The Tragedy of John Piper’s “Shell Collection” Illustration
A Changed Perspective 21 Years Later
Let’s talk about Reformed Theology. It is called “Reform” theology due to its origin story: The Reformation of the 16th century when the Church of England broke away from the Roman Catholic church. Historical church reformers include Martin Luther, John Calvin, and John Wycliffe. The “Theology” of reformers back in the 16th century had the following tenets: The centrality of the Bible, the sovereignty of God, and the total depravity of humanity. Reformed Theology preachers who came later were Charles Spurgeon, Jonathan Edwards, John Owen, and Martyn Lloyd-Jones, to name a few. Modern-day reformed preachers are men like Tim Keller, John MacArthur, Albert Mohler, Mark Dever, and the late J.I. Packer and R.C. Sproul.
I omitted one name from the modern reformed preacher's list: John Piper. It could be said that no other modern-day preacher has had a greater impact in bringing Reformed Theology into the mainstream evangelical landscape than Piper. If there was one moment in time that can be viewed as a catalyst that ushered Reformed Theology into mainstream evangelical Christianity, most would agree it would be on May 20th, 2000.
Passion Conference: One Day
Passion conferences began in 1995 for college students between the ages of 18–25. But in May 2000, in Memphis, Tennessee, John Piper would preach one of the very first sermons to ever go viral on the internet. To a crowd of over 40,000 students, Piper’s sermon was an exegetical message from the Bible text Galatians 6:14. The title of the sermon: Boast Only in the Cross.
Here is the structure of the sermon:
- Address the college-age students as their father figure.
2. Plead with the students not to waste their lives pursuing the American Dream.
3. Give an example of what it looks like to not waste your life.
4. Give an example of what it looks like to waste your life.
5. Unpack the Biblical text calling the students to live with one passion: The gospel.
Believe it or not, but sections 1–4 are all part of the introduction of the message! And boy, what an introduction it was. Not only was it heard by the 40,000 students sitting on the wet grassy field that day, but it would go on to be viewed by more than 95,000 on YouTube (posted in 2015, fifteen years after it occurred), and the audio-only format has been downloaded who knows how many millions of times worldwide!
Me & This Sermon
Like many others, this sermon was my first-time hearing John Piper preach when I was twenty years old. There’s something about the late teens/early twenties that tend to make for the perfect candidates for Piper’s “Risk is Right” messages. For me, I believe I had what the Bible calls “zeal without knowledge” or, as I’ve heard it put in other ways, “ignorance on fire.” My passion to live life fully was not seasoned with Biblical knowledge or life experience.
To be honest, I admit that nobody has had a greater impact on my view of the Bible and preaching than John Piper. From the age of 20 through 34, I listened to almost every sermon he preached and read every book he wrote. I even went so far as to create a Playlist of every panel discussion Piper participated in on my 5th generation Classic iPod. I’m not sure how many days I went without washing my hand after shaking Piper’s hand.
However, as I matured and grew in ministerial experience, I began seeing the things in Piper that I disagreed with. There’s not a single person I agree with 100% of the time. That’s a good thing. But it’s always college-age kids who have tons of passion who are the most malleable.
I remember being shaped by this sermon, too. Not just by the well-known introduction but the whole message. For whatever good I received from hearing this message, I’m grateful. I had just come out of the deep suicidal depression caused by pastoral abuse, and for a long season, John Piper was my pastor through cassette tapes and CDs.
Bob & Penny
That being said, something has grieved me over the past four years concerning the illustration of what it looks like to waste your life. But before I breakdown the illustration, let’s hear it first:
Transcript:
I’ll tell you what a tragedy is. I’ll read to you from Reader’s Digest what a tragedy is. “Bob and Penny . . . took early retirement from their jobs in the Northeast five years ago when he was 59 and she was 51. Now they live in Punta Gorda, Florida, where they cruise on their thirty-foot trawler, playing softball and collecting shells.”
That’s a tragedy. And people today are spending billions of dollars to persuade you to embrace that tragic dream. And I get forty minutes to plead with you: don’t buy it. With all my heart I plead with you: don’t buy that dream. The American Dream: a nice house, a nice car, a nice job, a nice family, a nice retirement, collecting shells as the last chapter before you stand before the Creator of the universe to give an account of what you did: “Here it is Lord — my shell collection! And I’ve got a nice swing and look at my boat!”
Don’t waste your life; don’t waste it.
To be clear, Piper makes a plea to not waste your life… as Bob and Penny did. He wants us to have more in life than Bob and Penny.
Let’s keep in mind that this article in Reader’s Digest detailing the retirement years of Bob and Penny is nonfiction.
This is an honest real-life account of two very real people named Bob and Penny. That’s very important to remember.
I always wondered, “Have Bob and Penny heard this sermon?” It’s certainly possible. Maybe one of the millions of people who did hear this sermon knew Bob and Penny and sent them this sermon. If they had listened to this sermon, what would they think about it? There’s much about Bob and Penny and their situation that is unknown to the world wide web but not to Bob and Penny. I wonder if their knowledge of their own lives contradicts Piper’s point. I wonder what they would have thought about the large crowd laughing at them as Piper acts out their pitiful boasting in the face of their Creator.
You Know What Happens When You Assume?
There are so many negative assumptions made here about Bob and Penny, who are real people. Hopefully (I don’t want to assume), you’ll see the assumptions from my following questions:
· What if Bob was told by his doctor that he must retire from his stressful job and learn to relax, otherwise, he will die soon of a stress-related heart attack?
· What if the stressful job that Bob retired from was well-paying because he had to risk his life every day to rescue others, meaning his life was dedicated to helping others?
· What if Bob or Penny suffers from trauma and retired to try to heal?
· What if the Punta Gorda retirement finally gave Bob and Penny the time needed for deep, undistracted study and mediation of the Bible and prayer, yet they did not want to divulge such a private matter to Reader’s Digest?
· What if Bob and Penny did divulge their spiritual regimen to Reader’s Digest, but RD’s chief editor requested the journalist to omit it from the story?
· What if, during their retirement, when they were not enjoying their thirty-foot trawler or collecting shells, they financially supported churches, church plants, and missions?
· What if Bob and Penny now have the free time to invest with their kids, babysit the grandchildren, and be a supportive ear to carry their burdens and be a shoulder to lean on, which they wouldn’t be able to do if they hadn’t retired early and died due to health complications brought on by their respective jobs?
· What if God was happy that Bob and Penny enjoyed his creation found in the ocean, the sand, and the seashells?
· What if God does not define Bob and Penny’s entire lives by how they lived their last chapter?
And as if the assumptions were not enough, this opening sermon illustration has become so well-known that the entire sermon itself is better known as the Seashell sermon. (Ironically, the sermon is known as the “Seashell” sermon among those in the Christian community who claim to love the Bible and biblical exposition. The part that everyone remembers is the part that Piper did not teach from the Bible. The introduction is what is heralded, not his exposition of Galatians 6:14. What do people want more: the words of a man or the words of God?)
As stated earlier, the point of this illustration is to prop up the real-life retirement story of Bob and Penny as an example of wasting your life. Don’t be like Bob and Penny, who, according to Piper, exchanged their lives for a couple of decades of enjoying the American Dream as they wasted away to meet their Creator. Poor Bob and Penny. Such a TRAGEDY (I feel like the word “Tragedy” needs to be constantly repeated in a whisper).
The Real-Life Tragedy
I’ll tell you what I think the real tragedy is in all of this. Piper took this married couple’s story from Reader’s Digest and used it as a prop to illustrate what vanity looks like.
Back to Reform Theology and today’s over-emphasis on the total depravity of man. You see if Bob and Penny (or any person, by extension) are not thinking, doing, feeling, and speaking things that are not overtly Christian, then it’s considered a tragedy, especially if you’re at the end of your life. Why is that? Well — other than Piper’s way to set up the point of his message by creating a problem that needs to be solved for these impressionable college students — here’s why: It’s viewed as a tragedy because if the doctrine of Total Depravity is taken too far, then everything about people will be viewed through the lens of sin and as sin. Even the good things people accomplish will be considered unworthy and in need of repentance. This is an over-emphasis. Notice: I do not think that this is an inaccurate doctrine but an over-emphasis of the doctrine of Total Depravity.
The problem with modern-day reformed preachers is in the house of life, the size of Total Depravity gets bigger and bigger and expands to the point where other truths (like Imago Dei) are pushed out and leave no room for beautiful Biblical truths like in Ezekiel 33:11 that God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked.
Oh, how I lament that in today’s Reformed Theology, too many preachers don’t preach the truth of the Imago Dei — which is that God created every human being in his image. This means every person has dignity and value; every person bears the image of God; every person has great value and is worthy of respect and equity no matter who they are or what they believe or how much money they have, or what neighborhood they live in or what they have/have not done — EVERY HUMAN HAS WORTH! Both women and men are made in the image of God and have intrinsic worth and dignity as humans; People of every race & ethnicity are made in the image of God and have intrinsic worth and dignity as humans; The vaccinated and unvaccinated both are made in the image of God and have intrinsic worth and dignity as humans; Atheists are made in the image of God and have intrinsic worth and dignity as humans; Democrats and Republicans are made in the image of God and have intrinsic worth and dignity as humans; the LGBTQ+ community are made in the image of God and have intrinsic worth and dignity as humans; Members of Taliban and extreme Islamic groups are made in the image of God and have intrinsic worth and dignity as humans. Every human has intrinsic worth and dignity because every human was made by God and bears his image, AND THE GOSPEL IS FOR EVERYONE!
Even Bob and Penny.
The real tragedy of Piper’s Seashell collection illustration is that the gospel doesn’t save a Bob and Penny, but rather it mocks and judges them. Which is no gospel at all. That’s a tragedy. That’s a tragedy.
I’m sorry, Bob and Penny, that I laughed at you and that I only thought of your day standing before God as a mere punchline to a joke about your wasted life. That’s despicable of me.
There are ways to drive home a point that doesn’t include making fun of people. Sermon illustrations can be very helpful, but if they judge and mock others to highlight the gospel, then it’s a self-contradictory illustration. In this case, the illustration teaches the listener how to think about others who retire and creates an elevated environment of superiority to look down on and judge others.
Every person has worth. The gospel is for every person. Including Bob and Penny, John Piper, me, and you.
August 28th, 2023 — Addition Two Years Later
Someone recently sent me Bob’s obituary. It answered a couple of my hypotheticals:
- Indeed, Bob did spend his life serving others in the U.S. Air Force.
- Bob did, in fact, have a medical illness which, after a long bout, took his life. It would appear it was cancer.
The essential detail about my article’s criticism of Piper’s homiletics is this: Bob and Penny are real people whom Piper doesn’t know much about other than what Reader’s Digest told him. My critique is not against Piper as a person or pastor. My critique is not his exegetical work of Galatians 6:14. It’s using a real couple as your prop, and it’s the laughter of the crowd as Piper props real people up as having wasted the end of their lives with so much ambiguity. We need to be more careful with how we choose to illustrate points. I’d want to show compassion on Bob & Penny by filling in the blanks about their lives with assuming the best. And I’d want my hearers to understand that not loving Christ more than earthly pleasures is the threat here, not the way we choose to spend our golden years (which may or may not be sinful).
May all the Bobs & Pennys be able to listen to a sermon and be drawn into the Biblical text to behold the beauty of Christ through grace, love, and truth. God’s kindness leads to repentance (Romans 2:4), not mocking or shaming. Amen.
AUGUST 24, 1932 — MAY 30, 2013
