“I didn’t resent him for it, to be clear. I wasn’t mad at him,” said Piper. “But I got frustrated at the expectations and the pressure that came with it because I had experienced that to a smaller scale within the church.”
“If you’re the pastor’s kid, there’s an expectation on you often to kind of measure up in certain ways, theologically, behavior, etc.,” he said. “All of a sudden, that was now just out in the general world. And of course, it didn’t help that I kind of stepped into the world where he was influential.”
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“I stayed very adjacent to his influence,” said Piper, explaining that he went to the same college that his parents did and worked for a Christian publisher who published some of his dad’s books. While those were good experiences, they contributed to him staying in his father’s orbit.
“I did get frustrated at the pressures, at the expectations,” Piper said. “And it took me well into, I’d say late 20s, early 30s—there was a few-year window there where there was just a lot of maturing, processing, a lot of spiritual growth that needed to happen.” During that time, he “came into my own in terms of resting in my relationship with Christ.”
“If you learn to measure yourself by, I’m in Christ, those outside pressures diminish significantly,” said Piper. “And so that process was going on and that then freed me up to grow in appreciation for [my dad’s] ministry.”
“And so it has been a transition from frustration and almost bitterness at points to appreciation and gratitude,” Piper said, “and also a lot of that is just the maturity of learning how to navigate situations when there are outside pressures or expectations. That stuff still comes up.”
For example, someone recently commented to Piper on Instagram, “Why is your dad so great when you’re so terrible?”
“That stuff is not common-common, but it’s periodical,” said Piper. “Fifteen years ago, I think it probably would have ruined my mood for somewhere between six and 72 hours.” Now, he recognizes that people who make such comments are not in a healthy place, and he does not engage with them.
How Barnabas Piper Learned From John Piper’s Life and Ministry
Barnabas Piper credited his father’s example as a pastor for helping to prepare him for ministry. One example is Piper learned from the “level of rigor” his father put into preaching. Beyond that, “there’s just been very little about ministry that has completely caught me off guard because of him.”
Piper asked his dad’s advice when he was considering accepting the call to ministry. “There’s just a wealth of everything, from encouragement—which he’s very encouraging—to insights, to just observing his practices,” Piper said.
