New Warhorn Media post by Nathan Alberson:
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If somebody really really really wants to serve God in a really cool and exciting way, but they also want to get married, is it okay for them not to have kids? Pastor John Piper says yes, in certain cases. The gang on Sound of Sanity begs to differ. Plus another awkward chapter in the love-life of awkward recent-homeschool graduate Mary Elizabeth Murphy. Will Ollie join her in missions work?
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To affirm something Jake was arguing, Bethlehem Baptist has dealt pastorally with sexual sin in missionaries on at least one occasion. Listened to this sermon a few years ago:
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Really great episode.
This is a great example of the danger of podcasts and online ministries. Everyone wants to ask a John Piper, a Doug Wilson, a John MacArthur, an RC Sproul, or even a Tim Bayly for their blessing. Just give me a rule. Give me a blessing about what I can and canāt do. Nevermind the individual, pastoral context of in my own life. Just assume Iām in good working order and give me a yay or nay.
There is no replacement for pastoral care and the relationships involved in actual fellowship in the church. The local church, firing on all pistons, is the only institution that can properly address these kinds of questions for individuals. Internet ministries are only equipped to comment on the abstract. When they try to go beyond that, and venture to affirming specific individuals, people will inevitably suffer harm.
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Sketches were incredible on this one, too.
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I have a certain fondness for one of the performers.
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I always wonder who the additional performers are. They donāt get acknowledged at the end. I donāt have a problem with that, nor do I know if its intentional or an oversight. The performers always seem to do a good job.
I wonder what others think about couples who choose to adopt instead of having biological children. I agree with adoption. It is a form of fruitfulness. Iāve adopted myself. But the decision to forego biological children and only adopt seems unnatural and disordered. I guess it depends on the reasons to some degree.
Thoughts?
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Completely agree. It is caused by some really basic misunderstandings. Overpopulation. Desire to avoid pregnancy and its difficulties. Idea that we have to take care of every other suffering person in the world before we should bring more children into the world. Or, probably at best, just the same lack of faith to have ātoo manyā children that a lot of us today suffer from.
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Our cast does a really fantastic job and deserve a ton of credit. Weāve credited them in various places but never in the episodes themselves. We should do a yearly thank you or something. I guess its kind of fun not to do it in every episode, for some reasonā¦
Luckily they are all getting paid BIG BUCKS for their trouble.
I think the whole āadopt instead of conceiveā thing is pretty analogous to everything weāre talking about in the episode.
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Iām about halfway through this episode and it is really great, as are the comments above.
I hope you donāt mind a small criticism of style of the podcast. You guys talked over each other more than once and it was jarring. I think maybe all three of you were talking at once at one point. I thought it was a malfunction of my podcast player at first. We want to hear what you are saying, so please try not to do that too often!
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The trouble, though, is that pastors will not often have insight into the āotherā ministries their flock will be following, online or otherwise. Shepherds will find their sheep listening to them with one ear, but to other shepherds from their other ear, so to speak. On a good day, this means the sheep are taking responsibility for their own feeding and well-being. On a bad day ā¦
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The sketches I think are whatās really great about warhorn media. Sanityville is great content. We need good content and Iām glad someone is making it. I appreciate all the reviews you guys do, but I think even more I appreciate the media/sketches you produce.
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Aww thanks 
I think we all know lots of stories like that, which is one of the main reasons why we wanted to do the episode. Itās good to hear stories of repentance, too, so thank you for sharing yours. Praying that God is merciful to you as you course correct.
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This was a shockingly bad take by John Piper. Because the Great Commission is so daunting (just today the Beja and Bedawi people of Sudan came up on my prayer appā¦ 2.4 M peopleā¦ 0.00% evangelical) thereās a temptation to lower of the bar for the folks that are going out.
I wish weād had more kids and had them sooner. Even if it would have been hard.
Not sure why we think people can handle hard to reach peoples if they canāt handle being poor (relatively) and swamped with diapers.
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Itās such a bad take by Pastor Piper I wonder if he might take it back if somebody pushed him on it.
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When he starts off the article with the assumption that he does, itās hard to take anything else he says in the article seriously. The most charitable reading is he just had a really off day when he responded to that young woman.
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