John Piper

He married fellow-Wheaton, Noel Henry in 1968 and has four sons, a daughter and twelve grand-children.

In his spare time, Piper likes to indulge in reading literature and also spends his time penning poems for family occasions or celebrations.

He was diagnosed with prostate cancer on January 11, 2006 for which he underwent a surgery on February 14, 2006.

John Piper was born to Bill and Ruth Piper, in Chattanooga, Tennessee. He was mostly raised by his mother as his father used to travel as an evangelist and a church planter. The family moved to Greenville, South Carolina, where he studied and graduated from Wade Hampton High School.

He attended Wheaton College from 1964 to 1968 and majored in literature and philosophy and also studied Romantic Literature.

While at college, he enrolled for the Pre-med program, but eventually earned a Bachelor of Divinity degree at Fuller Theological Seminar, in California. He then enrolled in the University of Munich, Germany, where he completed his doctorate in New Testament Studies.

Upon the completion of his doctorate degree, he began teaching Biblical Studies at Bethel University and Seminary from 1974 to 1980.

In 1980, he became the Pastor of Baptist Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota and authored ‘Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist’ in 1986. He broadened his theological horizons and began publishing a number of other books centered on ‘Christian Hedonism’.

In 1994, he founded ‘Desiring God Ministries’, which provided all of the discourses, the sermons and the information that Piper presented on theology, in the form of CD’s, DVD’s and even over the internet.

In August 2009, Piper believed that a small tornado that occurred during a conference was in fact, a sign from God. He wrote a blog post on the same and linked the tornado with a controversial blog on homosexuality. Although he was condemned for his post, it was later welcomed by readers as a ‘bold’ post.

He took a break from the ministry from May 1, 2010 to January 9, 2011. During this time, he focused on authoring a number of books and also travelled around the world.

On May 20, 2012, Jason Meyer was voted in to succeed John Piper as the pastor. Before retiring permanently, he preached his final homily as the pastor of Bethlehem Baptist on March 31, 2013. It was during this speech he announced that he and his family would be moving away from the church for a year so that the new pastor could work free of distractions.

He founded ‘Desiring God Ministries’ in 1994, which provides all of his sermons, books and articles online and offline on sale or for free. His sermons are also available in DVD’s and CD’s for fellow ‘Christian Hedonists’. This is considered one of his major works because he believes that the ministry is the ‘central labor of his life’. Through this establishment, he has managed to touch the lives of over 2 billion people around the world.

He has authored a number of books during his lifetime, but one particular publication, ‘Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist’, which was published in 1986, went on to become a best-seller and was the recipient of the ECPA Christian Book Award.

‘The Passion of Jesus Christ’, published in 2004, was not only the winner of the ECPA Christian Book Award but was also considered his magnum opus and it explicated on the magnificent truths of the gospel backed with theological evidence; something which was uncommon at the time.