1st Corinthians 13.  Machen continues:

In reply, I am bound to say that the example was singularly ill-chosen.  That hymn to Christian love is in the midst of a great polemic passage; it would never have been written if Paul had been opposed to controversy with error in the Church.  It was because his soul was stirred within him by a wrong use of the spiritual gifts that he was able to write that glorious hymn.  So it is always in the Church.  Every really great Christian utterance, it may almost be said, is born in controversy.  It is when men have felt compelled to take a stand against error that they have risen to the really great heights in the celebration of truth.