Motive-Sobering

The Internet world we live in today is awash in narcissism and vanity, with some people taking their clothes off literally, because exposure gives them a rush, and others doing it spiritually--because the addicting power of talking about yourself, where anyone in the world can read it, is overpowering.

I put Philippians 2:3 before me regularly with its piercing word kenodoxian (vainglory): 'Do nothing from rivalry or vainglory [kenodoxian], but in humility count others more significant than yourselves' (Phil. 2:3 AT). The love of human praise--human glory--is universal and deadly.

--John Piper, 'The Pastor as Scholar,' in The Pastor as Scholar and the Scholar as Pastor: Reflections on Life and Ministry by John Piper and D. A. Carson (ed. Owen Strachan and David Mathis; Crossway, 2011), 24 (HT: JT)

A blog is no place for spiritual stripping.